Faculty Bibliography

Research Objectives: This analysis examines barriers affecting participant follow-up in longitudinal studies, specifically the Rusk Rehabilitation Traumatic Brain Injury Model System (TBIMS). While longitudinal designs allow researchers to study clinically-meaningful outcomes, high rates of participant loss to follow-up (LTFU) are a common problem. This study examines possible factors associated with LTFU. Design: Utilized data collected through TBIMS Form I interviews and abstraction from acute and rehabilitation medical records. Setting: Two urban New York City TBIMS hospitals. Participants: Participants (N=135) enrolled in TBIMS between April 2013 and June 2016, primarily male (79.3%), White (40%) or Hispanic (28.9%), English-speaking (67.4%), an average of 48.2 years old (SD = 19.0) and had an average of 14 years of education (SD = 9). Interventions: N/A. Main Outcome Measure(s): Variables from TBIMS Form I (pre-injury, medical record abstraction). Results: Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the demographics, psychosocial variables, injury-related variables, and other jeopardizing factors one year post- injury. The attrition rate was 15.5%. Participants lost to follow-up were more likely to report binge drinking (p< .01) and substance abuse (p< .01). Race was not associated with loss to follow-up (p > .05). Conclusions: Unlike previous studies, results did not demonstrate an association between LTFU and race. This may be due to the homogeneous, less diverse samples commonly found in the literature, leading to biased results. Results also identify substance abuse and binge drinking as risk factors for LTFU. Therefore, physicians should encourage patients to utilize hospital offered substance abuse-related resources. Data collection will be continued to further examine selection bias

Research Objectives: To investigate if Reiki is an effective addition within Occupational Therapy treatment sessions in an acute adult rehabilitation setting. Design: Intervention: Program evaluation. Setting: Urban Acute Rehabilitation Setting, Hospital for Joint Diseases Rusk, New York University, LMC. Participants: Forty-five adult patients (40-85 years old) with orthopedic and/or brain injuries who were seen between June 2014-April 2016. Interventions: Reiki is a 2500 year old treatment used to enhance relaxation in an inpatient/outpatient setting, facilitated by light touch on or above the body. Although the literature seems to be inconclusive about the effectiveness of Reiki, positive reports have been shown. Forty-five patients received Reiki. Of those, three patients received Reiki twice and two patients received Reiki three times. All received 15-20 minutes of Reiki supine or sitting in a wheelchair. Debriefing and support was provided at the end of each session. Main Outcome Measure(s): Quantitative data was collected on anxiety, pain, and mood using a numerical scale of 1-10 immediately before and after the Reiki session. Qualitative data utilizing up to three mood descriptors were obtained pre and post Reiki. Results: Quantitative data showed a positive improvement in levels of pain, anxiety, and mood by 23%, 38%, 38% respectively after the Reiki intervention. Qualitative data showed an increase in customer satisfaction with the offer of mind body medicine techniques like Reiki in the inpatient setting. Conclusions: Quantitative and qualitative data showed improvement in the 3 domains studied. Mood and anxiety levels showed more subjective improvement than pain. These compelling results justify the design of a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) to further explore the benefits of Reiki in this setting

Use of acupuncture to treat multiple sclerosis (MS) is fairly common, but little literature exists which studies its effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on the use of acupuncture to treat MS. A literature search resulted in twelve peer-reviewed articles on the subject that examined the use of acupuncture to treat MS related quality of life (QoL), fatigue, spasticity, and pain. The majority of the studies were poorly designed-without control, randomization, or blinding. Description of the subjects, interventions, and outcome measures as well as statistical analysis was often lacking or minimal. Although many of the studies suggested that acupuncture was successful in improving MS related symptoms, lack of statistical rigor and poor study design make it difficult to draw any conclusions about the true effectiveness of this intervention in the MS population. Further studies with more rigorous designs and analysis are needed before accurate claims can be made as to the effectiveness of acupuncture in this population.

The effect of different water-miscible organic solvents on biocatalytic activities of chloroperoxidase from Caldariomyces fumago and horseradish peroxidase was determined. A new hydrophobicity parameter for water–organic solvent mixtures was used to predict the enzyme behavior. This thermodynamic concept of hydrophobicity also describes the catalytic behavior of three other biocatalysts with peroxidase activity. So far, all reported data of peroxidase activity in increasing concentrations of water-miscible organic solvents are effectively predicted by the thermodynamic model presented in this work