GAIT TRAINING WITH AUDITORY RHYTHMS AND INSTRUCTIONS IN CHRONIC STROKE

During walking in healthy adults, characteristic movement patterns between the upper and lower body relate directly to walking velocity. In persons who suffer a stroke, walking velocity decreases as motor deficits appear in both the arm and leg opposite the side of the stroke. Recent findings indicate that treadmill walking to a metronome beat impacts arm motion, however, the effect is dependent on the severity of motor deficits. The changes in arm motion lead to changes that are indicative of improvements in overall walking function. The purpose of this project is to determine the efficacy of over-ground gait training using an external auditory rhythm directed at arm movement versus leg movement on improving movement coordination, walking velocity, and daily physical activity in persons who have suffered a stroke

THE EFFECTS OF VISUAL IMPAIRMENT ON COMPETITION SWIM PERFORMANCE

Several factors contribute to successful swim performance, but how are they affected by impaired vision? The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between degree of visual impairment and performance variables during the 100m freestyle and backstroke events in Paralympic swimmers and to compare the performances with those of Olympic swimmers. A competition video analysis conducted at the 1996 Paralympic Games showed that performance tends to decrease in all aspects of the race with increasing visual impairment. Continued competition race analyses and delivery of results to the coaches will help in strengthening the competition of Paralympic swimming

Effect of team rank and player classification on activity profiles of elite wheelchair rugby players

Effect of team rank and player classification on activity profiles of elite wheelchair rugby player

Part 2: Preparing Entry-Level Occupational and Physical Therapy Students to Promote Healthy Lifestyles Emphasizing Healthy Eating with Individuals with Disabilities

Rehabilitation professionals including occupational therapists (OT) and physical therapists (PT) are increasingly called upon to incorporate health promotion of lifestyle behaviors including physical activity and healthy eating into routine clinical care. While OTs and PTs may be comfortable promoting activity-related behaviors, many are less comfortable with nutrition behaviors. To address entry-level OT and PT students’ perceived discomfort with discussing diet-related behaviors, faculty developed a healthy eating module for students to use during a community-based service learning program. The purpose of this paper is to describe the formative evaluation process of developing the healthy eating module, and to discuss results of a pilot trial of this module. The formative assessment of the healthy eating module consisted of four steps: focus groups with students, key informant interviews with community partners, expert panel round table, and expert panel review of materials. Students (n=117) completed questionnaires at the end of the service learning program to assess how much they used the new resources, and how useful they found the resources. The final healthy eating module consisted of an on-line training session and a healthy eating toolkit, including resources for assessments, treatment activities and additional nutrition information. Mann-Whitney U tests indicated that students who reported high use of materials found the resources significantly more helpful than those students who reported low use (

Part 1: Preparing Entry-Level Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy Students to Promote Health and Wellbeing with Individuals with Disabilities

To address accreditation standards for health and wellbeing within entry-level occupational therapy (OT) and physical therapy (PT) programs, the OT, PT, and Human Studies Departments at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) collaborated with community partners to conduct an interdisciplinary service learning activity based on the I Can Do It, You Can Do It Program (ICDI). This program is a structured community health program where individuals without disabilities are partnered with individuals with disabilities to enhance physical activity, healthy eating, and community participation. The purpose of this paper is to describe a formative evaluation of ICDI at UAB, and to discuss revisions to the program made as a result of the evaluation. Faculty used a qualitative design to collect feedback on perceived benefits and challenges of the program. Focus groups were conducted with students who completed the program, and key informant interviews were conducted with site coordinators from each of the three partnering community sites. Two themes emerged from student focus groups: (1) Program benefits, with sub-themes of hands-on application and interaction, and (2) Challenges with suggestions for change, with sub-themes of preparation, communication, and expectations. Four themes emerged from key informant interviews: (1) Students, (2) Logistics, (3) Program benefits, and (4) Transference. Results of this evaluation led to a number of revisions for the 2016 cohort. Future evaluations will include objective measures of change in student knowledge over time, as well as health and behavioral outcomes of community members who participated in the ICDI program at UAB

Integrating gerontology competencies into graduate nursing programs.

Current demographic and health care utilization trends strongly indicate a rapidly increasing demand for nurses who are well qualified to care for older adults. Advanced practice nurses are positioned to assume leadership roles in geriatric nursing care; however, they must first acquire adequate preparatory education. This article describes two graduate nursing schools’ curricular innovations that were funded by The John A. Hartford Foundation, in collaboration with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), through the Geriatric Nursing Education Project: Enhancing Gerontological/Geriatric Nursing for Advanced Practice Nursing. These programs at University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Pennsylvania State University incorporated techniques to translate the Nurse Practitioner and Clinical Nurse Specialist Competencies for Older Adult Care [American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2004). Nurse practitioner and clinical nurse specialist competencies for older adult care. Washington, DC: AACN] into an advanced practice curriculum and developed strategies to sustain curricular innovations. Finally, lessons learned from these two projects are discussed and recommendations are made for integrating geriatric nursing competencies into graduate programs

Nursing home administrators’ perspectives on a study feedback report : a cross sectional survey

