A COMPARSION OF METHODS TO EXAMINE DOUBLE AND SINGLE LEG DROP JUMP PERFORMANCE

The purpose of this study was to compare the use of both a force platform and Optojump photocell system (Microgate, Bolzano, Italy) to examine double leg and single leg drop jumps. Thirteen physically active individuals performed 5 double leg drop jumps and 5 single leg drop jumps from a height of 0.3 m. Ground contact time (CT), flight height (FH) and reactive strength index (RSI) were calculated concurrently for both jump types. Despite intraclass correlation coefficients for all variables being very close to 1, a significant systematic difference was consistently observed between both devices with the Optojump system overestimating CT and underestimating both FH and RSI for both jump types. Both devices demonstrated excellent test- retest reliability with all ICCs for CT, FH and RSI above 0.940

A nationwide survey of confidence and knowledge of assessment and management oral conditions amongst a sample of physicians, United Kingdom

Objective: This study aimed to assess current confidence and knowledge of oral conditions amongst a sample of UK physicians and doctors in training programmes using a web-based survey. Results: 131 survey responses were analysed for doctors from FY1 to consultant grade working within medical specialties. 36.6% and 35.9% of those surveyed expressed that they felt confident diagnosing and managing oral conditions respectively. The median knowledge score was 60%; 65.6% correctly identified the image that demonstrated a squamous cell carcinoma. 91.6% reported that they felt they needed additional training in the diagnosis and management of oral conditions. Neither confidence nor knowledge were affected by grade, specialty, or region of practice

Increasing frailty is associated with higher prevalence and reduced recognition of delirium in older hospitalised inpatients: results of a multi-centre study

Purpose: Delirium is a neuropsychiatric disorder delineated by an acute change in cognition, attention, and consciousness. It is common, particularly in older adults, but poorly recognised. Frailty is the accumulation of deficits conferring an increased risk of adverse outcomes. We set out to determine how severity of frailty, as measured using the CFS, affected delirium rates, and recognition in hospitalised older people in the United Kingdom. Methods: Adults over 65 years were included in an observational multi-centre audit across UK hospitals, two prospective rounds, and one retrospective note review. Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS), delirium status, and 30-day outcomes were recorded. Results: The overall prevalence of delirium was 16.3% (483). Patients with delirium were more frail than patients without delirium (median CFS 6 vs 4). The risk of delirium was greater with increasing frailty [OR 2.9 (1.8–4.6) in CFS 4 vs 1–3; OR 12.4 (6.2–24.5) in CFS 8 vs 1–3]. Higher CFS was associated with reduced recognition of delirium (OR of 0.7 (0.3–1.9) in CFS 4 compared to 0.2 (0.1–0.7) in CFS 8). These risks were both independent of age and dementia. Conclusion: We have demonstrated an incremental increase in risk of delirium with increasing frailty. This has important clinical implications, suggesting that frailty may provide a more nuanced measure of vulnerability to delirium and poor outcomes. However, the most frail patients are least likely to have their delirium diagnosed and there is a significant lack of research into the underlying pathophysiology of both of these common geriatric syndromes

Autism-Spectrum Traits Predict the Embodiment of Manipulation Knowledge about Object Concepts: Evidence from Eyetracking

Sensorimotor-based theories of cognition predict that even subtle developmental motor differences, such as those found in individuals on the autism spectrum, affect how we represent the meaning of manipulable objects (e.g., faucet). Here, we test 85 participants, who completed the Adult Autism Spectrum Quotient (to measure autism-spectrum characteristics), on a visual world experiment designed to assess conceptual representations of manipulable objects. Participants heard words referring to manually manipulable objects (e.g., faucet) while we recorded their eye movements to arrays of four objects: the named object, a related object typically manipulated similarly (e.g., jar), and two unrelated objects. Consistent with prior work, we observed more looks to the related object than to the unrelated ones (i.e., a manipulation-relatedness effect). This effect has been taken to reflect overlapping conceptual representations of objects sharing manipulation characteristics (e.g., faucet and jar) due to embodied sensorimotor properties being part of their representations. Critically, we observed that as participant-level autism-spectrum characteristics increased, manipulation-relatedness effects became smaller, whereas in control trials that included a shape (instead of manipulation) related object, relatedness effects increased. The results support the hypothesis that differences in object-concept representations on the autism spectrum emerge at least in part via differences in sensorimotor experience

Autism-spectrum traits in neurotypicals predict the embodiment of manipulation knowledge about object concepts: Evidence from eyetracking

Sensorimotor-based theories of cognition predict that even subtle developmental motor differences, such as those characterizing autism spectrum disorder (ASD), impact how we represent the meaning of manipulable objects (e.g., faucet). Here, we test 85 neurotypical participants, who varied widely on the Adult Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), a measure intended to capture variability in ASD characteristics in the general adult population (participant scores were all below the clinical threshold for autism). Participants completed a visual world eyetracking task designed to assess the activation of conceptual representations of manipulable objects. Participants heard words referring to manually manipulable objects (e.g., faucet) while we recorded their eye movements to arrays of four objects: the named object, a related object typically manipulated similarly (e.g., jar), and two unrelated objects. Consistent with prior work, we observed more looks to the related object than to the unrelated ones (i.e., a manipulation-relatedness effect). This effect likely reflects the overlapping conceptual representations of objects sharing manipulation characteristics (e.g., faucet and jar), due to embodied sensorimotor properties being part of their representations. Critically, we observed—among typically developed young adults—that as AQ scores increased, manipulation-relatedness effects decreased. In contrast, in a visual control condition, in which a target object was paired with related objects of a similar shape (e.g., snake and rope), relatedness effects increased with AQ scores. The results show that AQ scores can predict variation in how object-concept representations are activated for typically developed individuals. More speculatively, they are consistent with the hypothesis that in individuals with ASD, differences in object-concept representations emerge at least in part via differences in sensorimotor experience

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