BACKGROUND: Despite the presence of both national and regional clinical practical guidelines (CPGs) in Sweden, no previous studies have investigated the quality of CPGs or the level of agreement between national and regional CPGs.
OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to assess the quality of national CPGs recommending prosthetics and orthotics (P&O) and quantify the agreement between national and regional CPGs in Sweden.
METHODS: Literature Review.
METHODS: National and regional CPGs were identified in public databases and by surveyed local nurse practitioners. Quality of the national guidelines was assessed by using AGREE II. Agreement between recommendations in the national and regional CPGs was quantified on a 4-grade rating scale (\"similar,\" \"partially similar,\" \"not similar/not present,\" and \"different\").
RESULTS: Of 18 national CPGs, 3 CPGs (CPGs of Diabetes, Musculoskeletal disorders, and Stroke) had 9 recommendations related to P&O. The Musculoskeletal disorders and Stroke CPGs had quality scores .60% in all domains, and the Diabetes CPG had scores .60% in 5 of 6 domains according to AGREE II. Seven regional CPGs for P&O treatment were identified. Three national recommendations (in Diabetes CPGs) showed \"similar\" content for all regions, and 2 national recommendations (in Diabetes CPGs) showed \"not similar\" content for all regions. The remaining recommendations (Diabetes, Musculoskeletal disorders, and Stroke CPGs) had varying agreement with regional CPGs.
CONCLUSIONS: There is a limited number of national recommendations for treatment within P&O. There was variation in the agreement of P&O-related recommendations in national and regional CPGs, which might lead to unequal care throughout the national healthcare system.

UNASSIGNED: Low back pain is a considerable global public health problem. Use of back belts in occupational settings arises from the expectation of countless biomechanical benefits, which together would contribute to the prevention of this problem.
UNASSIGNED: To orient students, physicians and health institutions on the use of back belts, lumbar support or braces for prevention of low back pain or injury among asymptomatic workers.
UNASSIGNED: The present guideline was developed based on a systematic literature review; 809 studies were located in database MEDLINE and 571 in EMBASE and Cochrane CENTRAL. Evaluating back-belt use as preventive intervention against low back pain demands quantifying benefits, harms and difficulties to implementation, as well as the methodological quality of primary studies.
UNASSIGNED: Despite the weak benefits reflected in the individual, partial and isolated results of a few studies, there is no consistent evidence for the use of back belts, lumbar supports or braces for primary prevention of low back pain or occupational low back injury among workers. According to the available evidence, back-belt use is not associated with reduction of absenteeism.
UNASSIGNED: Lombalgia é um problema internacional importante de saúde pública. O uso de cinta lombar no meio ocupacional emerge da expectativa de inúmeros benefícios bio-mecânicos que, em conjunto, promoveriam a prevenção desse problema.
UNASSIGNED: Orientar estudantes, médicos e estabelecimentos de saúde sobre o uso de cinta lombar, suporte ou órtese lombar como prevenção da lombalgia ou de lesões lombares em trabalhadores sem sintomatologia atual.
UNASSIGNED: Ela foi desenvolvida a partir da revisão sistemática da literatura: da base de dados MEDLINE, foram recuperados 809 trabalhos e das bases EMBASE e Central Cochrane, 571. Avaliar a cinta lombar como intervenção preventiva de lombalgia envolve a quantificação de benefícios, malefícios e facilidade de sua implementação, assim como a qualidade metodológica dos estudos primários.
UNASSIGNED: Apesar do benefício demonstrado fracamente em resultados individuais, parciais e isolados em poucos estudos, não há evidência consistente que sustente a utilização de cinta lombar, suporte ou órtese lombar na prevenção primária da lombalgia ou de lesões lombares ocupacionais em trabalhadores. As evidências, agrupadas, apontam para ausência de redução de absenteísmo com o uso da cinta lombar.

The objective of this review was to systematically evaluate the available literature addressing the use of orthoses (splints and casts) with adult and pediatric burn survivors and determine whether practice guidelines could be proposed. This review provides evidence-based recommendations specifically for rehabilitation professionals who are responsible for burn survivor rehabilitation. A summary recommendation was made after the literature was retrieved using a systematic review and critical appraisal by multiple authors. The level of evidence of the literature was determined in accordance with the Oxford Centre for Evidence-based Medicine criteria. Due to the low level of evidence in the available literature, only one practice guideline could be recommended: orthotic use should be considered as a treatment choice for improving range of motion or reducing contracture in adults who have sustained a burn injury. To address the rehabilitation-specific gaps found in the literature regarding orthotic use in burn rehabilitation and provide guidance to clinicians, a formal expert consensus exercise was conducted as a final step to the project. The resultant manuscript provides a summary of the literature regarding orthotic use with burn patients, one practice guideline, proposed orthotic terminology and additional practice recommendations based on expert opinion. The limitations in the current literature are also discussed, and suggestions are made for future studies in the area of orthotic use after burn injury.

