Hi Jen

I know this isn't answering your question, and I am not having a go at you personally. However this issue seems to arise quite a bit and it concerns me:

of applying some preliminary evidence about core stability muscles from one area of physiotherapy and making some giant blindfolded leap into applying core stability training to the neurological patient.

The "core stability" literature centres around muscles such as Transverse abdominus and multifidus in low back pain and lumbar instability. There has also been some work into an analogue for neck pain and neck-related headache (deep neck flexors), and some consider the VMO a similar issue in the patello femoral joint problem. However to my knowledge there is not one study that looks at the core stability of muscles in relation to neurological disease or disability.

However I have seen this core stability approach being blindly applied to patients with balance disorders and cerebellar ataxia - without a shred of evidence that this is the underlying motor control problem these patients have or that they are helped by core stability training. This is really bad science. And it trivialises what we do understand about the balance and mobility.

If you or another reader knows of even one clinical trial that provides evidence for this approach with a neurological patient group I would love to be informed.