Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Bilateral Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome And The Effects Of Physical Therapy In The Outpatient Setting: A Case Study, Paige Mriden

Physical Therapy Scholarly Projects

Background and Purpose: Patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS) is characterized by musculoskeletal-related knee pain localized to the anterior retropatellar and/or peripatellar area of the knee. This case study describes the physical therapy management of bilateral PFPS. The results can be used to understand examination, evaluation, and interventions to treat PFPS.

Case Description: The patient was a 76-year-old female that reported progressive pain in both knees. She demonstrated weak hip abductors and extensors, tenderness upon palpation to bilateral pes anserine, bilateral ITB, and bilateral medial joint line with increased lateral tibial torsion on the left and a positive Hamstring 90-90 test. …

Chronic Low Back Pain With Possible Si Involvement And Weak Abdominals: A Case Study, Stacy Remer

Physical Therapy Scholarly Projects

Background and Purpose: Chronic, non-specific low back pain is highly prevalent and is a cause for a large proportion of medical expenses along with many people’s pain and disability. This case report presents a variety of interventions implemented for a patient with low back pain and her reaction to therapy.

Case Description: The case study presents a 42 y/o mother to three children. Her pain began about two years ago and has been persistent throughout that time. She has tried many different forms of treatment through medical physicians, physical therapy, and massage therapy but nothing has had long-term relief of …

The Global Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Women’S Careers, Allison Bach

School of Professional Studies

This paper explores the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on women’s careers on a global scale in the past year. It begins by focusing on the many pre-existing barriers that existed in realizing gender equality in the workplace prior to the pandemic, such as inadequate access to proper childcare, uneven participation in household labor between the genders, and pay inequality. The paper then continues to examine the impact that the pandemic has had on women’s careers across a variety of industries, countries, and specific groups. It was hypothesized that the COVID-19 crisis had created worse effects for women’s …

The Effects Of Social Media On Young People Through The Lens Of Covid-19, Molly Gammon

School of Professional Studies

This study looks at the relationship between social media and its effect on young people’s wellbeing by examining the available literature and research on the topic. Because Millennials and Generation Z do not remember a time before the internet and social media, it has become an influential and crucial part of their lives. Many suggest that social media is harmful to young people, while others argue that the benefits of the internet and social media outweigh the costs and risks. By analyzing the current research, it seems like there is still a lack of consensus on this debate. The goal …

Athletic Training In The Classroom, Megan Imwalle

Masters Theses/Capstone Projects

The purpose of this practicum experience was for a practicing athletic trainer to immerse themselves into a CAATE accredited athletic training education program classroom setting. The athlete trainer was responsible for creating and delivering lecture presentations and lab activities, utilizing research for class discussion and assignments, and acting as a mentor for athletic training students.

The athletic training worked in collaboration with a professor to gain an understanding for how to deliver classroom materials and how to manage a classroom in-person and virtually. The main goal for this practicum experience was to gain confidence in a classroom setting and provide …

Surveying Collegiate Student Pilots For Their Perspectives On Their Collegiate Flight Training Experience, Nicoletta Fala, Denise K. Whitford

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2021

Women make up roughly half of the population, but continue to be an underrepresented group in aviation. They constitute nearly 14% of student pilots, but only 8% of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) pilot certificates, leading to a lack of understanding why a substantial number of women do not complete their training. Past diversity initiatives have not resulted in a sufficient increase in the numbers. This paper discusses a study in progress that is intended to gain perceptions of women’s experiences and obstacles in collegiate flight programs using a longitudinal survey of collegiate pilots. The aim of the study is to …

The Impact Of The Covid 19 Pandemic On Aviation Workers And The Aviation System, Joan Cahill, Paul Cullen, Sohaib Anwer, Keith Gaynor

