Bernardo Lanzillo

• MD
• Managing Director at CENTRO LARS

Smart fabrics and interactive textiles are a relatively new area of research, with many potential applications in the field of biomedical engineering. The ability of smart textiles to interact with the body provides a novel means to sense the wearer's physiology and respond to the needs of the wearer. Physiological signals, such as heart rate, brea...

Although widespread in the treatment of general-ised spasticity due to severe acquired brain injury, clinical use of intrathecal baclofen administered through an implanted catheter is not yet supported by full scientific evidence. The aim of the study is to provide recommendations for good clinical practice regarding intrathecal baclofen therapy. W...

Introduction Posture and gait anomalies investigations have demonstrated to improve to date the rehabilitation programs and patients’ outcome for several types of disorders [1,2]; however, the diagnosis and progression of some illnesses, such as Ataxia and Parkinson’s Disease (PD), still rely on “gold standard” (clinical) methodologies, which hardl...

Purpose A potential involvement of thyrotropic axis in influencing the state of consciousness could be hypothesized. We aimed at investigating thyroid function tests as predictors of disorders of consciousness (DoC) and relating recovery in a large cohort of patients with DoC secondary to acquired brain injury (ABI). Methods This retrospective, mu...

Background and Objectives: Neurological manifestations have been reported in a significant proportion of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. We aimed to evaluate the prevalence and severity of peripheral nervous system (PNS) involvement in a large group of convalescent COVID-19 patients undergoing in-hospital multidisciplinary rehabilitat...

Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder in the world. Assumed that gait dysfunctions represent a major motor symptom for the pathology, gait analysis can provide clinicians quantitative information about the rehabilitation outcome of patients. In this scenario, wearable inertial systems for gait analysis can be a va...

Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES), is a tecnique that uses low-energy electrical pulses to artificially generate muscle contractions, in individuals with damages regarding the central nervous system. The application of FES in clinical environment involves both patients care and rehabilitation. Aim of this work is to introduce a clinical FES p...

Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES), is a tecnique that uses low-energy electrical pulses to artificially generate muscle contractions, in individuals with damages regarding the central nervous system. The application of FES in clinical environment involves both patients care and rehabilitation. Aim of this work is to introduce a clinical FES p...

Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES), is a tecnique that uses low-energy electrical pulses to artificially generatemuscle contractions, in individuals with damages regarding the central nervous system. The application of FES inclinical environment involves both patients care and rehabilitation. Aim of this work is to introduce a clinical FESprot...

Biomedical technologies are having an increasingly central role in the modern medicine. In fact they are at the root of the diagnosis and follow up of pathologies giving to the clinicians quantitative outcomes necessary on the choice of the right therapy. In this paper we will focus on biomedical technologies used in the context of gait analysis de...

Objective: We sought to determine sex differences in outcomes in patients with severe stroke who had been admitted to inpatient rehabilitation. Methods: We studied 1,316 patients aged 18 to 99 (mean 72) classified as case-mix groups 0108, 0109, and 0110 of the Medicare case-mix classification system. These groups encompass the most severe strokes....

Biomedical technologies are having an increasingly central role in the modern medicine. In fact they are at the rootof the diagnosis and follow up of pathologies giving to the clinicians quantitative outcomes necessary on the choice ofthe right therapy. In this paper we will focus on biomedical technologies used in the context of gait analysis desc...

Objective: To investigate the incremental prognostic significance of malnutrition in patients with severe post-stroke disability. Design: Retrospective cohort study. The patients were recruited from three specialized inpatient rehabilitation facilities. Nutritional status was assessed using the Prognostic Nutritional Index (PNI) that is calculat...

Background Accurate prognostic evaluation is a key factor in the clinical management of patients affected by severe acute brain injury (ABI) and helps planning focused therapies, better caregiver’s support and allocation of resources. Aim of the study was to assess factors independently associated with both the short and long-term outcomes after re...

Background: In spite of the complexity that the number of redundancy levels suggests, humans show amazingly regularities when generating movement. When moving the hand between pairs of targets, subjects tended to generate roughly straight hand trajectories with single-peaked, bell-shaped speed profiles. The original minimum-jerk model, in which lim...

We reported a sensory cutaneous denervation more pronounced on the more affected side in Parkinson’s disease (PD)¹. Our aim is to evaluate if autonomic function is also asymmetrically affected. We investigated sudomotor function on both legs of ten patients affected by idiopathic PD by the dynamic sweat test (DST)². After pilocarpine by iontophores...

