Cognitive motor interference for gait and balance in stroke: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: An increasing interest in the potential benefits of cognitive motor interference (CMI) for stroke has recently been observed, but the efficacy of CMI for gait and balance is controversial. A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials was performed to estimate the effect of CMI on gait and balance in patients with stroke. METHODS: Articles in Medline, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, CINAHL, PEDro and the China Biology Medicine disc were searched from 1970 to July 2014. Only randomized controlled trials examining the effects of CMI for patients with stroke were included, and no language restrictions were applied. Main outcome measures included gait and balance function. RESULTS: A total of 15 studies composed of 395 participants met the inclusion criteria, and 13 studies of 363 participants were used as data sources for the meta-analysis. Pooling revealed that CMI was superior to the control group for gait speed [mean difference (MD) 0.19 m/s, 95% confidence interval (CI) (0.06, 0.31), P = 0.003], stride length [MD 12.53 cm, 95% CI (4.07, 20.99), P = 0.004], cadence [MD 10.44 steps/min, 95% CI (4.17, 16.71), P = 0.001], centre of pressure sway area [MD −1.05, 95% CI (−1.85, −0.26), P = 0.01] and Berg balance scale [MD 2.87, 95% CI (0.54, 5.21), P = 0.02] in the short term. CONCLUSION: Cognitive motor interference is effective for improving gait and balance function for stroke in the short term. However, only little evidence supports assumptions regarding CMI's long-term benefits

Low-temperature processed tantalum/niobium co-doped TiO₂ electron transport layer for high-performance planar perovskite solar cells

Abstract A low-temperature preparation process is significantly important for scalable and flexible devices. However, the serious interface defects between the normally used titanium dioxide (TiO2) electron transport layer (ETL) obtained via a low-temperature method and perovskite suppress the further improvement of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Here, we develop a facile low-temperature chemical bath method to prepare a TiO2 ETL with tantalum (Ta) and niobium (Nb) co-doping. Systematic investigations indicate that Ta/Nb co-doping could increase the conduction band level of TiO2 and could decrease the trap-state density, boosting electron injection efficiency and reducing the charge recombination between the perovskite/ETL interface. A superior power conversion efficiency of 19.44% can be achieved by a planar PSC with a Ta/Nb co-doped TiO2 ETL, which is much higher than that of pristine TiO2 (17.60%). Our achievements in this work provide new insights on low-temperature fabrication of low-cost and highly efficient PSCs.</jats:p