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2021

This paper presents the findings of an anonymous web-based survey addresing [sic] the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on aviation workers and the aviation system. The analysis indicates that aviation workers are experiencing high level of depression and anxiety.Coping [sic] mechanisms are being used by many aviation workers. Considerable barriers still remain in relation to reporting mental health (MH) issues at work. Overall, the response from organisations in terms of helping employees cope with the stress arising from the COVID 19 pandemic and changes to wellbeing is weak. The vast majority of aviation workers indicate that wellbeing is not …

The Impact Of A Synthetic Teammate On Situational Awareness, Aaron Teo, Kenneth Fieldhouse, Mary Niemczyk

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2021

Current commercial airplane cockpits generally require two pilots; a captain and First Officer. The autopilot has become an essential aspect of commercial flying as it can reduce the pilots’ workload and increase accuracy. Since present autopilot implementations work independently from the pilot, the pilot must adopt a monitoring role. This design is not without its limitations, however, especially concerning the pilot's situational awareness. One possible relief for these limitations is the synthetic teammate, a specialized type of artificial intelligence agent intended to mimic a human operator. It integrates with current autopilot systems and provides pilots with context for action instead …

An Analysis Of The Applications Of Technology To Health Care Within The Caribbean And Latin America, Chineme Ezema

School of Professional Studies

This project aims to investigate and document the evolution of health technology applications and uses within the regions of Latin America and the Caribbean. Originally inspired by the Cayman Islands’ thus far successful handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, I was eager to explore how the applications of technology to the field of healthcare have existed within the region currently and over time. With this foundation, I then explored the regions’ trajectory in terms of technological growth and what the future may hold for these countries and communities.

Title Ix: Perceptions And Utilization On U.S. College Campuses, Emma Narkewicz

School of Professional Studies

The research study investigated student perceptions and utilization of Title IX services on U.S. university and college campuses, testing the hypothesis that if students hold negative perceptions of Title IX offices, then they will not report campus sexual violence they experience to Title IX offices. There are currently high rates of sexual violence on college campuses but very low rates of reporting. Current or former U.S. college students aged 18-30 (N = 47) completed a mixed methods anonymous survey composed of Likert scale and open response questions. Participants were asked about prior interactions with Title IX offices and their perceptions …

Bail Discrimination: Racial Disparities In The United States Bail Determination Process, Collin Porter

School of Professional Studies

Nationwide, there is a systemic problem with bail determination: the process that a citizen goes through after they are arrested and before they go to trial to determine guilt or innocence for the crime they have been accused of committing. The United States leads all other countries with approximately half a million individuals detained before trial each year, a number nearly double the next highest country (China) (Nejdl, 2017). The high rate of pre-trial detention in the United States is due to both widespread use of monetary bail and the limited financial resources of most defendants; specifically, African American men. …

A Comprehensive Analysis Of Food Insecurity And Solutions In Worcester, Massachusetts, David Sullivan

School of Professional Studies

Worcester, Massachusetts is a postindustrial city with high levels of potential that faces the persistent obstacle of food insecurity for its low-income and ethnic minority communities. This research thesis examines food insecurity in general and explores data and trends in Worcester, then combines this with conceptual frameworks which explain how socioeconomic factors play into food security. It also explains the systemic inequalities present as a result of food insecurity and critiques academic assumptions surrounding food insecurity. One of these assumptions is that food deserts on their own can explain food insecurity in Worcester and elsewhere, though it has been found …

Noise Exposure And Hearing Protection In Marching Band Students, Emily Myers

Rehabilitation, Human Resources and Communication Disorders Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this research project was to investigate collegiate marching band members’ use of hearing protection during rehearsals and performances. A second purpose was to identify the concerns of marching band members about the use of hearing protection. Finally, the third purpose was to determine if the type of protection used, standard or custom, impacted wearing time. Hearing threshold sensitivity, tympanometry, and use of hearing protection were measured prior to the fitting of the custom earmolds and again at the end of the marching season.

