Person to Person in Spain

While still in the midst of their study abroad experiences, students at Linfield College write reflective essays. Their essays address issues of cultural similarity and difference, compare lifestyles, mores, norms, and habits between their host countries and home, and examine changes in perceptions about their host countries and the United States. In this essay, Jessica Nolan describes her observations during her study abroad program at the Center for Cross Cultural Study in Seville, Spain

University of North Dakota Physical Therapy Alumni Preferences for a Transitional Doctorate of Physical Therapy Degree

The purposes of this study are to assess whether University of North Dakota Physical Therapy (UND-PT) graduates desire a transitional Doctorate of Physical Therapy (t-DPT) degree and to determine their preferences regarding this proposed educational program. The survey was sent to 1136 alumni of the UND-PT program spanning from its first graduating class in 1970 to the class of 2002. It consisted of 8 demographic questions and 12 questions regarding areas such as curriculum content, program implementation, and personal views about the Doctorate of Physical Therapy degree. Frequencies for all responses were determined. The respondent data were also analyzed for variation across the demographic groups based on the type of physical therapy degree held, the respondents\u27 American Physical Therapy Association (APT A) membership status, the respondents\u27 primary work position and setting, the number of years of experience, the number of continuing education hours within the past year, and the level of exposure of the DPT degree. Open-ended narrative comments were also analyzed in order to obtain a general idea of alumni\u27s attitudes and feelings toward a t-DPT degree. There were 635 surveys returned for a response rate of 58%. Of these respondents, 67% were female and 32% were male. Eighty-three percent of the respondents are between the ages of 26 and 50. Forty-nine percent held a Master\u27s degree with 9% of respondents earning degrees beyond the MPT level. Fifty-four percent of alumni are currently APTA members. Respondents are employed in 43 of 50 states with a large number (46%) employed in either North Dakota or Minnesota. The majority of alumni are staff physical therapists (62%) working in outpatient/private practice settings (49%) treating mostly the orthopaedic population. Forty percent of respondents are interested in obtaining a t-DPT degree from the University of North Dakota. Respondents indicate online instruction is their preferred mode of delivery (69%). Sixty-one percent of respondents ranked weekend-only classes as their first or second choice. The alumni identify Specialty Physical Therapy, Research/Evidence Based Practice, and Business Management/ Administration as the desired areas of curriculum content. Respondents also indicated family obligations, lack of interest, and time away from work as the potential obstacles preventing them from completing the t-DPT degree. In conjunction with the narrative comments, alumni seem to be unclear about the differences between the t-DPT degree, the advanced clinical doctorate degree, and the clinical specialist certification. The information from this survey will be used by the UND-PT Department to form a t-DPT program which will attempt to correspond with its alumni\u27s needs. Current program content is subject to change and will take into account the results of this scholarly project

Post-stroke lateropulsion and rehabilitation outcomes: A retrospective analysis

Purpose: A person with post-stroke lateropulsion actively pushes themselves toward their hemiplegic side, or resists moving onto their non-hemiplegic side. This study aimed to determine the association of lateropulsion severity with: • Change in function (Functional Independence Measure – FIM) and lateropulsion severity (Four-Point Pusher Score – 4PPS) during inpatient rehabilitation; • Inpatient rehabilitation length of stay (LOS); • Discharge destination from inpatient rehabilitation. Methods: Retrospective data for 1,087 participants (aged ≥65 years) admitted to a stroke rehabilitation unit (2005–2018) were analysed using multivariable regression models. Results: Complete resolution of lateropulsion was seen in 69.4% of those with mild lateropulsion on admission (n = 160), 49.3% of those with moderate lateropulsion (n = 142), and 18.8% of those with severe lateropulsion (n = 181). Average FIM change was lower in those with severe lateropulsion on admission than those with no lateropulsion (p \u3c 0.001). Higher admission 4PPS was associated with reduced FIM efficiency (p \u3c 0.001), longer LOS (p \u3c 0.001), (adjusted mean LOS: 35.6 days for those with severe lateropulsion versus 27.0 days for those without), and reduced likelihood of discharge home (p \u3c 0.001). Conclusion: Post-stroke lateropulsion is associated with reduced functional improvement and likelihood of discharge home. However, given a longer rehabilitation duration, most stroke survivors with moderate to severe lateropulsion can achieve important functional improvement. Implications for Rehabilitation: While people with post-stroke lateropulsion can be difficult to treat and require more resources than those without lateropulsion, the majority of those affected, even in severe cases, can make meaningful recovery with appropriate rehabilitation. Although those with moderate to severe post-stroke lateropulsion may have poorer outcomes (longer LOS and reduced likelihood of discharge home) it is still important to advocate for access to rehabilitation for this patient group to give them the opportunity for optimal functional recovery

PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS OF A SINGLE LEG SQUAT

INTRODUCTION Single leg squat (SLS) is a clinical test that is useful in assessing the biomechanical performance of the lower limb. In particular, SLS may provide indicators of muscle strength and balance of a patient [1]. In order to measure the movements present in the single leg squat, a motion capture system is typically used in conjunction with a set of reflective markers. This use of motion capture enables the study of the kinetics and kinematics of the squat for the chosen sample population. Since the use of motion capture in recording the SLS results in a continuous dataset, it is helpful to compress the data to compare the results. Principal component analysis (PCA) is a technique that may be used to reduce the dimensionality in a given dataset so fewer comparisons need to be made. In addition, by interpreting these principal components, any significant differences found can be related back to the biomechanics of the squat. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to run PCA on the SLS data, and look for kinematic differences between the injured and non-injured populations. A secondary objective is to interpret the principal components to find a meaning for any differences found. METHODS The SLS was performed by 50 subjects with intra-articular knee injuries and 50 healthy controls (age: 21.3±2.9, BMI: 24.4±3.7). Each subject performed 3 trials consisting of 5 squats to approximately 45° knee flexion each.  The data was collected using a motion capture system (Motion Analysis, Santa Rosa, CA) at a sampling frequency of 240 Hz. The 3D motion capture data was imported into MATLAB, and the knee FE angle was computed according to [2]. For each subject, the squat that reached closest to 45° knee flexion was chosen for the PCA. PCA was computed on the knee flexion angles of all subjects with respect to time. The resulting principal components (PCs) represent the variation between subjects accounted for by each time point. The first 3 principal components were selected for further analysis, in order to account for 95% of the total variance in the data. In order to determine the meaning of the selected PCs, patient waveforms corresponding to the highest and lowest 5% of PC scores were compared and interpreted, according to Deluzio [3]. The subject data was reduced to 3 dimensions by plotting the FE angle along the selected PC axes. To study the difference between the injured and non-injured subjects, a student t-test was performed on the PC scores for each of the three components, with p value at 0.05. RESULTS High values along the first PC axis were found to correspond to a leftward shift in the subject waveform. A high second PC was found to correspond to a more gradual FE curve, and a high third PC corresponded to a larger downward slope compared to the upward component. When performing a t-test, the PC 1 values for the non-injured group were found to be statically lower (p < 0.0164) than the injured group. No significant difference was noticed along the PC 2 or PC 3 axes. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS The interpretation of the first PC was taken to be the shift in time of the squat from the average pattern. Based on the results of the t-test, the non-injured group shows a lower PC 1. Based on the interpretation above, the non-injured group appears to spend a larger proportion of the total time in the downward portion of the squat when compared to the non-injured group. This may indicate a deficiency in controlling the flexion descent for subjects suffering from knee injury, which may in turn indicate a possibility for future therapeutic intervention

Doorways do not always cause forgetting: a multimodal investigation

Background: The ‘doorway effect’, or ‘location updating effect’, claims that we tend to forget items of recent significance immediately after crossing a boundary. Previous research suggests that such a forgetting effect occurs both at physical boundaries (e.g., moving from one room to another via a door) and metaphysical boundaries (e.g., imagining traversing a doorway, or even when moving from one desktop window to another on a computer). Here, we aimed to conceptually replicate this effect using virtual and physical environments. / Methods: Across four experiments, we measured participants’ hit and false alarm rates to memory probes for items recently encountered either in the same or previous room. Experiments 1 and 2 used highly immersive virtual reality without and with working memory load (Experiments 1 and 2, respectively). Experiment 3 used passive video watching and Experiment 4 used active real-life movement. Data analysis was conducted using frequentist as well as Bayesian inference statistics. / Results: Across this series of experiments, we observed no significant effect of doorways on forgetting. In Experiment 2, however, signal detection was impaired when participants responded to probes after moving through doorways, such that false alarm rates were increased for mismatched recognition probes. Thus, under working memory load, memory was more susceptible to interference after moving through doorways. / Conclusions: This study presents evidence that is inconsistent with the location updating effect as it has previously been reported. Our findings call into question the generalisability and robustness of this effect to slight paradigm alterations and, indeed, what factors contributed to the effect observed in previous studies

Grid cells are modulated by local head direction

Neurons with grid firing fields are thought to play important roles in spatial cognition. Here, the authors show that in contrast to assumptions underlying current models and analyses, grid fields are modulated by local head direction; this suggests different mechanisms and new roles for grid firing

Coping During the Time of Covid: Mental Health and Changes in Religious Practices