BackgroundThis project is part of the Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) program of research, a multi-level and longitudinal research program being conducted in 36 nursing homes in three Canadian Prairie Provinces. The overall goal of TREC is to improve the quality of care for older persons living in nursing homes and the quality of work life for care providers. The purpose of this paper is to report on development and evaluation of facility annual reports (FARs) from facility administrators&rsquo; perspectives on the usefulness, meaningfulness, and understandability of selected data from the TREC survey. MethodsA cross sectional survey design was used in this study. The feedback reports were developed in collaboration with participating facility administrators. FARs presented results in four contextual areas: workplace culture, feedback processes, job satisfaction, and staff burnout. Six weeks after FARs were mailed to each administrator, we conducted structured telephone interviews with administrators to elicit their evaluation of the FARs. Administrators were also asked if they had taken any actions as a result of the FAR. Descriptive and inferential statistics, as well as content analysis for open-ended questions, were used to summarize findings. ResultsThirty-one facility administrators (representing thirty-two facilities) participated in the interviews. Six administrators had taken action and 18 were planning on taking action as a result of FARs. The majority found the four contextual areas addressed in FAR to be useful, meaningful, and understandable. They liked the comparisons made between data from years one and two and between their facility and other TREC study sites in their province. Twenty-two indicated that they would like to receive information on additional areas such as aggressive behaviours of residents and information sharing. Twenty-four administrators indicated that FARs contained enough information, while eight found FARs &lsquo;too short&rsquo;. Administrators who reported that the FAR contained enough information were more likely to take action within their facilities than administrators who reported that they needed more information. ConclusionsAlthough the FAR was brief, the presentation of the four contextual areas was relevant to the majority of administrators and prompted them to plan or to take action within their facility. <br /

A rare exception to Haldane's rule: are X chromosomes key to hybrid incompatibilities?

This work was funded by NERC (NE/G014906/1, NE/L011255/1, NE/I027800/1). Additional funding from the Orthopterists’ Society to PM is also gratefully acknowledged.The prevalence of Haldane’s rule suggests that sex chromosomes commonly have a key role in reproductive barriers and speciation. However, the majority of research on Haldane’s rule has been conducted in species with conventional sex determination systems (XY and ZW) and exceptions to the rule have been understudied. Here we test the role of X-linked incompatibilities in a rare exception to Haldane’s rule for female sterility in field cricket sister species (Teleogryllus oceanicus and T. commodus). Both have an XO sex determination system. Using three generations of crosses, we introgressed X chromosomes from each species onto different, mixed genomic backgrounds to test predictions about the fertility and viability of each cross type. We predicted that females with two different species X chromosomes would suffer reduced fertility and viability compared with females with two parental X chromosomes. However, we found no strong support for such X-linked incompatibilities. Our results preclude X–X incompatibilities and instead support an interchromosomal epistatic basis to hybrid female sterility. We discuss the broader implications of these findings, principally whether deviations from Haldane’s rule might be more prevalent in species without dimorphic sex chromosomes.PostprintPeer reviewe

Localization of a Guanylyl Cyclase to Chemosensory Cilia Requires the Novel Ciliary MYND Domain Protein DAF-25

In harsh conditions, Caenorhabditis elegans arrests development to enter a non-aging, resistant diapause state called the dauer larva. Olfactory sensation modulates the TGF-β and insulin signaling pathways to control this developmental decision. Four mutant alleles of daf-25 (abnormal DAuer Formation) were isolated from screens for mutants exhibiting constitutive dauer formation and found to be defective in olfaction. The daf-25 dauer phenotype is suppressed by daf-10/IFT122 mutations (which disrupt ciliogenesis), but not by daf-6/PTCHD3 mutations (which prevent environmental exposure of sensory cilia), implying that DAF-25 functions in the cilia themselves. daf-25 encodes the C. elegans ortholog of mammalian Ankmy2, a MYND domain protein of unknown function. Disruption of DAF-25, which localizes to sensory cilia, produces no apparent cilia structure anomalies, as determined by light and electron microscopy. Hinting at its potential function, the dauer phenotype, epistatic order, and expression profile of daf-25 are similar to daf-11, which encodes a cilium-localized guanylyl cyclase. Indeed, we demonstrate that DAF-25 is required for proper DAF-11 ciliary localization. Furthermore, the functional interaction is evolutionarily conserved, as mouse Ankmy2 interacts with guanylyl cyclase GC1 from ciliary photoreceptors. The interaction may be specific because daf-25 mutants have normally-localized OSM-9/TRPV4, TAX-4/CNGA1, CHE-2/IFT80, CHE-11/IFT140, CHE-13/IFT57, BBS-8, OSM-5/IFT88, and XBX-1/D2LIC in the cilia. Intraflagellar transport (IFT) (required to build cilia) is not defective in daf-25 mutants, although the ciliary localization of DAF-25 itself is influenced in che-11 mutants, which are defective in retrograde IFT. In summary, we have discovered a novel ciliary protein that plays an important role in cGMP signaling by localizing a guanylyl cyclase to the sensory organelle