Ana Fátima Viero Badaró

FLEXIBILIDADE VERSUS ALONGAMENTO: ESCLARECENDO AS DIFERENÇAS

A flexibilidade e o alongamento sao qualidades essenciais para um bom desempenho fisico, tanto para a realizacao deatividades da vida diaria, como para melhorar a performance no meio desportivo. Ao rever esses conceitos buscamos esclarecer, com base na fisiologia, o que ha em comum entre flexibilidade e alongamento, suas distincoes e a interacao entresuas tecnicas e aplicabilidades. Salientamos, tambem, a importância dessas tecnicas para o meio desportivo. Contribuirpara um melhor esclarecimento dessas tecnicas, muitas vezes confundidas e/ou mal interpretadas pelos profissionais dasaude e do meio desportivo, que delas se utilizam, foi a motivacao maior da realizacao desse estudo.

Bioética e pesquisa na Fisioterapia: aproximação e vínculos

The bioethics discipline has had a significant advancement in the last decades. Latin America, and mainly Brazil, have followed this world trend, showing a good number of publications by health care professionals. This study aims at verifying how the themes of bioethics and ethics were incorporated into practice and research in the physical therapy field. This systematic literature review has drawn on MedLine/PubMed, SciELO, ProQuest, Scopus, Lilacs, Biblioteca Virtual de Saude and Scholar Google databases, on physical therapy journal websites, also resorting to a Brazilian bioethics bibliography published in 2002 and to contact with authors, searching for articles published from 2000 on that addressed ethics and bioethics issues related to physical therapy. Books, comments on and/or book reviews, articles in non-indexed journals as well as texts having a commercial or advertising focus were excluded. Twenty-three articles, two editorials and a magazine section have been selected. Results show that the evolution of bioethics research in physical therapy is ever-increasing in the international scenario, but there is a lack of such studies in the national scope. This points to the urgent need to include this theme in physical therapists education and debate, in order to contribute to the development of professional identity.

Low back pain in adolescent and associated factors: A cross sectional study with schoolchildren

Objective: To determine the prevalence of low back pain nonspecific and associated factors in schoolchildren. Method: This cross-sectional study investigated 343 adolescents, aged between 12 and 15 years, of both sexes of public schools. The questionnaire included questions regarding sociodemographic characteristics, type of school transportation, body mass index and low back pain. The outcome was defined as discomfort localized below the costal margin and above the inferior gluteal folds in the last 12 months. Results : The prevalence of low back pain in the last year was 57% (n=195) among participants, with no significant difference between the sexes (OR 1.13, 95% CI 0.93 to 1.37). Advancing age and body mass index were associated with the presence of low back pain in the bivariate analysis. The remaining seated at school in usual days was considered one of the main activities that trigger symptoms that lasted up to seven days for the majority (80%) of adolescents. Conclusions: The high prevalence of low back pain presented, indicating that it is a common condition among these adolescents. There was no difference between the sexes, but had influence of age and body mass index. Our results point to the need for the development epidemiological studies of low back pain among children and adolescents.

Perfil sociodemográfico e profissional de fisioterapeutas e origem das suas concepções sobre ética

INTRODUCTION: Studies about the profile of health professionals provide relevant information which allows health agencies, educational institutions and professional organizations to project educational and assistential actions. These actions and their evaluation have to take into account the profile of the available professionals, as well the macroeconomic context of the groups considered, according to the period and the region they are placed, in order to give success and quality on the planned activities. OBJECTIVE: To know the sociodemographic and professional profile of physical therapists who work in the city of Santa Maria, RS, and the origin of their conceptions of ethics. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A descriptive and transversal study, with quantitative approach. Physical therapists working with professional and/or educational activities in the physical therapy field participated in the research. Data were collected through a semi-structured instrument construct for that purpose. The statistical package SAS (Statistical Analysis System), version 8.02, was used to process and analyze the data. RESULTS: The sample consisted of 167 physical therapists, most of them young adults, between 22 and 35 years old (60%) and 83% were women. They are predominantly self-employed, without working contract (52,4%), and also work in public (23,5%) and private (20,5%) services; they most often provide home care or work in private clinics and offices. They have competence in distinct levels and fields, being the musculoskeletal the one with higher request of their professional services. Consequently, this area is the most desired to do specialization. The predominant clientele are adults, women and the elderly. The origin of knowledge about ethics comes from the family and from the challenges imposed by the professional practice. CONCLUSION: Although there are many experienced and renowned physical therapists, the young ones predominate in the professional practice. Growing professional process is constant, not only in traditional fields but also in the emergent ones. Ethical issues must be more discussed not only during the formal academic course but also during the daily professional activities.

A postura corporal e as funções estomatognáticas em crianças respiradoras orais: uma revisão de literatura

Childrens body posture has been studied more and more by physical therapy, as well as mouth breather children have been studied by speech-language-hearing therapy. This study tries to check, through scientific literature, the relationship between stomatognathic functions and body posture in mouth breather children. This is a review of literature on body posture and the stomatognathic system in obstructive and functional mouth breathers. We searched, in electronic data basis such as MEDLINE, SCIELO and LILACS, and Google Scientific, articles related to these topics, published in the last 10. The selected articles were organized according to authors, title, source, age, and publishing year. When related to the type, the studies were considered: literature review articles; descriptive data analysis; field research. After selecting the texts, we identified four studies that relate posture, stomatognathic system and mouth breathing; two studies that relate stomatognathic system and posture; 13 studies relating to the stomatognathic system and mouth breathing. We may perceive that there is a lack of studies correlating body posture and stomatognathic system in oral breathers. The lack is even higher when we compare obstructive oral breathers and vicious oral breathers relating the body posture to the stomatognathic system.

Physical therapy performance in the rehabilitation of survivors of the Kiss nightclub tragedy: an experience report

Introduction : As a result of a fire in the Kiss nightclub that occurred in the city of Santa Maria - RS, 242 people were killed, of whom 235 died on the day of the episode, asphyxiated by the inhalation of toxic smoke. Approximately 1,000 more were injured. Objective : To report the experience of a group of physical therapists, professors at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM), in the rehabilitation of survivors of the fire, victims of burns and inhalation injury. Materials and methods : Quantitative and qualitative study, in which an evaluation protocol of physical functional ability was designed to identify rehabilitation needs. Results : Two hundred seventy patients (147 men, mean age 26.72 ± 9.5 years) were examined, of which approximately 70% had some type of clinical modification or functional impairment that indicated the need for rehabilitation. The most prevalent respiratory signs and symptoms were: dry or productive cough (59.2%); abnormal respiratory pace (11.4%); fatigue (35.92%); dyspnea (17.7%); and chest pain (16.6%). Neurological symptoms such as persistent headache (88.51%), memory loss (11.4%), and paresthesia (8.1%) were also reported. Musculoskeletal injuries (14.7%) and extensive burns (8.8%) were also observed. One hundred and eighty-nine patients were referred to outpatient physical therapy and, of these, 22 still remain at the Outpatient Physical Therapy Unit of the University Hospital of (HUSM). Conclusions : Despite the vast professional experience of this group of physical therapists, the situations experienced were unique and unprecedented, both professionally and personally, and reinforced the importance of joining forces within an emergency care unit, as well as the importance of comprehensive and multi-professional outpatient monitoring.