Traumatic spinal cord injury is a relatively rare injury in Denmark but may result in serious neurological consequences. For decades, prehospital spinal stabilisation with a rigid cervical collar and a hard backboard has been considered to be the most appropriate procedure to prevent secondary spinal cord injuries during patient transportation. However, the procedure has been questioned in recent years, due to the lack of high-quality studies supporting its efficacy. A national interdisciplinary task force was therefore established to provide updated clinical guidelines on prehospital procedures for spinal stabilisation of adult trauma patients in Denmark. The guidelines are based on a systematic review of the literature and grading of the evidence, in addition to a standardised consensus process.This process yielded five main recommendations:A strong recommendation against spinal stabilisation of patients with isolated penetrating trauma; a weak recommendation against the prehospital use of a rigid cervical collar and a hard backboard for ABCDE-stable patients; and a weak recommendation for the use of a vacuum mattress for patient transportation. Finally, our group recommends the use of our clinical algorithm to ensure good clinical practice.

UNASSIGNED: High-quality clinical practice guidelines are necessary for effective use of resources both at an individual patient- and national-level. Nordic clinical practice guidelines recommendations for orthotic treatment of knee osteoarthritis vary and little is known about their quality.
UNASSIGNED: The aim of the study was to critically evaluate the quality of clinical practice guidelines in orthotic management of knee osteoarthritis in the Nordic countries.
UNASSIGNED: Systematic review.
UNASSIGNED: Four national clinical practice guidelines for treatment of knee osteoarthritis were assessed for methodological rigour and transparency by four independent assessors using the AGREE II instrument. Summary domain scores and inter-rater agreement (Kendall\'s W) were calculated.
UNASSIGNED: Domain scores indicate that many guidelines have not sufficiently addressed stakeholder involvement (average score: 55%), applicability (20%) and editorial independence (33%) in the development process. Inter-rater agreement for assessors indicated \'good\' agreement for clinical practice guidelines from Finland, Norway and Sweden (W = 0.653, p < 0.001; W = 0.512, p = 0.003 and W = 0.532, p = 0.002, respectively) and \'strong\' agreement for the clinical practice guideline from Denmark (W = 0.800, p < 0.001).
UNASSIGNED: Quality of clinical practice guidelines for orthotic treatment of knee osteoarthritis in the Nordic region is variable. Future guideline development should focus on improving methodology by involving relevant stakeholders (e.g. certified prosthetist/orthotists (CPOs)), specifying conflicts of interest and providing guidance for implementation.
CONCLUSIONS: The current review suggests that, for the Nordic region, there are areas of improvement which can be addressed, which ensure clinical practice guidelines are developed under stringent conditions and based on sound methods. These improvements would ensure knee osteoarthritis patients are receiving orthotic interventions based on appropriate guidance from published guidelines.

OBJECTIVE: Standards and guidelines are an integral part of prosthetic and orthotic service delivery in the developed world underpinned by an assumption that they lead to improved services. Implementing them has a cost, however, and that cost needs to be justified, particularly in resource-limited environments. This scoping review thus asks the question, \"What is the evidence of the impact of standards and guidelines on service delivery outcomes in prosthetics and orthotics?\"
METHODS: A structured search of three electronic databases (Medline, Scopus and Web of Science) followed by manual searching of title, abstract and full text, yielded 29 articles.
RESULTS: Four categories of papers were identified: Descriptions and Commentaries (17 papers), Guideline Development (7), Guideline Testing (2) and Standards implementation (3). No articles were explicitly designed to assess the impact of standards and guidelines on service delivery outcomes in prosthetics and orthotics.
CONCLUSIONS: Studies tended to be commentaries on or descriptions of guideline development, testing or implementation of standards. The literature is not sufficiently well developed to warrant the cost and effort of a systematic review. Future primary research should seek to demonstrate whether and how guidelines and standards improve the outcomes for people that require prostheses, orthoses and other assistive devices. Implications for Rehabilitation International Standards and Clinical Guidelines are now an integral part of clinical service provision in prosthetics and orthotics in the developed world. Complying with standards and guidelines has a cost and, particularly in resource-limited environments, it should be possible to justify this in terms of the resulting benefits. This scoping review concludes that there have been no previous studies designed to directly quantify the effects of implementing standards and guidelines on service delivery.