Pre-season results indicated that the majority of band members reported they did not wear …

Phonological Processing Abilities And Reading Skills In Young Adults, Sarah Thompson

Rehabilitation, Human Resources and Communication Disorders Undergraduate Honors Theses

This case study examined the relationship between phonological processing abilities and reading skills of three young adults who had a history and formal diagnosis of a reading, writing, and/or auditory processing impairment. In addition to a standardized reading assessment, the participants were asked to complete a series of assessments that measured a specific aspect of auditory or visual phonological processing abilities including phonological awareness, phonological memory, and rapid automatic naming skills. These assessments included the Decoding Subtest of the Phonological Awareness Test (PAT-2), the Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT-5), and the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP-2). Processing of degraded …

Bimodal And Bilingual: Language Characteristics Of Asl And English Users, Caitlin Bumpass

Rehabilitation, Human Resources and Communication Disorders Undergraduate Honors Theses

Bimodal bilingualism is the use of both an oral and a sign language, which in the United States often includes the ability to perceive and produce both American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken English (Emmory, Borinstein, Thompson, & Gollan, 2008). The primary focus of this research is to examine the operational definition of bilingualism, specifically when English and ASL are the two languages used, within the scholarly journals in the related field of deaf education. There is an abundant amount of research regarding language of children and adults who are deaf or hard of hearing (d/hh); however, it is unclear …

Pernet Family Health Service, Inc.: Organizational Restructuring & Change Management Best Practices, Carly Massino

School of Professional Studies

Research exhibits that between 70-75% of change initiatives fail and a major contributor to this trend is employee resistance. Although change can bring exciting growth and innovation, it can cause employees heightened stress and worsened physical and mental health outcomes. These effects are often amplified when organizations enact multiple change initiatives at once. These worsened outcomes are often a result of feelings of distress, anxiety, powerlessness, and apprehension and unknowns such as how one’s position will be affected, how operations will change, or how one fits into the change. This topic is incredibly relevant for Pernet Family Health Service, Inc., …

Happening In Plain Sight: An Evaluation Of Sexual Harassment In Municipal Government Through A Case Study Of Newark, New Jersey, Hoween R. A. Flexer, Caitlin R. Louie

School of Professional Studies

In the city of Newark, New Jersey, Sebrevious Scott, a participant in the New Jersey Reentry program was hired as part-time office assistant in the city's re-entry office. After being transferred to the city’s Parks and Grounds Departments, she started being sexually harassed, inappropriately touched and propositioned by her supervisor, Richard Kirkland. Scott made repeated attempts to report these actions through the appropriate channels. She was met with dismissal, resistance, and later retaliation. While working in this hostile environment she was also pursuing a full-time employment opportunity with the city upon the completion of the reentry program. Unfortunately, this never …

Perspectives Of Caregivers On Early Onset Dementia: An Investigation Of The Role Of Attachment And Shifts In Identity, Claire Wood

Rehabilitation, Human Resources and Communication Disorders Undergraduate Honors Theses

Early onset dementia (EOD) alters the lives of person with dementia (PWD) and caregivers as it broadens from helping with the instrumental activities of daily living to full time assistance with essential activities of daily living. Research literature reports that pre-morbid attachment style continues to be emotionally and behaviorally expressed over the course of dementia; individual and shared narratives contribute to maintenance of personhood and identity; and that maintenance of self and other contributes to quality of life. The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in caregiver perceptions of themselves and their quality of life in the caregiving …

Cyclin C Determines Cell Fate In Response To Oxidative Stress And Proteasome Inhibition, David C. Stieg

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Theses and Dissertations

In response to various sources of cellular stress, the coordination of intracellular events is necessary to elicit the appropriate molecular response. In particular, the reprogramming of gene expression by stress-specific transcription factors drives the activation of signaling pathways, triggering either cell survival or regulated cell death pathways. The Cdk8 kinase module (CKM) is a highly conserved transcriptional regulatory complex with a role in this decision. The CKM is composed of Cdk8, its activating partner cyclin C, and two scaffold proteins, Med12 and Med13. The CKM is a detachable subunit of the Mediator complex, which interacts with RNA polymerase II to …