Objective: To characterize rehabilitation outcomes of patients with severe post-stroke motor impairment (MI) and develop a predictive model for treatment failure. Design: Retrospective cohort study. Correlates of treatment failure, defined as the persistence of severe MI following rehabilitation, were identified using logistic regression analysi...

Background: The recovery of the functional limb mobility of patients with cerebral damages can take great benefit of the role offered by proprioceptive rehabilitation. Recently have been developed a special Regent Suit (RS) for rehabilitative applications. Actually, there are preliminary studies which describes the effects of RS on gait recovery o...

Small fiber pathology is part of the clinical picture of PD. Cross-sectional studies have shown no correlation between intraepidermal nerve fiber (IENF) density and patient disease duration and severity. However, it is not known whether IENF density changes over time. We aimed to assess the progression of small fiber pathology in PD patients along...

Degeneration of several brainstem nuclei occurs in Parkinson disease (PD). Vestibular-evoked-myogenic-potentials (VEMPs) represent a valuable tool to assess the function of these structures. VEMPs abnormalities have been reported in PD. We used this tool to assess the asymmetry between the two sides and the difference between anterior and posterior...

Vestibular-Evoked-Myogenic-Potentials (VEMPs) represent a muscular response following an intense acoustic stimulation. The cVEMPs explore a reflex arc (from saccule to the neck musculature) and usually are only recorded from sternocleidomastoideus (SCM).¹ They are non-invasive, well-tolerated, simple-to-perform and very useful in several diseases....

“The bumps” is a sensitive test to quantify tactile threshold of fingerpads. We tested its ability to detect distal axonal degeneration in peripheral neuropathies. The bumps device is a checkerboard-like surface divided into squares. Each square includes 5 colored circles, one of which contains a round bump (height range 2.5–14 μm) to identify usin...

Objectives: Smart fabrics and interactive textiles are a relatively new area of research, with many potential applications in the field of biomedical engineering. The ability of smart textiles to interact with the body provides a novel means to sense the wearer's physiology and respond to the needs of the wearer. Physiological signals, such as hea...

Background and purpose: Prediction of outcome after stroke rehabilitation may help clinicians in decision-making and planning rehabilitation care. We developed and validated a predictive tool to estimate the probability of achieving improvement in physical functioning (model 1) and a level of independence requiring no more than supervision (model...

Objective: To study small and large fiber pathology in drug-naive and l-dopa-treated patients affected by Parkinson disease (PD) in early phases, before the occurrence of neuropathic electrophysiologic abnormalities. Methods: We enrolled 85 patients with idiopathic PD (male/female 49/36, age 61.3 ± 9.7 years) without electrophysiologic signs of...

Although widespread in the treatment of generalised spasticity due to severe acquired brain injury, clinical use of intrathecal baclofen administered through an implanted catheter is not yet supported by full scientific evidence. The aim of the study is to provide recommendations for good clinical practice regarding intrathecal baclofen therapy. We...

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of exercise training on cardiac function in heart failure (HF) patients recently suffering from acute decompensation. Radionuclide ambulatory ventricular function monitoring (VEST) was used to detect variations in cardiac hemodynamics during training period. Methods: This was a monocen...

Small fiber pathology has been demonstrated in Parkinson Disease (PD). To verify if it is among the early non-motor features of PD, unrelated to Levodopa therapy, we assessed function and morphology of cutaneous sensory and autonomic nerves in 32 consecutive drug-naive PD patients (M/F = 16/16; age 57.3 ± 11.1 years) and 64 age and sex matched cont...

Background and objectives The new oral anticoagulants (NOACs) are used for the prevention of thromboembolic complications in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (AF) and those at risk of deep venous thrombosis. Their rapid onset of action and predictable pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profiles make them the optimal alternative to wa...

Aims: To assess cutaneous sensory and autonomic nerves and the vascular bed in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Methods: We enrolled 41 patients (M=20, aged 63.5±11.8 years), and 41 age- and sex-matched healthy volunteers (M=20, aged 63.5±11.8 years). Disease severity and sensory and autonomic symptoms were scored using dedicated rating scales. Sk...

Robot-mediated therapy (RMT) has been a very dynamic area of research in recent years. Robotics devices are in fact capable to quantify the performances of a rehabilitation task in treatments of several disorders of the arm and the shoulder of various central and peripheral etiology. Different systems for robot-aided neuro-rehabilitation are availa...

The equilibrium system needs the coordination of three subsystems: sensory, skeletal and central nervous system. The central nervous system (CNS) counteracts equilibrium perturbations by means of compensatory and anticipatory postural adjustments (APA). While compensatory adjustments deal with actual perturbations of balance, the APA precede pertur...