While rituals, particularly religious rituals, have long been the focus of anthropological research, they have only recently become a focus of psychological research. Ritual is defined as 1) predefined sequences of behavior characterized by rigidity, formality, and repetition that are 2) causally opaque, and 3) embedded in a larger system of symbolism and meaning (Hobson et al., 2017; Lawson & McCauley, 1990; Wen et al., 2020). Religious rituals appear to provide three primary regulatory functions for individuals: regulation of emotions, of the performance of goal states, and of social connections (Hobson, et al., 2017). Because of the importance of ritual in emotion regulation, one would expect 1) experiencing an emotional deficit should elicit more ritualistic behavior and 2) enacting rituals should thereby reduce emotional deficits (Hobson, et al., 2017). The current study compared self-reports of anxiety and depression before and during the Covid pandemic with type, frequency, and importance of religious ritual participation. It was hypothesized that, for those for whom religious rituals were an important facet of life, ritual participation would be negatively related to levels of anxiety and depression during the pandemic. Surveys were completed by 122 students at a small, Midwestern liberal arts university. The results indicate that while participation in personal religious behavior such as private prayer and scripture reading did not change during the pandemic, participation in scripted religious rituals did decrease slightly. Both before and during the pandemic individuals rated personal devotional practices such as prayer and scripture reading as more important than participation in personal or corporate religious rituals. Inconsistent with previous research, there was not a relationship between religious belief and behavior with mental health outcomes such as anxiety and depression. Most people who reported an increase in anxiety and depression during the pandemic indicated that at least part of the reason for the increase was their inability to worship in person with others. However, overall depression and anxiety scores were not related to reported increases or decreases in religious ritual participation during the pandemic. Conversely, for those reporting that their anxiety and depression increased at least partly due to the inability to worship publicly with others, changes in depression and anxiety scores were inversely related to continued ritual practices during the pandemic, supporting the hypotheses of this study. Overall, these data indicate a complex relationship among religious ritual participation, personal devotional practices, and mental health outcomes

Ex Vivo Electrochemical Measurement of Glutamate Release During Spinal Cord Injury

Excessive glutamate release following traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) has been associated with exacerbating the extent of SCI. However, the mechanism behind sustained high levels of extracellular glutamate is unclear. Spinal cord segments mounted in a sucrose double gap recording chamber are an established model for traumatic spinal cord injury. We have developed a method to record, with micro-scale printed glutamate biosensors, glutamate release from ex vivo rat spinal cord segments following injury. This protocol would work equally well for similar glutamate biosensors

Cervical Cancer in Women Aged 35 Years and Younger

AbstractPurposeAge has been evaluated as a prognostic factor in cervical cancer in both hospital- and population-based studies. Results regarding the relation of age and cervical cancer prognosis are conflicting. This study pursued a contemporary assessment of the association of extreme young age at the time of a cervical cancer diagnosis on survival.MethodsInstitutional review board approval was obtained, and retrospective data collection at 2 academic institutions was performed. Inclusion criteria involved women ≤35 years diagnosed with cervical cancer between 1990 and 2012. Data included demographic and prognostic information pertinent to survival and progression. Characteristics of very young (≤25 years) and young (>25–35 years) women were compared. Kaplan-Meier estimates, the log-rank test, and Cox proportional hazards modeling were used to assess the association of age, tumor histology, grade, stage, and parametrial involvement with progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS).FindingsIncident cases (n = 126) of cervical cancer in patients ≤35 years of age were identified of which complete clinical information was available for 114 women. Fifteen percent (17 of 114) were ≤25 years, with the remaining 85% (97 of 114) being 26 to 35 years of age. Race, smoking status, and marital status were comparable between the 2 groups. Squamous histology dominated overall (77 of 114; 68%) with adenocarcinoma contributing ~25% (30 of 114; 26%) of cases. The majority (96 of 114, 84%) had either stage 1A (31 of 114, 27%) or 1B (65 of 114, 57%) disease. A log-rank test revealed no evidence to infer a difference in either PFS or OS among the age groups (P = 0.511 and P = 0.340). In a univariate analysis, grade and stage significantly affected OS (P < 0.0001, P = 0.045), and stage significantly affected PFS (P < 0.0001). In multivariate modeling, presence of parametrial involvement and histologic cancer type significantly affected both PFS (P = 0.002, P = 0.001) and OS (P = 0.001, P = 0.001).ImplicationsTumor histology, parametrial involvement, and stage continue to be strong prognosticators for PFS and OS. Progression and survival outcomes are age independent in women with cervical cancer ≤35 years of age. Further study of a larger young cohort may potentially yield different outcomes