Using Deep Learning To Analyze Materials In Medical Images, Carson Molder

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Modern deep learning architectures have become increasingly popular in medicine, especially for analyzing medical images. In some medical applications, deep learning image analysis models have been more accurate at predicting medical conditions than experts. Deep learning has also been effective for material analysis on photographs. We aim to leverage deep learning to perform material analysis on medical images. Because material datasets for medicine are scarce, we first introduce a texture dataset generation algorithm that automatically samples desired textures from annotated or unannotated medical images. Second, we use a novel Siamese neural network called D-CNN to predict patch similarity and build …

The Effects Of Virtual Reality Therapy On Acrophobia: A Literature Review, Emma Zobal

The Eleanor Mann School of Nursing Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper examines the effects of virtual reality therapy on acrophobia. Virtual reality therapy is a valuable tool that can be utilized to expose individuals to their phobias in a controlled, virtual setting with the use of technology. Acrophobia is described as an extreme fear of heights and can interfere with the daily lives of individuals. In this review, four studies were examined that focused on the use of virtual reality therapy in individuals with acrophobia. The overall findings indicated that virtual reality therapy was effective in reducing symptoms of acrophobia. Furthermore, this literature review examines the benefits and successful …

Mathematical Models Of Covid-19, Kate Faria

Honors Program Theses and Projects

For more than a year, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a major public health issue, affecting the lives of most people around the world. With both people’s health and the economy at great risks, governments rushed to control the spread of the virus. Containment measures were heavily enforced worldwide until a vaccine was developed and distributed. Although researchers today know more about the characteristics of the virus, a lot of work still needs to be done in order to completely remove the disease from the population. However, this is true for most of the infectious diseases in existence, including Influenza, …

How To Teach College Aviation Students About Situation Awareness In A Virtual Classroom Setting, Andrew R. Dattel, Hui Wang, Nathaniel Booker, Andrei Matveev, Syaza R M Harris, Hanzi Xie, Zihao Zhang

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2021

Creating a group class project to demonstrate situation awareness (SA) can be an effective pedagogical approach. By engaging students in such projects, they can understand the meaning of SA — comprehension of relevant information in a dynamic environment (Durso et al., 2007). In an SA class taught at an aeronautical university during the past several years, students engaged in observational and interactive projects. However, COVID-19 has prohibited in-person activities. In lieu of such in-person activities, students enrolled in a virtual SA class during summer 2020 utilized online road cameras found at traffic intersections in Madrid, New York, and Tokyo. This …

Exploring The Relation Between Distractor Inhibition And Audiovisual Integration, Michelle H. Wang, Elizabeth L. Fox

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2021

The Stroop paradigm is a great experimental tool to assess the extent that task-irrelevant, but target-related, distractors influence target identification in a variety of contexts. In particular, it has been applied beyond the traditional visual modality (e.g., audio, or audiovisual). However, audiovisual studies using Stroop-like tasks have reported conflicting results. Importantly, these bimodal studies assessed only group-level mean differences and did not investigate whether the degree of bimodal conflict is greater than what is expected of two unimodality distractors that are inhibited in an unlimited capacity, independent, and parallel fashion. In this research, we relied on cognitive-based models of individuals’ …

The Effects Of Increased Visual Information On Cognitive Workload In A Helicopter Simulator, Reilly Innes, Zachary Howard, Alexander Thorpe, Scott Brown, Ami Eidels

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2021

Workload in highly demanding environments can be influenced by the amount of information given to an operator, and consequently, it is important to limit the potential overload. In the current study, we used the Detection Response Task (DRT) to assess the effects of enhanced heads-up display information ("symbology") on cognitive workload in a simulated helicopter environment. Participants (highly trained military pilots) completed simulated helicopter flights, which varied visual conditions and the amount of information given. During these flights participants completed a DRT. With increased heads-up display information, pilots landing accuracy improved across visual conditions. The DRT captured the increased workload …