Assessment of rehabilitation outcome is based on measuring the change in Functional Independence Measure (FIMTM) score between the start and end of rehabilitation. However, the raw FIMTM score gain is subject to a ceiling effect. Proposed solutions to this problem have incongruities that limit their use. The aim of this study is to determine the fa...

Disorders of consciousness (DOC) are difficult to classify. The degree of consciousness varies from coma to vegetative state (VS) or unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS) and minimally conscious state (MCS). Correct diagnosis has important ethical and legal implications, and pain may be cause of misdiagnosis. We describe here a patient with traum...

The use of low-cost, commercial gaming systems for rehabilitation has received substantial attention in the last few years. Systems such as the Nintendo Wii encourage players to use natural actions to play games. The Wii systems has been integrated into rehabilitation programs and has gained the support of occupational therapists because it is easy...

Objective: To evaluate postganglionic autonomic involvement in multiple system atrophy (MSA). Methods: We quantified sudomotor innervation in skin biopsy of 29 patients with MSA (19 male and 10 female; age 60.0 ± 7.7 years) and 29 age- and sex-matched healthy subjects. Samples were obtained from thigh and leg and, in 20 out of the 29 cases, also...

Sudomotor function is often impaired in peripheral (PNSd) and central nervous system disorders (CNSd). Mechanisms underlying sudomotor failure in CNSd are not always clear. However, recently an involvement of peripheral nervous system in central neurodegenerative diseases has been observed. Objective of this study is to try of clarifying the involv...

Functional recovery of limb mobility of patients with spinal or cerebral injuries can take great advantage of the basic role played by sensorial and proprioceptive stimulations. On this base the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences have recently developed the “Regent Suit” (RS), an experimental medical device derived...

Objective: The number of patients in prolonged postanoxic vegetative state (VS) is increasing. However, little information is available about prognostic markers of long-term outcome in patients who remain in VS more than 1 month postonset. The present 2-year prospective clinical study aimed to identify prognostic markers, recorded in the chronic p...

Late recovery of awareness in vegetative state (VS) is considered as an exceptional outcome, and has been reported prevalently after traumatic brain injury (TBI). The present prospective study aimed to verify frequency of late recovery (later than 1 year postonset in TBI and 3 months postonset in patients without TBI) of responsiveness and consciou...

Sensory disturbances are part of the clinical picture of Parkinson's disease. Abnormalities in sensory processing, through a basal ganglia involvement, are thought to be responsible for the sensory dysfunction since sensory nerve conduction velocity (NCV) is usually normal. However, NCV does not examine small fibres or terminal endings of large sen...

Ross syndrome is described as a rare disorder of sweating associated with areflexia and tonic pupil. Since Ross's first description in 1958, approximately 40 cases have been described. We assessed the involvement of cutaneous innervation in 12 subjects with Ross syndrome using quantitative sensory testing, sweating assessment and immunohistochemica...

The authors performed a multimodal electrophysiologic evaluation in nine patients belonging to four SCA17 (spinocerebellar ataxia type 17) families. Peripheral nerve and visual system were not involved. Brainstem auditory evoked potentials were constantly abnormal with central type lesions. Magnetic motor evoked potentials were abnormal only in the...

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is the inability to achieve and/or maintain an erection for satisfactory sexual performance. The effects of kidney transplantation on pre-existing ED are poorly understood, as well as the onset of new ED cases after kidney transplantation. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of kidney transplantation on pre-existing E...

We have evaluated cortical excitability in nine patients affected by Wilson's disease (WD) using transcranial magnetic (TMS) and electric (TES) cortical stimulation and central silent period (CSP) data. A clinical score was derived from the sum of scores assigned to extrapyramidal, pyramidal and cerebellar signs. All patients underwent TMS. Motor e...

Friedreich's ataxia (FA) is the most frequent early onset recessive ataxia. Ataxia clinical progression is slow, but the majority of patients is wheelchair-bounded before 30 years of age. Some studies suggested that the peripheral sensory neuropathy was a dynamic process that could explain the clinical worsening. In 1983 an electrophysiological and...

The electrical stimulation of peripheral nerves is one of the commonest ways to study the sensory pathways from the peripheral nerve to the cortex. Such stimulation, however, involves all types of nerve fibres regardless of their specific function. In the past, we devised a technical procedure to record peripheral responses by selectively activatin...

Meissner corpuscles are supposed to play a primary role in generating tactile responses. To verity this hypothesis, we combined electrophysiological and morphological methods. In a group of twelve patients affected by congenital or acquired neuropathies, electrical and tactile evoked potentials were near-nerve recorded along the median nerve. The d...

