Interactive applications and rhetorical devices for guiding parent-clinician communication through data visualizations

Effective communication between clinicians and parents of young children can decrease parents' anxiety and discomfort, help them handle bad news and uncertainty, and improve their adherence to proposed interventions. Parent-clinician communication further has the potential to facilitate collaboration and increase parents' empowerment. However when communication involves a discussion of the child's developmental delay or challenging behaviors, parents experience an emotional strain as they discuss hopes and fears, developmental concerns, and feelings of distress. As a consequence, communication challenges may emerge such as denial and the parent's resistance against the information that the clinician presents. In addition to the emotional strain, parents also experience a cognitive burden due to medical jargon or presentation of data that is inaccessible to them. In fact, in most health care settings, parents reported their expectation of more accessible information than is currently provided. In order to address these challenges, I present data visualization as a method of facilitating parent-clinician communication. This dissertation covers the cognitive perception and the practical application of data visualization in parent-clinician communication through: (1) rhetorical devices that are used to guide people's understanding of data visualizations, and (2) interactive applications I have built that explore the role of data visualizations in clinical communication. Through exploring cognitive and practical aspects of visualizations in communication, this dissertation makes three contributions. First, I showcase three interactive webtools that involve visualizations, and demonstrate that visualizations can facilitate family-clinician communication through overcoming 1) the emotional barriers by presenting children's behaviors to parents in an objective manner and 2) the cognitive barriers by acting as an anchor for conversation and presenting important developmental concepts or patterns that are hard to convey through words or text. Next, I identify features that make behavioral visualizations useful for various communication based tasks, such as displaying microbehaviors and providing a balanced representation of child-adult interaction, instead of solely focusing on the child behavior. Finally, I present visual and textual cues as rhetorical devices for shaping the message in the visualization and guiding the viewers through visualizations. These devices help reduce confusion and prevent miscommunication in visual-based communication as thus contribute to a more effective parent-clinician communication

7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21)

Information and communication technologies together with new teaching paradigms are reshaping the learning environment.The International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd) aims to become a forum for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, experiences,opinions and research results relating to the preparation of students and the organization of educational systems.Doménech I De Soria, J.; Merello Giménez, P.; Poza Plaza, EDL. (2021). 7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD21.2021.13621EDITORIA

Creatine Supplementation for Health and Clinical Diseases

Creatine plays a critical role in cellular metabolism, primarily by binding with phosphate to form phosphocreatine (PCr) as well as shuttling high-energy phosphate compounds in and out of the mitochondria for metabolism. Increasing the dietary availability of creatine increases the tissue and cellular availability of PCr, and thereby enhances the ability to maintain high-energy states during intense exercise. For this reason, creatine monohydrate has been extensively studied as an ergogenic aid for exercise, training, and sport. Limitations in the ability to synthesize creatine and transport and/or store dietary creatine can impair metabolism and is a contributor to several disease states. Additionally, creatine provides an important source of energy during metabolically stressed states, particularly when oxygen availability is limited. Thus, researchers have assessed the role of creatine supplementation on health throughout the lifespan, as well as whether creatine availability may improve disease management and/or therapeutic outcomes. This book provides a comprehensive overview of scientific and medical evidence related to creatine's role in metabolism, health throughout the lifespan, and our current understanding of how creatine can promote brain, heart, vascular and immune health; reduce the severity of musculoskeletal and brain injury; and may provide therapeutic benefits in glucose management and diabetes, cancer therapy, inflammatory bowel disease, and post-viral fatigue