Evaluation of a Student Experiential Learning Clinic for Hand Therapy Using a Logic Model

Student clinics (SC) provide experiential learning opportunities in occupational therapy (OT) education that develop clinical reasoning, while providing much needed rehabilitation to under and un-insured patients in the community. The Student Experiential Learning Clinic for Hand Therapy (SELC-HT) is a SC that used a logic model for planning, implementing, and evaluating the SELC-HT. The purpose of this study is to report on outcome data on students and patients, as outlined in the evaluation phase of the logic model. The 13 OT master/doctorate students, who delivered care in the SELC-HT, demonstrated growth in self-reported hand therapy knowledge (p=0.002) measured with the Hand Therapy Certification Commission Self-Assessment Tool. Nine of the 12 students responding to alumni survey were employed in hand therapy positions shortly after graduation. Five students authored six manuscripts published in peer-reviewed journals or practice journals about their work in the SELC-HT. Of the 57 patients with baseline data, fractures were the most common diagnosis, and most patients were Black and males. One-third of injuries were due to violence, primarily gunshot wounds. At discharge (n=25) mean disability, measured with the Disability Arm Shoulder Hand, decreased 14.8 points (p=.001), which exceeds minimal clinical difference of 10.83. Statistically significant improvements in work disability (n=18) and work ability (n=21) also occurred. Most importantly, five patients who were not able to work at baseline had returned to work at discharge. These positive student and patient outcomes are due in part to the systematic planning and implementation of procedures defined in the SELC-HT logic model

From competition to collaboration: Unraveling teachers’ lesson study experiences

Lesson study is a professional development program among teachers. It reciprocates teachers’ development to students’ outcomes. It is also an act of leveraging classroom practices, enriching teachers’ content knowledge, and process skills and beliefs. This study explored the experiences of a group of science secondary school teachers that implemented the lesson study in their classes. Qualitative data were gathered from the informants’ interview during the implementation of the lesson study. Data were processed through document trail among the informants to ascertain the veracity of the transcribed responses, reflections, and observations. Thematic analysis revealed five themes on the experiences of the teachers in implementing the Lesson Study: developing a culture of oneness, crafting teachers’ competence through synergism, boosting teachers’ morale and confidence, refining the quality of the research lesson, and scheming avenues for critical thinking. It is, therefore, suggested that lesson study be implemented by all teachers across all subject-areas in the division and introduced among pre-service teachers to further discover its efficacy towards teachers’ development and students’ outcomes. Furthermore, it is strongly suggested that knowledgeable others be involved in the implementation of the lesson study as their presence were found significant in ensuring its success as most of the teachers are not specialized in the field that they are teaching

Communion to Community Building: A study of the opportunities of community capitals after religious facilities are adaptively reused

Master of Regional and Community PlanningDepartment of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community PlanningMajor Professor Not ListedReligious groups and their places of worship have played important roles in community development throughout history, specifically regarding social, cultural, human, and built capital in their communities. Today, more religious facilities are becoming vacant and presenting opportunities for adaptive reuse than ever before. Factors like white flight (Woldoff, 2011), smaller congregation sizes (Simons, et. al., 2017), fewer religious leaders and church consolidations after COVID-19 (Cullotta, 2021; Lovett, 2022), and migration of religious groups to the suburbs (Conzen, 2005) has resulted in the increase of vacant religious facilities in cities. Consequently, many places across the U.S. are tasked with figuring out how to address these large vacant spaces that are harder to fill and to transform when many residents still consider them sacred. In Chicago, religious facilities are adaptively reused into a variety of new uses, but more recently are skewing towards residential. This has sparked the debate among community members about highest and best use for former religious facilities that continues today (Gunderson, 2019). Some residents and professionals argue that the adaptively reused religious facilities should have community uses, such as community arts centers, to preserve the important roles that institutional uses played in communities in the past. Others argue that communities benefit greatly also when the religious facilities are adaptively reused into a non-community use, such as residential, so the new use should be whatever is economically feasible and has a demand. For a planner, it is important to maximize health, safety, and economic wellbeing of everyone living in a community as it grows and changes, and that includes encouraging the uses that build stronger communities with the greatest opportunities for community capitals. In this report, multiple cases are studied to discuss the similarities and differences in opportunities for social, cultural, human, and built capital after religious facilities were adaptively reused in Chicago. In order to provide a more holistic perspective to this research, background on the social and economic changes over the last thirty years in Chicago was included. Though the socio-economic background does not pinpoint the exact causes why religious facilities became vacant and the specific new uses were chosen for those buildings, it does enrich the understanding of what factors may influence these projects and who might be impacted by them. Overall, this investigation of the opportunities for community capitals through the focus of adaptively reused religious facilities shows how new community and non-community uses have impacted their surrounding community areas

