Description:
Growing cultural and linguistic diversity globally is increasingly requiring speech pathologists to provide effective and equitable aphasia rehabilitation to clients with whom they do not share a language. Little is known about how rehabilitation is being adapted and provided when a language mismatch arises between the therapist and the client. This scoping review aims to systematically map the evidence related to aphasia rehabilitation when the speech pathologist and the client do not share a language. A comprehensive search was conducted in September 2020. Twenty studies comprising surveys and/or interviews and descriptive publications were reviewed. Speech pathologists frequently report a lack of confidence, skill, and preparation to work with culturally and linguistically diverse clients with aphasia. Furthermore, there is a shortage of published evidence, guidelines, resources, and access to interpreters to support their practice. Further research is needed into aphasia rehabilitation when there is no shared language between client and speech pathologist, with particular attention to the therapy approach selected and adaptations required for the target language and culture. Information is needed concerning how the speech pathologist and interpreter work together, as well as the experiences of interpreters and people with aphasia and their families.
Associations of UPPS-P negative urgency and positive urgency with ADHD dimensions : moderation by lack of premeditation and lack of perseverance in men and women
Description:
Background: Blood flow restriction exercise (BFR-E) could be a useful training adjunct for patients with weakness after stroke to augment the effects of exercise on muscle activity. We aimed to examine neurophysiological changes (primary aim) and assess patient perceptions (secondary aim) following BFR-E. Methods: Fourteen participants with stroke performed BFR-E (1 session) and exercise without blood flow restrictsion (Exercise only) (1 session), on two days,
Description:
Background: Blood flow restriction exercise (BFR-E) could be a useful training adjunct for patients with weakness after stroke to augment the effects of exercise on muscle activity. We aimed to examine neurophysiological changes (primary aim) and assess patient perceptions (secondary aim) following BFR-E. Methods: Fourteen participants with stroke performed BFR-E (1 session) and exercise without blood flow restrictsion (Exercise only) (1 session), on two days,
Description:
Understanding how a mother's traumatic experiences influence her interactions with her infant may have importance for understanding infant development and mental health. Data for this study were drawn from an Australian pregnancy cohort, the Mercy Pregnancy and Emotional Wellbeing Study. Maternal trauma from Childhood, Childbirth Experiences, and Stressful Life Events were examined. At six-months postpartum, 211 predominantly first-time mothers (mean age 31.5 years), and their infants, were video-recorded interacting for 40 minutes. Interactions were assessed with the Emotional Availability (EA) Scales. Using structural equation modelling to test multiple mediation pathways, moderate-to-severe childhood trauma had only a direct effect on reducing maternal EA with the infant (β=−.17, p=.031), as did current stressful life events (β=−.19, p=.019), after controlling for maternal depression, age, and tertiary education. This highlights that proximate trauma specific to the perinatal period may not account for the effect of distal childhood trauma on maternal EA at six-months postpartum.
Description:
It is unclear whether task representation generated in imagery simulates performance demands in reacting to stimuli. This study investigated whether perceptual and motor control processes used to react to unpredictable stimuli and initiate an ipsilateral movement were replicated during imagery. Fifty-nine undergraduate students (Mage = 27.01 years, SD = 8.30) completed 30 simple, two-choice congruent and two-choice incongruent ipsilateral finger–foot movement trials in response to a physically presented or imagined stimulus. The results appear to indicate that participants were reacting to imagined and actual stimuli, as the ipsilateral finger–foot programming rule was maintained and reaction time initially slowed as task difficulty increased. These findings support theoretical similarities between imagery and physical performance of reaction tasks, with imagers generating and reacting to unpredictable stimuli. Slower imagery performance than physical performance on the two-choice incongruent task may indicate that task complexity is limited during imagery. Variation in results between the imagery and physical conditions potentially supports that imagers were able to react to the imagined stimulus. However, exploratory processes used to react to stimuli were not replicated during imagery. The present findings have potentially significant implications for the functional and applied use of imagery for skill acquisition.
Description:
Just weeks away from the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the United States, followed by Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada, has declared a diplomatic boycott of the Games. A diplomatic boycott stipulates that while government officials of these countries will not attend the event, the athletes’ scheduled attendance will largely remain intact. An unintended consequence of the boycotts is that they force the attending athletes to cope with the stress and distress associated with the 2022 Winter Olympics in an unfamiliar environment on their own. It is important to underscore that many of the challenges the athletes could face amid the Games are either deep-rooted or unprecedented, ranging from stressors fuelled by the nonstop media reports, the competitions, to the Omicron scares. These insights combined, in turn, underscore the imperative for effective and preemptive mental health support for Olympic athletes. To shed light on the issue, this paper highlights the reasons why timely solutions are needed to adequately safeguard Olympic athletes’ mental health and overall wellbeing, and underlines promising technology-based solutions that can be cost-effectively designed and developed for the athletes.
