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Background and Aim: This study examined the effect of empowerment programs on geriatric depression in daily rehabilitation center Farzanegan of Khorramabad city. 

Materials and Methods: In this interventional study, 40 elderly subjects were participated in the city of Khoramabad with a mean age of 65 years old.  They were 8 men and 12 women in each group.

These people have the ability to perform common tasks without dependence on others and they had no systemic and restrictive disease.Subjects randomly divided into two groups (case and control).In case group, empowerment programs was performed for 40 days and 3 hours in a day. Empowerment program included lifestyle education, rehabilitation services, support services, cultural, sports, arts, tourism and leisure services. Part of the program was general such as training of healthy lifestyle and daily exercise and another part of services was presented based on assessment and diagnosis of treatment and rehabilitation team. This program was produced by designers and experts from the office of country welfare  elderly. Depression scores in both group, before the intervention and at the end of intervention was assessed by the beck depression inventory.

Results: Using the empowerment program, depression scores were reduced after intervention (P≤0.047 ), however in the control group did not make significant changes in depression scores.

Conclusion: The date showed that that regular and consistent application of empowerment program can an effective and complementary method in conjunction with other treatments as well as a non-drug therapy in improving depression.

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Background and Aim: The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of different types of isokinetic contractions on hemodynamic parameters in men.
Materials and Methods: Ten healthy male subjects (age, 26.1±3.4 years) in three separate sessions performed three exercise protocols included Concentric/Concentric (C/C), Eccentric/Eccentric (E/E) and Concentric/Eccentric (C/E) contractions (flexion and extension) in the knee joint. In each session subjects performed 4 sets, 10 repetitions, at the speed of 60 degree per second. Hemodynamic parameters (heart rate, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, mean arterial blood pressure and rate of pressure product) were measured before exercise, immediately after exercise and after 30 min recovery. Data were analyzed using two- way repeated measures of ANOVA.
Results: Statistical analysis of data showed significant increases in heart rate, systolic blood pressure (P<0.001), mean arterial blood pressure (P=0.053) and rate of pressure product (P<0.001) during exercise and significant reductions in these parameters in recovery period. Rate of perceived exertion (RPE) was significantly different among the contraction protocols (F2,34=15.5) and post-hoc test showed that RPE was lower in E/E protocol than the other two protocols.
Conclusion: Hemodynamic parameters change in response to different muscular contractions, though these changes are not related to contraction type.

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Background and Aim: The number of elderly population in the world and also in Iran has increased due to health improvements and therefore, the quality of life has been focused in this group of population. Physical disabilities and particularly balance disturbances are among the consequences of the ageing process and hence, would affect the quality of life in elderly population. Mental practice is in fact the cognitive review of a physical skill without performing obvious bodily movements. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of mental practice of a movement skill on improvement of the quality of life in elderly men (60-80 yrs).

  

Materials and Methods: This was a Single blind Randomized controlled trial (RCT) study. The study was approved by the research ethics committee of the Tehran university of medical science (Irct ID: IRCT201107041722N3). The elderly population was 44 elderly men (60-80 yrs.) who were living in Kahrizak Nursing Home. They were randomly assigned in two groups and entered the study based on inclusion criteria. After baseline assessment, the quality of life of all of participants were assessed by SF36 test and also at 3 various stages (i.e. respectively, before the beginning of ,baseline assessment two weeks after intervention ,short term follow up and 3 months after intervention, long term follow up). Elderly population in the intervention group did mental practice of one movement skill for 4 weeks and during this periods, the control group did no mental practice.

  

Results: The results of our study showed the scores of SF36 in physical component, after the intervention of mental practice, have had a significant difference between the control and intervention groups. Although test scores in mental component and the whole test score showed no significant difference between the case and control groups at 3 stages of assessments.

  

Conclusion: The results of this study showed the significant effects of mental practices on physical component of SF36 in elderly population. However, these results also showed that this type of mental practice had no significant effects on mental component and total score of SF36.

  

Key Word: Quality of life, Balance, Mental practice, Elderly men

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Background and Aim : Language disorders are one of the most prominent features seen in autistic children. The present study intends to investigate some linguistic features of speech in Persian-speaking children with autism in comparison with their typically developing age mates.

 

Materials and Methods : By recording the speech of 20 autistic girls and boys who were seven to eleven years old, phonetic, phonologic, morphologic and syntactic features of their speech were compared with those of their typically developing age-mates. The SPSS (18) and Exact Fischer Test were used to analyze the collected data.

 

Results : The results showed that consonant deletion, substitution of phonemes, using stress on inappropriate syllable, atypical intonation, incorrect use of tense, incorrect use or not using prepositions, problems in making the nouns plural and not using complex sentences were significantly different in children with autism and typically developing children (p<0.05), while epenthesis, metathesis, violating subject-verb agreement, having difficulty with making the verbs negative, and using demonstratives were not significantly different (p>0.05).

  

Conclusion : Children with autism had more problems in phonetic, phonologic, morphologic and syntactic features of speech in comparison with their typically developing age-mates. Therefore, withappropriate treatment programs, these problems could be reduced.

 

Key Words : Autistic children, Typically developing children, Phonetic and phonologic features, Morphologic and syntactic features