A brain-computer interface integrated with virtual reality and robotic exoskeletons for enhanced visual and kinaesthetic stimuli

Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) allow the direct control of robotic devices for neurorehabilitation and measure brain activity patterns following the user’s intent. In the past two decades, the use of non-invasive techniques such as electroencephalography and motor imagery in BCI has gained traction. However, many of the mechanisms that drive the proficiency of humans in eliciting discernible signals for BCI remains unestablished. The main objective of this thesis is to explore and assess what improvements can be made for an integrated BCI-robotic system for hand rehabilitation. Chapter 2 presents a systematic review of BCI-hand robot systems developed from 2010 to late 2019 in terms of their technical and clinical reports. Around 30 studies were identified as eligible for review and among these, 19 were still in their prototype or pre-clinical stages of development. A degree of inferiority was observed from these systems in providing the necessary visual and kinaesthetic stimuli during motor imagery BCI training. Chapter 3 discusses the theoretical background to arrive at a hypothesis that an enhanced visual and kinaesthetic stimulus, through a virtual reality (VR) game environment and a robotic hand exoskeleton, will improve motor imagery BCI performance in terms of online classification accuracy, class prediction probabilities, and electroencephalography signals. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on designing, developing, integrating, and testing a BCI-VR-robot prototype to address the research aims. Chapter 6 tests the hypothesis by performing a motor imagery BCI paradigm self-experiment with an enhanced visual and kinaesthetic stimulus against a control. A significant increase (p = 0.0422) in classification accuracies is reported among groups with enhanced visual stimulus through VR versus those without. Six out of eight sessions among the VR groups have a median of class probability values exceeding a pre-set threshold value of 0.6. Finally, the thesis concludes in Chapter 7 with a general discussion on how these findings could suggest the role of new and emerging technologies such as VR and robotics in advancing BCI-robotic systems and how the contributions of this work may help improve the usability and accessibility of such systems, not only in rehabilitation but also in skills learning and education

MUTAGENICITY OF AMORPHOPHALLUS PAEONIIFOLIUS CORM AQUEOUS EXTRACTS USING ALLIUM TOXICITY ASSAY

Amorphophallus  paeoniifolius or Elephant Foot yam is widely used in folk medicine for acute rheumatism, tumors, lung swelling, asthma, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Even though this plant is currently utilized as herbal medicine in some parts of the world, its toxicity studies are not yet established.  This study investigated the toxicity of A. paeoniifolius corm extracts to Allium cepa chromosomes. Results showed that as the corm concentration increases, the number of root germination of the A. cepa decreases [control (4.33), 2% (2.67), 4% (2.33), and 8% (1.00). Interestingly, the mitotic index also decreased – control (34.61%), 2% (20.75%), and 4% (11.08%), while the chromosomal aberrations increased – control (12.03%), 2% (21.08%), and 4% (59.68%). Prominent chromosomal aberrations that were observed in treated samples were laggards, vagrant chromosomes, bridge with fragments, sticky chromosomes, disoriented chromosomes and chromosomal breakage. To our knowledge,  this is the first evidence of the mutagenicity and root growth inhibition of A. paeoniifolius corm extracts to A. cepa. &nbsp

Brain-Computer Interface Robotics for Hand Rehabilitation After Stroke: A Systematic Review

