Hospital-Based Rehabilitation of Patients Who Had Undergone an Open Reduction and Internal Fixation of the Ribs Due to a Flail Chest: Case Series
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript is a brief report entitled "Hospital-based rehabilitation of patients who had undergone an open reduction and internal fixation of the ribs (ORIF) due to a flail chest: case series". The article is of real and important interest for the management of patients after an ORIF procedure.
Comments:
1- The author should present the characteristics of the sample in the Materials and Methods section, 2.3 (line 65)
2- 2.4. Rehabilitation protocol:
a. Line 69: the author should develop and explain the algorithm: "All patients received treatment according to the algorithm developed by the depart".
b. The author could specify what is the duration of the hospitalization?
c. The author could also specify what the daily treatment time was? What was the total rehabilitation time?
3- Could the author quantify the intensive rehabilitation program?
4- Results: it would be interesting to describe the results more precisely with a table.
Author Response
This manuscript is a brief report entitled "Hospital-based rehabilitation of patients who had undergone an open reduction and internal fixation of the ribs (ORIF) due to a flail chest: case series". The article is of real and important interest for the management of patients after an ORIF procedure.
Reply: We wish to thank the reviewer for finding our paper interesting.
Comments:
1- The author should present the characteristics of the sample in the Materials and Methods section, 2.3 (line 65)
Reply: We added information on the patients. Information on patients' characteristics can be found in the results section.
2- 2.4. Rehabilitation protocol:
- Line 69: the author should develop and explain the algorithm: "All patients received treatment according to the algorithm developed by the depart".
Reply: Shortly, the rehabilitation protocol (that includes seven principal components) is described in the paper in “rehabilitation protocol” section. We changed the word “algorithm” to “protocol” to make it clearer.
- The author could specify what is the duration of the hospitalization?
Reply: The mean length of rehabilitation is provided in the results section. To make it clearer, we changed the term the length of hospitalization to the more acceptable “length of stay”
- The author could also specify what the daily treatment time was? What was the total rehabilitation time?
Reply: We added the following information: The multidisciplinary program of intensive rehabilitation (five days a week) included three hours of physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and psychological intervention. Physical therapy and individual exercises were the main part of the program and lasted about 1.5 hours a day (P.2).
3- Could the author quantify the intensive rehabilitation program?
Reply: Please see the previous answer.
4- Results: it would be interesting to describe the results more precisely with a table.
Reply: Because the sample of this case series was small (seven subjects), we feel that presenting the data in the form of a table is not provide any additional information. If the reviewer finds it essential, we are ready to add such a table.
Reviewer 2 Report
Introduction:
- Epidemiological data should appear: incidence....
Material and methods:
- Define the sample adequately, explaining how it is calculated.
- The action protocol must be explained in detail: number of sessions, techniques used, etc.
Discussion:
- Compare with existing studies.
Include bibliographical references in the text.
Author Response
Introduction:
- Epidemiological data should appear: incidence....
Reply: We added the requested information to the Introduction section (p.1).
Material and methods:
- Define the sample adequately, explaining how it is calculated.
Reply: This is a case series. We retrospectively described all seven subjects that were hospitalized in the rehabilitation department between 2018 to 2020. We are aware that the sample is small, but because of the subject, we find it important to publish this data. We believe that this will serve as a basis for further research of post -ORIF patients' rehabilitation.
- The action protocol must be explained in detail: number of sessions, techniques used, etc.
Reply: We added information to the rehabilitation protocol description (P. 4).
Discussion:
- Compare with existing studies.
Reply: Unfortunately, we found no papers on the rehabilitation of post -ORIF flail chest patients, except the ones already mentioned in this paper.
Include bibliographical references in the text.
Reply: We added the requested references to the Discussion section (p.3).
