Barbara L Shay

University of Manitoba | UMN

Purpose: Research on acupuncture treatment for Chemotherapy Induced Peripheral Neuropathy (CIPN) lack important scientific standards that include homogenous populations, sham control groups, and valid and reliable outcome measures. This prospective double-blind Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) sought to answer whether Electro Acupuncture (EA) coul...

Background: The Canadian Pain Task Force recently advanced an action plan calling for improved entry-level health professional pain education. However, there is little research to inform the collaboration and coordination across stakeholders that is needed for its implementation. Aims: This article reports on the development of a stakeholder-gen...

Background National strategies from North America call for substantive improvements in entry-level pain management education to help reduce the burden of chronic pain. Past work has generated a valuable set of interprofessional pain management competencies to guide the education of future health professionals. However, there has been very limited w...

Descriptive study. To examine grouped and intra-individual relationships between 1) exercise intensity and heart rate (EI-HR); 2) EI and oxygen uptake (EI-VO2); 3) VO2 and HR (VO2-HR); and 4) perceived exertion and VO2 (PE-VO2) in persons with tetraplegia (C4/5–C8) during different modes of exercise. Community in Winnipeg, Canada. Participants exer...

Background. Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is a common side effect of taxane treatment and cannot currently be prevented or adequately treated. Physical therapy is often used for neural rehabilitation following injury but has not been evaluated in this patient population. Methods. Single-blind, randomized controlled exploratory s...

Aims: To define the sensory phenotypes of taxane induced peripheral neuropathy (TIPN) in a breast cancer population between neuropathic and non-neuropathic symptoms to identify future targets for mechanism-based pain management. Methods: Participants (n = 48) with stage I-III breast cancer. Self-report questionnaires and Quantitative Sensory Testin...

One in 2 Canadians is expected to acquire cancer in their lifetime. Many cancers, including breast, ovarian, and lung cancer, are treated using taxane chemotherapy with curative intent. A major adverse effect with the use of taxane chemotherapeutic agents is taxane-induced peripheral neuropathy (TIPN). Both positive (spontaneous pain, heightened se...

The World Health Organization recognizes obesity as a global and increasing problem for the general population. Because of their reduced physical functioning, people with spinal cord injury (SCI) face additional challenges for maintaining an appropriate whole body energy balance, and the majority with SCI are overweight or obese. SCI also reduces e...

Background: Laser therapy seems to be a beneficial physical agent for chronic low back pain (LBP), and it is commonly used in the clinical rehabilitation practice. However, there are still no indisputable and clearly defined protocols and practical guidelines, and further, the methodology of the previous reports leaves many unsatisfied and raises s...

Objective: To evaluate the effect of laser irradiation at different wavelengths on the expression of selected growth factors and inflammatory mediators at particular stages of the wound healing process. Methods: Sixty-seven patients were recruited, treated, and analyzed (group A - 940 nm: 17 patients; group B - 808 nm: 18 patients; group C - 658 nm...

In this study, 67 participants (95% female) with fibromyalgia (FM) were randomly assigned to an online acceptance and commitment therapy (online ACT) and treatment as usual (TAU; ACT + TAU) protocol or a TAU control condition. Online ACT + TAU participants were asked to complete 7 modules over an 8-week period. Assessments were completed at pre-tre...

Purpose: In response to requests from physiotherapists for guidance on optimal stimulation of muscle using neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES), a review, synthesis, and extraction of key data from the literature was undertaken by six Canadian physical therapy (PT) educators, clinicians, and researchers in the field of electrophysical agents...

Objective: The objective of this study is to examine the influence that visuospatial cognitive tasks have on gait function during DT treadmill walking, and as a function of age. Conversely, to examine the influence that walking has on executive functions involving visuospatial processing. Methods: Twenty-five young (26±6.1years) and 25 older adu...

Multicentre studies are rare in three dimensional motion analyses due to challenges associated with combining waveform data from different centres. Principal component analysis (PCA) is a statistical technique that can be used to quantify variability in waveform data and identify group differences. A correction technique based on PCA is proposed th...

Objectives: To examine the feasibility of a clinical trial on a novel, home-based task-oriented training with conventional hand exercises in people with rheumatoid arthritis or hand osteoarthritis. To explore the experiences of participants who completed their respective home exercise programmes. Materials and methods: Thirty volunteer participa...

Background: Recent studies show balance impairment in subjects with chronic respiratory disease. The aim of this proof-of-concept study was to investigate clinical and quantitative measures of balance in people with chronic respiratory disease following participation in an out-patient pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) program to better understand feat...

Objectives: A computer based hand function assessment tool has been developed to provide a standardized method for quantifying task performance during manipulations of common objects/tools/utensils with diverse physical properties and grip/grasp requirements for handling. The study objectives were to determine test-retest reliability and convergen...

This randomized controlled study with blinding allocation evaluated pelvic floor knowledge (PFK) and the presence of pelvic floor dysfunction (PFD) in women office workers. The effects of receiving pelvic floor muscle (PFM) health education on PFK and PFD were also evaluated. Of 161 female volunteers, 145 (90.0 %, age range 18-69 years) responded....

