Not-so-minor injuries: delayed diagnosis of a large splinter

Introduction: In contrast with victims of major trauma, patients who suffer minor injuries receive little specialist input. In most cases, this causes no difficulty, but there are situations where minor trauma results in persistent disability affecting the quality of life. Case Presentation: A young man sustained a perineal puncture wound resulting from a fall onto a bush. Following an initial delay, he sought medical advice for a continual pain in his right leg, and a discharging perineal wound. A computed tomography (CT) scan and flexible sigmoidoscopy failed to identify the cause, and he was subsequently discharged from hospital. One year after his initial presentation, a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan identified a retained foreign body consistent with a fragment of wood. Conclusions: Penetrating trauma from wooden fragments provides a diagnostic challenge. A stubborn discharge from a wound must always raise the suspicion of retained fragment. Early and appropriate surgical exploration is imperative

A case study of how daily physical activity initiatives of occupational therapy were used to help physical movements for a child with dyspraxia

Background: Occupational therapy within the UK is used within schools to help develop children’s: fine motor; visual-perceptual; cognitive; and sensory-processing deficits as found in children with dyspraxia. The case study focuses on ‘Sue’ an 11 year old with dyspraxia, she presented with poor coordination, lack of focus and poor organisation skills. Within this paper, two daily physical activity interventions will be focused on: ‘resisted crawl’ and the ‘cat’. These are activities that are to help with difficulties linked to symmetric tonic neck reflex, and cause tension in the body when sitting on a chair or on the floor with arms and legs bent. It affects hand and eye coordination and causes problems with refocusing from far to near distance. Methods: The physical activity interventions were completed by a trained member of staff on a daily basis with ‘Sue’. Structured observations focusing biomechanically on the skills involved within the physical activities were completed. Also conversations with ‘Sue’ were recorded and semi-structured observations that took place once a week during (Friday) lunchtime to see how ‘Sue’ was applying her daily physical activities to a play context. Results and Conclusion: The data will show the progression of the successful as well as the unsuccessful parts of the physical activities throughout the 3 terms. It was found that when the interventions were completed on a daily basis ‘Sue’ was able to develop her coordination, by the end of the third term only the head and in particular the eyes were the unsuccessful part of the resisted crawl whilst the legs were the unsuccessful part of the cat, all other parts of the body were now being consistently successfully completed on a daily basis. The breaks for holidays impacted on ‘Sue’s’ movements and school have since recommended and developed a holiday plan to keep the progression of movements for ‘Sue’

The impact of wellbeing on the physical activities of occupational therapy (OT) for a child with dyspraxia

Background and purpose. Structured and supervised physical activities (such as OT) that a child engages within their day are included within the domain of Physical Education according to Bailey (2005). The research considers such OT physical activities and presents a case study of one child with dyspraxia who has daily OT over the period three school terms. The purpose of the study was to consider the impact of wellbeing on the physical activities involved in the OT. This research questions how the child’s wellbeing (linked to parental attachment, friendships and feelings) impacts the physical activities of her OT sessions. For the case study child, she had poor: coordination; body awareness; organisation skills and her OT programme focused on the inhibition of reflexes (resisted crawl and cat). Methods A case study design was used, as Jupp (2006) reports this is a way in which researchers can collect multidimensional data through observations within the OT sessions, (her ability to complete cat and resisted crawl), observations within her playtimes, and wellbeing questionnaires. Structured observations were completed and data analysis was completed through coding, sorting and trend analysis. Results The biggest impact for the case study child was the holiday break. Each time she returned to boarding school and was separated from her mother her wellbeing levels had dropped dramatically to the lowest points within the school year. Conclusions and recommendations For the case study child the separation from her mother, particularly at the start of terms, was key. Within the OT sessions, the child would need to have repeated instructions, to ensure she was not distracted by her feelings of neglect. It is recommended that an innovative programme of OT is continued within the school holiday period to help prevent the drop in both wellbeing and her ability to complete the physical activities