To verify if GAA expansion size could account for the severity of the central nervous system involvement in Friedreich's ataxia (FA). Retrospective study of 52 FA patients (mean age 26.9+/-12.1 years; mean disease duration 10.6+/-7.6 years) homozygous for GAA expansion. Median nerve somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) were available in 36 FA pa...

We studied orthodromic sensory and motor conduction along median and ulnar nerves in 52 patients suspected for CTS (60 hands) and in 30 control subjects. Patients underwent electrophysiological examination before and up to 24 months after surgical decompression. We evaluated the following electrophysiological tests: 1. sensory nerve conduction velo...

We studied 476 patients affected by diabetes: 166 male (mean age 61.6 ± 10 years, range 27–91) and 310 female (mean age 61.5 ± 8.4 years, range 25–82). Mean disease duration was 11.3 ± 7.6 years, range 0.3–37).All patients underwent surface motor and sensory nerve conduction along median, popliteal, and sural nerve.Results. Median nerve: in 3.1% of...

Objective. To detect central and peripheral nervous system (CNS and PNS) involvement in renal transplant patients after a variable period of hemodialysis. Material. Thirteen patients were enrolled (12 males ,1 female) mean age 42.08 ± 13.17 years; mean period of hemodialysis before renal transplantation (RT) was 50.82 ± 45.81 months. Neurophysiolog...

Clinical involvement of the peripheral nervous system is uncommon in rheumatoid arthritis (RA); the most common disorders are multiple mononeuritis, sensorimotor neuropathy, and entrapment neuropathy. This study was undertaken to investigate the occurrence of electrophysiologically evident peripheral nerve involvement in RA patients without a clini...

This study presents over three hundred cases of surgical decompression of the median nerve in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome (STC), performed trough the period November 1991-April 1998. Aspects such as the following were considered: age, gender, side, occupation, associated pathologies; those concerning the nerve at both the preoperatory and...

A multimodal electrophysiological study was performed on 41 patients from 24 families with autosomal dominant cerebellar ataxia type I (ADCA I). Upper- and lower-limb motor evoked potentials (MEPs) to transcranial magnetic stimulation, median and tibial nerve somatosensory evoked potentials (Mn and Tn-SSEPs), orthodromic sensory (SCV) and motor con...

Motor evoked potentials (MEPs) from abductor pollicis brevis (APB) and tibialis anterior (TA) muscles elicited by transcranial magnetic stimulation of the motor cortex were studied in 15 patients with Alzheimer disease (AD). An abnormally higher MEP threshold in APB, frequently associated with absence of the MEP in relaxed TA muscles, was found in...

The Authors describe a case of compression neuropathy of the ulnar nerve in Guyon's tunnel, caused by a large lipoma. The patient, a 64 years old countrywoman, underwent electrophysiological study both preoperatively and postoperatively, respectively after one, two and ten months. Conduction values were already back to normal at the first postopera...

A multimodal electrophysiological study, including median nerve somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs), motor cortical stimulation (CS) and brainstem evoked potentials (BAEPs), was performed on 34 patients with hereditary ataxias (HAs): 15 with Friedreich's disease (FD), 10 with early onset cerebellar ataxia (EOCA), and 9 with autosomal dominant c...

We report the follow-up of a patient affected by a persistent alien left nondominant hand. CT and MRI showed an ischemic lesion localized to the mesial frontal region and involving the supplementary motor area and anterior fibers of the corpus callosum. These findings support theories suggesting a critical role of both these lesions in determining...

An electrophysiologic and histologic study was performed on 18 patients affected by early onset cerebellar ataxia with retained tendon reflexes (EOCA). Sensory and motor conduction velocity (SCV, MCV) was measured along peripheral nerves in all patients, somatosensory (SSEP) and brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEP) were recorded in 13; corti...

Motor evoked potentials (MEPs) from the arms and legs to transcranial stimulation of the motor cortex and somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) from stimulation of the nerves of the arms and legs, were recorded in 11 patients with hereditary spastic paraplegia. Electrophysiological abnormalities were found to be distributed differently among the...

Short latency somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) to stimulation of the tibial nerve at the ankle and at the knee and motor action potentials (MAPs) recorded from the tibial muscle during transcranial stimulation of the motor cortex were recorded in 21 patients with myelopathy. The electrophysiological results were compared with the clinical ev...

Scalp distribution of somatosensory evoked potentials to left and right median nerve stimulation was studied in a group of patients affected by focal ischemic lesions of the brain. Electrical activity evoked during 100 msec post-stimulus was recorded simultaneously at 8 sites (3 recording points over the hemisphere contralateral and 2 over the pari...