A Passive Electroencephalography Brain-Computer Interface Predicts Mental Workload During Flight Simulation, Adam Fraser, Kathleen Van Benthem, Chris M. Herdman

International Symposium on Aviation Psychology - 2021

The objective of the present research was to investigate an electroencephalography (EEG) brain-computer interface (BCI) for monitoring realistic variations in mental workload during virtual reality (VR) flight simulation. Many aviation accidents are related to pilot cognition and a mismatch between task demands and cognitive resources. Real-time neurophysiological monitoring offers an approach to identifying high-workload mental states by obtaining continuous, objective measurements without adding to the workload of the pilot. Workload was manipulated by varying navigational difficulty and communication tasks during VR flight simulation. EEG data collected during simulated flight was analyzed to evaluate performance of passive BCI for classification of …

Hospital Acquired Pressure Injuries (Hapi) In Critical Care: A Quality Improvement Project, Bonnie M. Fagan, Susan Butz

Doctor of Nursing Practice Scholarly Projects

In a large mid-western hospital, Hospital Acquired Pressure Injury (HAPI) rates are elevated in critical care units. Education sessions, a visual reminder, and skin rounds may increase use and documentation of 5-layer silicone dressings to prevent pressure injuries. The Plan-do-study-act (PDSA) method for quality improvement and Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring were utilized as the theoretical framework for the project. The purpose of the project was to reduce the incidence of HAPI in Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) II. Project objectives included education on HAPI prevention and documentation, skin rounds, and the addition of a visual documentation cue on …

Effects Of Physical Therapy Following A Right Shoulder Arthroscopy In The Outpatient Orthopedic Setting: A Case Study, Hannah Riveland

Physical Therapy Scholarly Projects

Background and Purpose. Shoulder pain is the third most common complaint in the musculoskeletal system. Subacromial impingement syndrome consists of 44-65% of those complaints. This case study examines the effectiveness of physical therapy treatment following a right shoulder arthroscopy including a subacromial decompression, extensive intraarticular debridement, and subpectoral proximal biceps tenodesis in an outpatient orthopedic setting.

Case Description. This patient was a 57-year old male with past medical history of chronic shoulder and back pain. He presented to outpatient physical therapy post-operatively with right upper extremity guarding, pain, weakness, tenderness, and impaired functional mobility.

Intervention. Treatment addressed …

Evaluating Va Nurse Acceptance Of Virtual Healthcare Technology During The Coronavirus Outbreak, Francesca Bryan-Couch

Doctor of Nursing Practice Scholarly Projects

At a regional Veterans Administration (VA) hospital, nurses performing case management were unable to perform face-to-face visits with patients due to coronavirus. Care coordination and discharge planning efforts occurred through telephonic case management to preserve personal protective equipment and reduce transmission rates through social distancing. Trust and rapport between patients and nurses were reduced without personal contact. Peplau’s theory of interpersonal relations described six nurse roles and three phases of relationship development required to create therapeutic nurse-patient relationships. Connectedness was a key concept considered to be the path to a successful meaningful therapeutic nurse-patient relationship (Hrabe, 2005).

To evaluate current …

Professional Quality Of Life Indicators And Turnover Intention In Forensic Nurses, Leigh Anne Meyer

Doctor of Nursing Practice Scholarly Projects

Background/Significance: Significant barriers to forensic nurse workforce development exist, affecting patient access to care. Retention of forensic nurses is a persistent problem. Turn-over of forensic nurses can be attributed to many factors related to professional quality of life, including compassion satisfaction (CS), burnout (BO) and secondary traumatic stress (STS).

Methods: A convenience sample of forensic nurse program coordinators was used to identify the effect of an educational session on professional quality of life and strategies for reducing stressors within the role on ProQOL-5 and TIS-6 scores using a pre- post-test quasi-experimental survey design. Correlation between professional quality of life indicators …