Castle’s competition model for building confidence and competence in action

Introduction: Previously, Castle (2017) proposed a model of effective learning in competition that encouraged teachers to plan more effectively to introduce competition as a pedagogical tool within their lessons. Far too often competition is seen as an end product, something to do at the end of the learning process to promote what has been accomplished. Yet Castle’s model for effective learning in competition promotes how competition could be used as part of the teaching and learning process. One of the four main aims of the National Curriculum in England (DfE, 2013) focuses on competition being key - ‘taking part in competitive sports’, highlighting the importance of this research. In 2017-2018, the researchers are extending Castle’s competition theoretical model to investigate the application of the model to current teaching practice, within two, two-form entry primary (elementary) school so to investigate if the model can be used as a tool to build confidence and competence of children learning physical through competition.. Both schools have achieved School Games Gold awards and are considered by Ofsted as outstanding in their provision of Physical Education and School Sport. Methods: This paper will report on the comparison between the two schools and the application of the Castle competition model to physical activity challenges designed around fundamental movement skills. It will consider how competition can foster improvement in performance, what types of competition generates the most confidence and competence in Physical Education lessons, the type that children engage in most and the preference of the different types of competition. Results and Conclusion: The data is currently in collection, it will analyse the children’s performance and scores within the physical activity challenges. The children’s improvement and engagement will be assessed to evaluate the Castle competition model and if confidence and competence can be enhanced

A qualitative exploration of adversarial growth in elite swimmers

The past few decades have heralded a paradigm shift in the psychology, oncology, and trauma literature. This shift has involved a re–focusing of the empirical lens from the distress and pathology of traumatic experiences to a focus on growth and thriving in response to adversity or traumatic events. Multiple studies have identified that individuals recognise positive changes following their experiences of adversity to the extent that many individuals report development beyond their pre–trauma functioning. These positive changes have been broadly conceptualised as growth, a multidimensional concept, which typically involves an increased appreciation for life, more meaningful relationships, an increased sense of personal strength, a change in priorities, and a richer existential and spiritual awareness. Growth following adversity, or adversarial growth, is still relatively new in sport, and specifically elite sport, and accordingly the purpose of this doctoral research was to explore adversarial growth in elite athletes with a particular emphasis on the experiences of elite level swimmers. The research was grounded in a constructivist paradigm which assumes changing and sometimes conflicting social realities, and seeks to understand people’s constructions of their lived experiences. [Continues.

Cruel to be Kind: Factors Underlying Altruistic Efforts to Worsen Another Person's Mood

When aiming to improve another person’s long-term well-being, people may choose to induce that person to experience a negative emotion in the short term. We labelled this form of agent–target interpersonal emotion regulation altruistic affect worsening and hypothesized that it may happen when three conditions are met: (1) The agents experience empathic concern for the target of the affect-worsening process; (2) the negative emotion to be induced helps the target achieve a goal (anger for confrontation or fear for avoidance); and (3) there is no benefit for the agent. This hypothesis was tested by manipulating perspective taking instructions and the goal to be achieved whilst participants (N = 140) played a computer video game with different goals. Participants following other-oriented perspective taking instructions decided to induce more anger or fear in a supposed fellow participant working to achieve a confrontational or avoidance goal, respectively

Sink or swim: adversity- and growth-related experiences in Olympic swimming champions

Objective To explore the adversity- and growth-related experiences of swimmers at the highest competitive level. Of particular interest was the transitional process that the swimmers progress through to positively transform their experiences. Design Eight autobiographies of Olympic swimming champions were sampled and analyzed. Method The books were written by four male and three female swimmers whose ages at the time of their Olympic swims ranged from 14 to 41 years (M = 23.39, SD = 6.04). Informed by a narrative tradition, the autobiographies were subjected to a holistic analysis which involved scrutinizing the form of the structure and style of the narrative, and the content relating to the events and meanings described by the authors. Results The swimmers perceived their adversity-related experiences to be traumatic and initially attempted to negotiate them by maintaining a state of normality through the development of an emotional and embodied relationship with water. This relationship involved the non-disclosure of traumatic adversities and the development of multiple identities. As these strategies eventually proved to be maladaptive and exposed the swimmers to further adversity, the dialog of the autobiographies typically shifted to a more quest-focused narrative with the swimmers seeking meaning in their experiences and looking to others for support. Adoption of these strategies was necessary for the swimmers to experience growth, which was identifiable through superior performance, enhanced relationships, spiritual awareness, and prosocial behavior. Conclusion The findings provide broad support for theories of posttraumatic growth and suggest that assimilation processes may comprise initial phases of the transition between adversity and growth. We discuss a number of practical implications for psychologists and significant others involved with elite swimmers

Rural population groups

Publication authorized February 28, 1925.Digitized 2007 AES.Includes bibliographical references