Background This study aimed to examine the effects of the extended follow-up of an original trial (NCT00600197) which has been published in The Clinical Journal of Pain.Methods Eighty-three percent (165 of 197) of the original study, including 82 patients in intervention and 83 patients in the control group, provided extended 24-month follow-up dat...

Background The utility of acupuncture in managing osteoarthritis symptoms is uncertain. Trial results are conflicting and previous systematic reviews may have overestimated the benefits of acupuncture. Methods Two reviewers independently identified randomized controlled trials (up to May 2014) from multiple electronic sources (including PubMed/Med...

Significant restriction in the ability to participate in home, work and community life results from pain, fatigue, joint damage, stiffness and reduced joint range of motion and muscle strength in people with rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis of the hand. With modest evidence on the therapeutic effectiveness of conventional hand exercises, a ta...

Mobility limitations and cognitive impairments, each common with aging, reduce levels of physical and mental activity, are prognostic of future adverse health events, and are associated with an increased fall risk. The purpose of this study was to examine whether divided attention during walking at a constant speed would decrease locomotor rhythm,...

Objective: To quantify the sympathetic nervous system response to acupuncture and non-penetrating sham acupuncture in volunteers with pain. Methods: A single-blind, randomised controlled study of 36 healthy adults with no recent participation in forearm strengthening or occupations involving repeated forceful wrist motion was carried out. A fati...

Patients with fibromyalgia have difficulty with activities of daily living, they exhibit reduced muscle strength and high incidence of reported falls. The objective of this study was to evaluate the functional performance and lower limb muscle strength in women with fibromyalgia and determine the relationship between muscle strength and falls. Sixt...

Purpose: The objective of this study was to examine the effects of intra-articular corticosteroid injection (ICI) on ipsilateral knee flexion/extension, ankle dorsiflexion/plantarflexion (DF/PF), and hip abduction/adduction (abd/add) during stance phase in people with an acute exacerbation of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) of the knee joint. The study...

This paper presents a telerehabilitation system that encompasses a webcam and store-and-feedforward adaptive gaming system for tracking finger-hand movement of patients during local and remote therapy sessions. Gaming-event signals and webcam images are recorded as part of a gaming session and then forwarded to an online healthcare content manageme...

The multiple mini-interview (MMI) was developed at the DeGroote Medical School at McMaster University in Canada and has been documented as a reliable and valid interview tool, and as having predictive value in post-medical licensure examination performance. This project aims to demonstrate the feasibility and strengths of this innovative technique...

Clinical Measurement. To evaluate changes in temporal and amplitude movement accuracy with tasks requiring fine motor manipulation with and without the use of the index finger (WIF). Twenty right-handed participants (10 males, 10 females, aged 24-47 years) were recruited. Three objects, ranging in weight and size, that required the use of 2 or 3 fi...

Musculoskeletal disorders are the most frequent cause of physical disability in developed countries. In particular, lower back pain is very common and represents a significant burden both in terms of patient suffering and costs. It is important to determine the most effective and efficient interventions in the treatment of this condition. This arti...

Poor balance control, mobility restrictions, and fall injuries are serious problems for many older adults. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a new dynamic standing balance assessment test for identifying individuals at risk for falling in a group of community-dwelling older adults. This was a cross-sectional observational study of 72 commun...

This chapter introduces a wireless, pervasive computing approach to adaptive therapeutic telegaming considered in the context of near set theory. Near set theory provides a formal basis for observation, comparison and classification of perceptual granules. A perceptual granule is defined by a collection of objects that are graspable by the senses o...

A new performance-based tool has been developed to accurately and precisely evaluate finger/hand function during manipulation of any object, independent of geometric and surface properties. The objectives of this study were to show test-retest reliability and evaluate criterion validity. Twenty healthy, right-handed participants were recruited. Thr...

Dorsal root-evoked stimulation of sensory afferents in the hemisected in vitro rat spinal cord produces reflex output, recorded on the ventral roots. Transient spinal 5-HT(2C) receptor activation induces a long-lasting facilitation of these reflexes (LLFR) by largely unknown mechanisms. Two Sprague-Dawley substrains were used to characterize networ...

Each spinal neuron has a receptive field that corresponds to stimulation of a specific area of skin or subcutaneous tissue. Receptive fields are plastic and can be altered during development and injury but the actions of neuromodulators, such as serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) on receptive field properties are not well known. We used stimulat...

1. C-fibre activation induces a long-term potentiation (LTP) in the spinal flexion reflex in mammals, presumably to provide enhanced reflexive protection of damaged tissue from further injury. Descending monoaminergic pathways are thought to depress sensory input but may also amplify spinal reflexes; the mechanisms of this modulation within the spi...

The purpose of this chapter is to present some recent experimental data obtained in our laboratory that provide new insights and suggest new hypotheses on the organization of serotonergic systems within the mammalian spinal cord. Our proposed conceptual framework for understanding 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT; serotonin) function incorporates the exis...

The purpose of this chapter is to present some recent experimental data obtained in our laboratory that provide new insights and suggest new hypotheses on the organization of serotonergic systems within the mammalian spinal cord. Our proposed conceptual framework for understanding 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT; serotonin) function incorporates the exis...