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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Using A Reverse Visually Guided Reaching Task To Distinguish Between Healthy Aging And Early Alzheimer’S Disease, Brandon Woolman Jan 2024

Using A Reverse Visually Guided Reaching Task To Distinguish Between Healthy Aging And Early Alzheimer’S Disease, Brandon Woolman

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Changes in motor behavior may function as a proxy for cognitive decline. While Alzheimer's disease (AD) is associated with impairments in learning and memory, recent studies suggest that subtle changes in motor task performance may reflect early cognitive changes. For example, the visuomotor rotation task that manipulates visual feedback about hand position during reaching movements, can be used to examine cognitive changes in aging populations. The current study used the reverse visually guided reaching task (rVGR) which rotates visual feedback of participant’s hand position 180⁰ relative to the actual hand position. We sought to expand on previous literature by recruiting …


Exploring Usability In Exercise Interventions: From Conceptualization To Measurement And Application, Anne Inger Mørtvedt Jan 2024

Exploring Usability In Exercise Interventions: From Conceptualization To Measurement And Application, Anne Inger Mørtvedt

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Exercise interventions hold promise for preventing and treating numerous conditions, diseases, and injuries. However, these interventions will only be effective if they are being used. Unfortunately, uptake and adherence to prescribed exercise and physical activity guidelines are insufficient. Some reasons for this include lack of knowledge, resources, flexibility, and enjoyment. Exercise program developers need to not only consider the effectiveness of the program during the development phase, but also involve end-users and receive feedback on program usability to determine likelihood of uptake and adoption. Usability testing can be used to detect barriers to use and implementation likelihood but has not …


Acute Physiological Responses To Arm-Cranking With Blood Flow Restriction, Benjamin Cockfield Jan 2020

Acute Physiological Responses To Arm-Cranking With Blood Flow Restriction, Benjamin Cockfield

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Physiological responses to aerobic blood flow restriction exercise (BFR) are well documented for lower-body exercise but not upper-body exercise. I evaluated cardiorespiratory (heart rate, VO2, RER, ventilation), metabolic (tissue saturation, deoxyhemoglobin concentrations), and perceptual (effort, pain) responses to arm cranking with BFR at varying arterial occlusion pressures (AOP). Ten adults performed 4 intermittent arm cranking protocols (6x2-min, 1-min recovery): 1) low load (LL) – 40%VO2peak and 0% AOP; high load (HL) – 80%VO2peak and 0% AOP; (BFR50) – 40%VO2peak with 50% AOP; (BFR70) – 40%VO2peak with 70% AOP. Heart rate, RER, and ventilation, were higher with BFR compared to LL …


The Effect Of Myosync™ Supplementation On Physical Performance In Division Ii College Football Players, Matthew Gage Jan 2017

The Effect Of Myosync™ Supplementation On Physical Performance In Division Ii College Football Players, Matthew Gage

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the acute effect of Myosync™ on physical performance in Division II football players. Methods: Fourteen male Division II football players (20.4 ± 1.0 years) participated in a randomized double blind crossover experiment. Subjects were either given Myosync™ or a placebo control 60 minutes prior to any physical testing measures. Testing consisted of, maximum vertical jumps, maximum voluntary isometric contractions (MVIC), maximal voluntary concentric contractions (MVCC), and fatiguing contractions for the knee extensor muscles. Recovery measures consisted of one MVIC and MVCCs 10 minutes after fatiguing task. Results: There was no …


Development And Validation Of The Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury-Risk-Estimation Quiz (Acl-Iq), Erich J. Petushek Jan 2014

Development And Validation Of The Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury-Risk-Estimation Quiz (Acl-Iq), Erich J. Petushek

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Over 2 million Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries occur annually worldwide resulting in considerable economic and health burdens (e.g., suffering, surgery, loss of function, risk for re-injury, and osteoarthritis). Current screening methods are effective but they generally rely on expensive and time-consuming biomechanical movement analysis, and thus are impractical solutions. In this dissertation, I report on a series of studies that begins to investigate one potentially efficient alternative to biomechanical screening, namely skilled observational risk assessment (e.g., having experts estimate risk based on observations of athletes movements). Specifically, in Study 1 I discovered that ACL injury risk can be accurately …