There have been many important ‘D’iscoveries in 2014
Here we highlight some messages from 2014 from the Motor Impairment team. They focus on some major diseases, disorders and disabilities. In the coming days we will post additional highlights from 2014 dealing with other aspects of Motor Impairment and motor performance. Of course it is always a challenge to select from the vast number of important publications but here are ten. Click on the various titles and follow the link to the original story.
STROKE
What’s your stroke risk? Walking more is likely to reduce the risk!
STROKE
This systematic review shows that there is no evidence for a plateau in motor recovery with time. So, long-term and late-starting chronic treatments can improve function!
CHRONIC BACK PAIN
A large Australian twin study finds genetic factors have a predictive role in back pain along with lifestyle factors and exercise.
CHRONIC PAIN
Low pre-morbid cognitive function is likely to predict a poor neuropathic pain outcome 6-12 months after surgery. An important result.
BACK AND NECK PAIN
This provides an excellent list of the evidence base for different treatments. A ‘must read’ for clinicians.
HUNTINGTON’S DISEASE
A reminder about its skeletal muscle pathology with several paths leading to muscle atrophy. Note the development of new disease-modifying treatments including exercise.
CARDIAC DEATHS – HEART ATTACKS
An Australian study shows that deployment of rapid response units can halve the death rate. A reminder that time is vital in cardiac resuscitation.
OBESITY
This large study quantifies the risk of various cancers caused by obesity. This is a good review of the main study. Overall, obesity is strongly linked to cancer risk.
TYPE II DIABETES
It is not a chronic disease: diabetes can be reversed! Here is an excellent talk and here is one of the key papers. Other work came out during the year which strongly supports this based on the use of bariatric surgery.
NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASES
Two major neurodegenerative diseases are amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). This study in mice provides insight into common synaptic pathology and how overexpression and missense mutations of a protein cause disease in human patients.