BACKGROUND: No evidence-based guidelines exist on the role of cranial-molding orthosis (helmet) therapy for patients with positional plagiocephaly.
OBJECTIVE: To address the clinical question: \"Does helmet therapy provide effective treatment for positional plagiocephaly?\" and to make treatment recommendations based on the available evidence.
METHODS: The US National Library of Medicine Medline database and the Cochrane Library were queried by using MeSH headings and key words relevant to the objective of this systematic review. Abstracts were reviewed, after which studies meeting the inclusion criteria were selected and graded according to their quality of evidence (Classes I-III). Evidentiary tables were constructed that summarized pertinent study results, and, based on the quality of the literature, recommendations were made (Levels I-III).
RESULTS: Fifteen articles met criteria for inclusion into the evidence tables. There was 1 prospective randomized controlled trial (Class II), 5 prospective comparative studies (Class II), and 9 retrospective comparative studies (Class II).
CONCLUSIONS: There is a fairly substantive body of nonrandomized evidence that demonstrates more significant and faster improvement of cranial shape in infants with positional plagiocephaly treated with a helmet in comparison with conservative therapy, especially if the deformity is severe, provided that helmet therapy is applied during the appropriate period of infancy. Specific criteria regarding the measurement and quantification of deformity and the most appropriate time window in infancy for treatment of positional plagiocephaly with a helmet remains elusive. In general, infants with a more severe presenting deformity and infants who are helmeted early in infancy tend to have more significant correction (and even normalization) of head shape. The full guidelines document can be located at https://www.cns.org/guidelines/guidelines-management-patients-positional-plagiocephaly/Chapter_5.

BACKGROUND: No evidence-based guidelines exist on the role of cranial-molding orthosis (helmet) therapy for patients with positional plagiocephaly.
OBJECTIVE: To address the clinical question: \"Does helmet therapy provide effective treatment for positional plagiocephaly?\" and to make treatment recommendations based on the available evidence.
METHODS: The US National Library of Medicine Medline database and the Cochrane Library were queried by using MeSH headings and key words relevant to the objective of this systematic review. Abstracts were reviewed, after which studies meeting the inclusion criteria were selected and graded according to their quality of evidence (Classes I-III). Evidentiary tables were constructed that summarized pertinent study results, and, based on the quality of the literature, recommendations were made (Levels I-III).
RESULTS: Fifteen articles met criteria for inclusion into the evidence tables. There was 1 prospective randomized controlled trial (Class II), 5 prospective comparative studies (Class II), and 9 retrospective comparative studies (Class II).
CONCLUSIONS: There is a fairly substantive body of nonrandomized evidence that demonstrates more significant and faster improvement of cranial shape in infants with positional plagiocephaly treated with a helmet in comparison with conservative therapy, especially if the deformity is severe, provided that helmet therapy is applied during the appropriate period of infancy. Specific criteria regarding the measurement and quantification of deformity and the most appropriate time window in infancy for treatment of positional plagiocephaly with a helmet remains elusive. In general, infants with a more severe presenting deformity and infants who are helmeted early in infancy tend to have more significant correction (and even normalization) of head shape. The full guidelines document can be located at https://www.cns.org/guidelines/guidelines-management-patients-positional-plagiocephaly/Chapter_5.

We aimed to prepare guidelines for the management of diabetic ulcer/gangrene with emphasis on the diagnosis and treatment of skin symptoms. They serve as a tool to improve the quality of the diagnosis and treatment in each patient and, further, to improve the level of the care for diabetic ulcer in Japan by systematically presenting evidence-based recommendations for clinical judgments by incorporating various viewpoints.

OBJECTIVE: This article establishes needed guidelines for determining orthotic prescriber authority, documenting medical necessity, and ensuring continuity of care for patients needing orthoses. It also identifies \"off-the-shelf\" (OTS) devices that can safely and appropriately be delivered to patients without professional adjustment as well as those that cannot.
METHODS: A multidisciplinary task force made up of experts in orthopedics and physical medicine physicians, along with therapists and certified orthotists, applied a consensus approach to answer key questions: (i) When can a device be safely, effectively delivered to the patient OTS without professional guidance or education, and which caregivers have a role in that decision? (ii) What documentation is appropriate for physicians and other caregivers to determine medical necessity? (iii) What documentation/communication ensures continuity of care among physicians, therapists, and orthotists?
RESULTS: Guidelines developed for consideration of OTS orthoses include accepting documentation from collaborating caregivers, including therapists and orthotists; keeping that documentation as part of the patient\'s total medical record for clinical, medical necessity determinations and reimbursement purposes; and using the physician\'s prescription for the device as the key determinant of whether a device is delivered OTS or as a custom-fitted device.
CONCLUSIONS: This review provides expert guidance for patient safety, minimizing wasted expenditures, maximizing clinical outcomes, and providing efficient delivery of care for Medicare and other patients. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services guidelines should be directed toward recognizing the level of expertise of the orthotist, the value of their patient encounters, and their role in facilitating the timely, safe, and effective use of orthotic devices.