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A Show of Hands

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          During a recent conversation with a colleague regarding the treatment plan for a client with severe upper-limb weakness post-stroke, we happened to be interchangeably using terms like "hand dominance", "hand preference", "handedness" and it felt quite jarring at the time.      It kept bothering me all through the rest of the day and into the wee hours of the night. My feline companion, Clementine, seemed concerned as well. I decided to clear the air the next morning after several unsuccessful attempts to retire to bed and hopped on to our trusty generic search engines and scientific databases. I was quite shocked to see most studies used these terms synonymously, just like us! But I decided to dig deeper. Then lo and behold, I finally found what I was looking for! It just took most of an otherwise pleasant Sunday morning to find the answers to the most pressing question of my weekend. I'd have to disagree with Shakespeare on this, but the nam

A Brief Clinical Tool to Easily Identify the Subtypes of Parkinson’s Disease

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     Parkinson’s disease (PD) is classified into two subtypes based on the dominance of either of its primary motor symptoms: tremor-dominant (TD) or postural instability and gait difficulty (PIGD). The knowledge of these subtypes will allow the clinician to formulate an ideal exercise program for the client and predict the progression of the disease. It is fairly difficult for a novice clinician to reliably detect these subtypes.      A cross-sectional study by Prime et al. investigated the utility of various clinical outcome measures for the purpose of effectively identifying them. The authors used the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) or Movement Disorders Society revision (MDS-UPDRS) for the purpose of classifying the subjects as TD or PIGD. They compared the results of these exhaustive tests with brief balance tests such as 360° turn test, one-leg stance, a reactive postural control test, and tandem walk test. These tests were derived from four items of the Fullerto

Online Resources for Teaching Remotely During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Indian Perspective

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                The novel coronavirus pandemic has forced all human activity to a grinding halt with grave consequences in various sectors. With the growing number of infections in India, the government enforced lockdown has mandated the shutdown of all educational institutions. This has brought forth an unforeseen outcome where students and educators have to resort to attending academic activities from the confines of their home, without convenient access to resources made available to them by their institution. This predicament needs a suitable solution to prevent the loss of the academic continuity and maintain standards of education comparable to in-person classroom teaching. The immediate answer seems to be a switch to virtual classrooms. Such a quantum change would not be easy for the majority of institutions and students, due to a lack of basic resources and a proclivity to ensure a seamless transition. India has the second-highest number of internet users in the world, acco