The effect of self-awareness on the ability to recognize personal motion

The purpose of this study was to examine the abilities of athletes with specific gait training (i.e., runners) discriminating personal gait from point-light videos were compared to athletes for whom gait is not a trained aspect of the sport (i.e., swimmers), and that of a control. It was hypothesized that runners would discriminate their gait among different individuals with greater accuracy than the other two groups and that runners would also devote more attention to the lower extremities for recognition indications. Results showed that runners group recognized themselves more often than the other two groups (p = .048, η 2 = 0.18), and that runners allotted more visual attention to the lower extremities (p < .05, ηp 2 = 0.16) when viewing the point-light videos than the other groups. The findings were consistent with other investigations with point-light video representations of movement and suggest that experience and training lead to movement self-awareness that is both recognizable and accessible by a performer.The project was supported by a grant from the Research Council at Western Illinois University for the purchase of the Gazepoint eye tracking equipment

Congenital malformations at birth in 7,922 consecutive deliveries at Patan Hospital, Nepal

Introductions: Congenital malformations need to be identified and intervenedearly to save lives and prevent sufferings. Many birth defects have well knownincidence/prevalence rates but these have not been studied thoroughly in thelocal population of Nepal. The current study was undertaken to determine theprevalence of congenital malformation at birth, to classify them systematically,to study risk factors and immediate outcome of the newborn babies afflicted.Methods: This was a cross sectional study. All newly delivered babies wereexamined carefully for congenital malformation and when detected, theparents were interviewed in detail.Results: Over the 10 months of study period 7,922 babies were delivered outof which 90 were stillborn. The number of babies with malformations was 64(0.81%). Polydactyli was observed in 12 (19%) babies whereas cleft lip/palateand malformations of ears in seven (11%) each. Musculoskeletal system wasaffected in 31 (35%) cases and craniofacial in 18 (21%). Nine (14%) mothers had bad obstetric history and eight (13%) had illness/medication during pregnancy.Conclusions: Congenital malformation is a significant cause of morbidity andmortality in Patan hospital. Our findings support many established thoughtslike higher rates in stillbirths but also challenge some age-old beliefs like higherrates in babies born to older mothers.Keywords: adverse outcome, congenital malformation, perinatal mortality, riskfacto

Transfer of Motor Skills: A Comparative Study of College-Level Musicians and Athletes

Background:  The transfer of motor skills is one of the central topics in motor behavior and speaks to the effects of learned motor skills on learning or performing other skills. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the transfer of skillful fine or moderately-fine movements to novel tasks requiring similar movements.  Methods: The study involved 43 undergraduate university students in three groups: university musicians, athletes, and a control cohort.  Two novel motor tasks were performed that required either fine hand movements (pursuit rotor task), or moderately-fine arm movements (underhand dart throw task). Results: For the fine motor task, musicians performed better than the athletes and the control (p0.05).  For the moderately-fine task, the athletes performed better than the other two groups (p<0.05), and in particular, with the dominant arm (p<0.05), as hypothesized. Conclusion: A lack of shared elements between musical instrument playing skills and the novel fine motor task likely contributed to the relatively low levels of performance with the musicians.  Conversely, the presence of more shared elements between sports throwing skills and the novel moderately-fine task likely contributed to greater levels of performance by the athletes

Clinical Mortality Review of COVID-19 Patients at Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital, Nepal; A Retrospective Study

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has challenged the health system worldwide, including the low and middle income countries like Nepal. In view of the rising number of infections and prediction of multiple waves of this disease, mortalities due to COVID-19 need to be critically analyzed so that every possible effort could be made to prevent COVID-19 related mortalities in future. Main aim of this research was to study about the mortalities due to COVID-19 at a tertiary level hospital, in Nepal. This was a retrospective, observational study that included all inpatients from Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital, who were reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction positive for SARS-COV-2 and died during hospital stay from January 2020 till January 2021. Medical records of the patients were evaluated. Out of 860 total admissions in a year, there were 50 mortalities in the study center. Out of 50 mortalities, majority were males (76%) with male to female ratio of 3.17:1. Most were above 65 years of age (72%) and had two or more comorbidities (64%). The most common comorbidities among the patients who had died during hospital stay were hypertension (58%) followed by diabetes mellitus (50%) and chronic obstructive airway disease (24%). The median duration from the symptom onset to death was 18 days, ranged from the minimum of 2 days till maximum of 39 days. D-dimer was found to be &gt;1 mg/L in 58% cases and ferritin was &gt;500 ng/ml in 42% patients at presentation. A total of 42% patients had thrombocytopenia, 80% patients had lymphocytopenia and 60% had Neutrophil to Lymphocyte ratio &gt;11.75 with the mean NLR of 18.38. Of total mortalities, 16% patients also showed microbiological evidence of secondary infection; Male gender, age more than 65 years, multiple comorbidities with lymphocytopenia, elevated Neutrophil lymphocyte ratio and elevated inflammatory markers were risk factors found in majority of mortalities in our study. These findings could be utilized for early triage and risk assessment in COVID-19 patients so that aggressive treatment strategies could be employed at the earliest to reduce mortalities due to COVID-19 in future