Background Hand rehabilitation is core to helping stroke survivors regain activities of daily living. Recent studies have suggested that the use of electroencephalography-based brain-computer interfaces (BCI) can promote this process. Here, we report the first systematic examination of the literature on the use of BCI-robot systems for the rehabilitation of fine motor skills associated with hand movement and profile these systems from a technical and clinical perspective. Methods A search for January 2010–October 2019 articles using Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, PEDro, PsycINFO, IEEE Xplore and Cochrane Library databases was performed. The selection criteria included BCI-hand robotic systems for rehabilitation at different stages of development involving tests on healthy participants or people who have had a stroke. Data fields include those related to study design, participant characteristics, technical specifications of the system, and clinical outcome measures. Results 30 studies were identified as eligible for qualitative review and among these, 11 studies involved testing a BCI-hand robot on chronic and subacute stroke patients. Statistically significant improvements in motor assessment scores relative to controls were observed for three BCI-hand robot interventions. The degree of robot control for the majority of studies was limited to triggering the device to perform grasping or pinching movements using motor imagery. Most employed a combination of kinaesthetic and visual response via the robotic device and display screen, respectively, to match feedback to motor imagery. Conclusion 19 out of 30 studies on BCI-robotic systems for hand rehabilitation report systems at prototype or pre-clinical stages of development. We identified large heterogeneity in reporting and emphasise the need to develop a standard protocol for assessing technical and clinical outcomes so that the necessary evidence base on efficiency and efficacy can be developed

The Effect of Skinfold on the Assessment of the Mean Power Frequency at the Fatigue Threshold

International Journal of Exercise Science 9(4): 376-383, 2016. The purpose of this study was to determine if the amount of subcutaneous tissue over the quadriceps affects the assessment of mean power frequency at the fatigue threshold (MPFFT). It was hypothesized that greater skinfold values will result in lower power outputs associated to the MPFFT. Fourteen adults (Mean ± SD age = 20.7 ± 0.99; body weight = 72.8 ± 12.6 kg) performed an incremental cycle ergometry test to exhaustion while surface electromyographic (EMG) signals were measured from the vastus lateralis. The skinfold thickness of each leg was taken prior to the test, and skinfold thicknesses were separated into a larger and a smaller groups. The independent t-test showed a significant difference (p = 0.01) between the power outputs associated to the MPFFT of groups with high (Mean ± SD 130.4 ± 34.5 W) versus low skinfold (212.5 ± 61.2 W) values. The results suggested that higher subcutaneous fat may have affected the assessment of MPFFT during cycle ergometry

Evaluating brain modularity benefits of an acting intervention: a discriminant-analysis framework

PurposeAging is associated with a reduction in brain modularity as well as aspects of executive function, namely, updating, shifting, and inhibition. Previous research has suggested that the aging brain exhibits plasticity. Further, it has been hypothesized that broad-based intervention models may be more effective in eliciting overall gains in executive function than interventions targeted at specific executive skills (e.g., computer-based training). To this end, we designed a 4-week theater-based acting intervention in older adults within an RCT framework. We hypothesized that older adults would show improvements in brain modularity and aspects of executive function, ascribed to the acting intervention.Materials and methodsThe participants were 179 adults from the community, aged 60–89 years and on average, college educated. They completed a battery of executive function tasks and resting state functional MRI scans to measure brain network modularity pre- and post-intervention. Participants in the active intervention group (n = 93) enacted scenes with a partner that involved executive function, whereas the active control group (n = 86) learned about the history and styles of acting. Both groups met two times/week for 75-min for 4 weeks. A mixed model was used to evaluate intervention effects related to brain modularity. Discriminant-analysis was used to determine the role of seven executive functioning tasks in discriminating the two groups. These tasks indexed subdomains of updating, switching, and inhibition. Discriminant tasks were subject to a logistic regression analysis to determine how post-intervention executive function performance interacted with changes in modularity to predict group membership.ResultsWe noted an increase in brain modularity in the acting group, relative to pre-intervention and controls. Performance on updating tasks were representative of the intervention group. However, post-intervention performance on updating did not interact with the observed increase in brain modularity to distinguish groups.ConclusionAn acting intervention can facilitate improvements in modularity and updating, both of which are sensitive to aging and may confer benefits to daily functioning and the ability to learn