Description:
Understanding performance of athletes in competition is required for enhancing the quality of how athletes co-adapt to the specific, changing constraints of those environments. In long jumping, for example, an athlete must co-adapt with these constraints while also meeting the challenging accuracy demands of the sport. Examining then how long jumpers with different levels of expertise navigate the competition environment is important. This analysis is necessary, given evidence from motor learning research showing that individuals with higher levels of expertise use different sources of information to guide their performance behaviors. In this study, key gait variables during the long jump run-up were recorded during performance at 8 competitions in the 2015 and 2016 Australian track and field seasons to examine the visual control strategies of athletes differing in expertise levels, when performing legal and foul jumps. No statistically significant differences were observed between jumpers differing in levels of expertise when comparing gait patterns in foul and legal jumps. However, different footfall variability curves did emerge that can advance current understanding of long jump run-ups. International-level athletes exhibited higher levels of functional variability during the initial phases of the run-up of legal jumps, with step adjustments spread across the whole of the run-up, compared to National-level athletes. Since athletes of lower levels of expertise exhibited a more stereotyped run-up profile, it is suggested that coaches and practitioners encourage more exploration in training of this group by incorporating increased levels of representative variability during practice. From a practical perspective, increasing variability in practice contexts could encourage National-level athletes to explore different movement solutions and (re)calibrate actions to changing environmental demands, providing more representative simulations of the competition environment.
Description:
Objective: Parents who lose an only child in China are stressed and traumatized due to social identity threat (SIT). This qualitative study aimed to interpret their experience to inform culturally and socially sensitive intervention strategies. Methods: Using a phenomenological approach, 17 bereaved parents who lost an only child were interviewed. The transcripts were analyzed using Colaizzi's method. Results: Three themes were identified, namely, "assuming a new social identity," "triggering social identity threat," and "resisting social identity threat and maintaining resilience." The study showed that SIT initially began with identity reconstruction, where self-identity and social identity occurred 1 after another. Once labeled with such social identity, the bereaved parents suffered social identity threat triggered by inner inferiority and external stigmatization. The bereaved parents undertook a variety of coping strategies to resist the threat and to maintain resilience of these strategies, 4 patterns depicting resilience and threat were interpreted. Conclusion: The findings offer an understanding of the multifaceted bereavement dilemma and lay a foundation for developing intervention strategies. Promoting or maintaining resilience and alleviating SIT are 2 important ways that help parents move on. To help them with identity reconstruction, the development of culturally sensitive resilience-based programs and the linking of social resources to solve practical problems are recommended. Community health professionals should encourage parents to maintain good health management to prevent their predicament from worsening. Raising economic assistance, building an elderly care support system, and promoting social acceptance are strategies that could be considered by policymakers. Clinical Impact StatementThe bereaved parents who have lost an only child in China is facing a multifaceted dilemma, which involves psychological, economic and cultural issues. This study applies the construct of social identity threat to interpretive lived experience of parents in China who have lost their only child. The study contributes to better understanding of their multifaceted bereavement dilemma, and lay the foundation for developing psycho-behavioural intervention strategies, which potentially also benefit other marginalized or traumatized bereaved groups. Results in this study offered several recommendations for psychological counselors, community workers, community health professionals, and government policymakers.
Description:
Crossover designs are used by a high proportion of studies investigating the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on motor learning. These designs necessitate attention to aspects of data collection and analysis to take account of design-related confounds including order, carryover, and period effects. In this systematic review, we appraised the method sections of crossover-designed tDCS studies of motor learning and discussed the strategies adopted to address these factors. A systematic search of 10 databases was performed and 19 research papers, including 21 experimental studies, were identified. Potential risks of bias were addressed in all of the studies, however, not in a rigorous and structured manner. In the data collection phase, unclear methods of randomization, various lengths of washout period, and inconsistency in the counteracting period effect can be observed. In the analytical procedures, the stratification by sequence group was often ignored, and data were treated as if it belongs to a simple repeated-measures design. An inappropriate use of crossover design can seriously affect the findings and therefore the conclusions drawn from tDCS studies on motor learning. The results indicate a pressing need for the development of detailed guidelines for this type of studies to benefit from the advantages of a crossover design.
The effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on corticospinal and cortico-cortical excitability and response variability : conventional versus high-definition montages