Spaces and scales of African student activism: Senegalese and Zimbabwean university students at the intersection of campus, nation and globe

African university students have long engaged in political activism, responding to changing political, social and economic circumstances through protest that has at times exerted considerable influence on the national stage. Student activism employs highly spatialised strategies yet has received minimal attention from geographers. Drawing on case studies from Senegal and Zimbabwe, we identify four phases of activism in which students have mobilised distinctive relational spatialities in responding to changes in the spatial expression of dominant political power. In so doing, we highlight the inadequacies of approaches to resistance that give excessive emphasis to a power/resistance dualism or to questions of scale

Preparatory planning framework for Created Out of Mind: Shaping perceptions of dementia through art and science [version 1; referees: 2 approved]

Created Out of Mind is an interdisciplinary project, comprised of individuals from arts, social sciences, music, biomedical sciences, humanities and operational disciplines. Collaboratively we are working to shape perceptions of dementias through the arts and sciences, from a position within the Wellcome Collection. The Collection is a public building, above objects and archives, with a porous relationship between research, museum artefacts, and the public. This pre-planning framework will act as an introduction to Created Out of Mind. The framework explains the rationale and aims of the project, outlines our focus for the project, and explores a number of challenges we have encountered by virtue of working in this way

A personalized, intense physical rehabilitation program improves walking in people with multiple sclerosis presenting with different levels of disability: A retrospective cohort

Copyright © 2015 Kalron et al.Background: People with multiple sclerosis (PwMS) endure walking limitations. To address this restriction, various physical rehabilitation programs have been implemented with no consensus regarding their efficacy. Our objective was to report on the efficacy of an integrated tailored physical rehabilitation program on walking in people with multiple sclerosis categorized according to their level of neurological disability. Methods: Retrospective data were examined and analyzed. Specifically, data obtained from all patients who participated in the Multiple Sclerosis Center's 3 week rehabilitation program were extracted for in depth exploration. The personalized rehabilitation program included three major components modified according to the patient's specific impairments and functional needs: (a) goal directed physical therapy (b) moderately intense aerobic exercise training on a bicycle ergometer and (c) aquatic therapy chiefly oriented to body structures appropriate to movement. Gait outcome measurements included the 10 meter, 20 meter, Timed up and go and 2 minute walking tests measured pre and post the rehabilitation program. Three hundred and twelve people with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis were included in the final analysis. Patients were categorized into mild (n = 87), moderate (n = 104) and severely (n = 121) disabled groups. Results: All clinical walking outcome measurements demonstrated statistically significant improvements, however, only an increase in the 2 minute walking test was above the minimal clinical difference value. The moderate and severe groups considerably improved compared to the mild gait disability group. Mean change scores (%) of the pre-post intervention period of the 2 minute walking test were 19.0 (S.E. = 3.4) in the moderate group, 16.2 (S.E. = 5.4) in the severe group and 10.9 (S.E. = 2.3) in the mild gait disability group. Conclusions: We presented comprehensive evidence verifying the effects of an intense goal-directed physical rehabilitation program on ambulation in people with multiple sclerosis presenting with different neurological impairment levels

Rights in mind: Thinking differently about dementia and disability

The aim of this paper is to argue for the utility of a relational model of disability, as a way of conceptualizing dementia. We explore whether dementia should be considered as a disability, and whether people with dementia might consider themselves as disabled people. We review examples of, and issues raised by, the political activism of people with dementia. We consider how language constructs dementia negatively. We discuss how the environment influences the experience of dementia. In conclusion, we show that a relational model of dementia lays the basis for a human rights approach to the condition, based on collaborative partnerships between people with dementia and people from other disability communities

Applying a multicentre, interdisciplinary approach to strengthen the generalisability of qualitative dementia research: the experience and challenges faced by the MinD project in Europe

Background: Generalisation of findings is an important aspect of research and essential for evidence-based practice. While generalisation is common in quantitative research, there is a lack of generalisability in qualitative research. This paper presents the experience and challenges faced by the Designing for People with Dementia (MinD) project in meeting the requirements to strengthen the generalisation of findings on the lived experience of people living with dementia and their engagement to co-create designs to empower their everyday living. Methods: Polit and Beck (2010)’s strategies to generalise qualitative findings were applied: (1) replication in sampling; (2) replication of studies; (3) meta-synthesis of findings; (4) reflexivity and conceptualization; (5) immersion with the data; and (6) thick description. Results: While it is possible to increase the generabilisabilty of qualitative evidence through the replication of the sampling to attain a large, heterogeneous sample in different and multiple contexts and environments; implementation of sound and robust research; conducting in-depth analysis and interpretation collaboratively for emergent themes; and meeting the thick description requirement, there are challenges that the project team faced in implementing some of the Polit and Beck’s strategies because of the condition, namely dementia, that our participants are having. Other challenges faced were: the language and cultural diversity in the team; diverse work and organisational procedures; and the inter-disciplinary differences relating to the methods of enquiry, approaches and techniques to conduct research. These challenges will need to be identified and addressed at the start of the project with a strong leadership to ensure a seamless journey to complete the project successfully. Trust between the researchers and participants, and time to build this trust are critical to recruitment and participation in the study; these factors are of utmost important in research involving participants with condition such as dementia

Monitoring upper limbs during exoskeleton-assisted gait outdoors

Powered exoskeleton can restore locomotion to spinal cord injury subjects but measuring their impact on the upper limbs is critical, since repeated excessive loads are strongly correlated to chronic pain at shoulder level. This paper presents a novel set of instrumented crutches, able to measure force exerted on the ground during walking sessions, thanks to embedded time-of-flight cameras and force sensors. The force sensors, along with an inertial module, assess the force acting on the upper limbs, while the time-of-flight cameras detects the gait phases looking at the feet position. The aim is to provide an affordable measuring system, without requiring a fully instrumented gait-lab, allowing the user-robot interaction to be measured in a more natural setting, closer to the foreseen working condition. The instrumented crutches are fully independent of any other instrumentation to allow a comparison of different exoskeleton models in terms of upper limb involvement