Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: Spasticity is one of the most important symptoms of stroke, which leads to movement constraints and disability. The presence of spasticity in the ankle and toe plantar flexor muscles disturbs the balance and gait of patients with stroke. Dry needling has been introduced as a new method for the treatment of spasticity. The aim of this study was to investigate the immediate effects of the ankle and toe plantar flexors dry needling on spasticity and balance in patients with stroke.
Methods: This study was a clinical pretest-posttest study. Twenty patients with stroke (12 males and 8 females), the mean age of 56.5±13 years were included. The assessments were performed before dry needling, immediately after dry needling and 15 minutes after that. Dry needling was used to treat gastrocnemius (ankle plantar flexor) muscles, flexor digitorum longus, and flexor digitorum brevis of the affected lower limb of the patients, for one session. Each muscle was needled for one minute with fast in-fast out technique. The outcome measures of the study were modified modified Ashworth scale (MMAS) for the assessment of the severity of muscle spasticity, timed up and go test and one leg stance test, for balance evaluation. The study was conducted in neurological physical therapy, Clinic of Rehabilitation School, Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran, from April 2017 to April 2018.
Results: The results showed a significant decrease in the ankle and toe plantar flexor muscles spasticity both immediately after dry needling and at 15 minutes follow-up (P=0.001). The duration of timed up and go test (P=0.001) and one leg stance test (P=0.001) improved significantly after dry needling and this improvement persisted for 15 minutes after dry needling. The effect size for timed up and go test and one leg stance test was small (Cohen'sd=0.33 and 0.32 respectively).
Conclusion: This study suggests that dry needling is effective in improving spasticity of ankle and toe plantar flexor muscles and the balance of patients with stroke. Further research with larger sample size and control group is necessary.

Background: Studies have shown that 75% of men and 35% of women over the age of 10 have hamstring tightness. Hamstring tightness is one of the major causes of hamstring injury and loss of function. Dry needling which is a common intervention used by physiotherapists for the treatment of common various conditions can improve hamstring flexibility in less time than other interventions. So, the present study aimed to investigate the effect of dry needling on flexibility and electrophysiological indices in healthy men with hamstring tightness.
Methods: In this two-way blind clinical trial with a control group, which was performed from November 2018 to February 2019 in the laboratory of the Faculty of Rehabilitation of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, 30 healthy men with hamstring tightness were randomly divided into two groups of dry needling (n=15) and sham needle (n=15). In both groups, dry needling and sham needle, three points of hamstring muscle were needled, each point for one minute during a single session. Outcome measures included flexibility based on passive knee extension test, H-reflex latency, and motor neuron excitability, which were measured three times: before the intervention, immediately after the intervention, and one week after the intervention.
Results: The results revealed that the mean of passive knee extension test (P=0.54), the mean delay time of H-reflex (P=0.84) and the mean of excitability of the motor neuron (P=0.41) didn’t have significant different between two groups after intervention.
Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that dry needling had no effect on hamstring flexibility and electrophysiological indices recorded in the soleus muscle of healthy individuals with hamstring tightness.

Background: CNS infection can be focal or generalized. Meningitis, besides other etiologies, can occur after a viral infection or viral vaccine. Although meningitis can occur in at any age but it is more common in children less than five years old. Aseptic meningitis and meningoencephalitis are two of the most common complications of mumps (wild type or vaccine). As a result of their serious complication, we decided to obtain more information about clinical manifestations and laboratory findings after the injection of the Hoshino MMR vaccine in a group of children in an Iranian referral hospital.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, performed from March 2013 to February 2015 on 73 children with meningochemical symptoms of meningitis, children who have been diagnosed with aseptic meningitis followed by an MMR vaccine in an infectious ward or emergency department of the Children’s Medical Center were enrolled in the study and their information was recorded from their files. A questionnaire was provided for children with diagnostic criteria of aseptic meningitis and their data were collected.

Background: Otitis is the most common infectious disease of the ear with internal and external cranial complications. If the infection is in the middle ear, it causes otitis media. If the infection is in the external ear, it’s along with otitis externa (OE). Different types of otitis media include acute otitis media (AOM), chronic otitis media (COM) and Otitis media with effusion (OME). This study aimed to investigate the different types of otitis and its symptoms.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from March 2019 to February 2020 for 200 patients who have been referred to the ENT center of Shafa hospital, Kerman, Iran. Sampling was conducted with ease and no need for specified sampling distribution. The type of otitis was written in a questionnaire by the physician after the examination. The present research investigated types of otitis along with its symptoms. Also, their demographic information was determined.