Rehabilitation and Therapy Commons^™

Use Of Smartphone Technology To Promote Knowledge Of Home Safety, Bonnie L. Rogulj

Physical Therapy Collection

This brief article describes the use of smartphone panoramic 360-degree imaging technology to educate patients on home safety. By positioning "hot spots" on images of the home environment, a visual tool for patient education was created to illustrate safety hazards in the home.

How The Symptoms And Conditions Associated With Diabetes Can Impact Mobility And Health Of The Individual: A Literature Review, Kaitlin Grace Fotis

Honors Projects

A literature review on diabetes, diabetic neuropathy, diabetic amyotrophy, sores, ulcers, and amputations, and nephropathy and how, through this snowballing journey, physical therapy can aid an individual. Diabetes can impact the mortality and morbidity of an individual and it alone can have lifelong effects upon the individual. These effects may include dependency upon medication, lifestyle modifications, and diet and physical activity guidelines. If their condition were to worsen, they could find themselves battling circulatory issues and neuropathy thereby hindering their physical function. Many individuals with circulatory issues, diabetic neuropathy, and diabetic amyotrophy develop injuries on their feet like ulcers and …

Supports For Migrant Farmworkers: Tensions In (In)Access And (In)Action, Susana Caxaj, Amy Cohen, Sarah Marsden

Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Publications

Purpose: This study examined the role of support actors in promoting or hindering access to migrant agricultural workers' (MAWs) needs, and, to determine the factors that influence adequate support for this population.
Methodology: Employing a Situational Analysis methodology, we carried out focus groups and interviews with 35 support actors complimented by a community scan (n=28) with public-facing support persons and a community consultation with migrant agricultural workers (MAWs).
Findings: Two major themes were revealed: (In)access and (In)action, and; Blurred Lines in Service Provision. The first illustrated how support actors could both reinforce or challenge barriers for this population through tensions …

Exploring Mobility Help-Seeking Behavior Among People With Physical Disabilities: A Case Study Of Jaipur Foot, Alex Podell

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

It is estimated that as many as 90 million people living in India experience some sort of disability (The World Bank, 2007). As India’s population keeps growing and aging, not only will the medical aspects, but also the societal impacts of disability need to be brought to the forefront of discussion, developmental strategy, and policy implementation. This study sought to analyze factors influencing the process of seeking help from formal and informal sources for people with physical disabilities. Data was collected from 10 people with physical disabilities receiving a variety of mobility aids from the NGO, Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata …

Improving The Quality Of Consumer Health Information On Wikipedia: Case Series., Shira Schecter Weiner, Jill S. Horbacewicz, Lane Rasberry, Yocheved Bensinger-Brody

The School of Health Sciences Publications and Research

BACKGROUND: Wikipedia is one of the most consulted health resources in the world. Since the public is using health information from Wikipedia to make health care decisions, improving the quality of that health information is in the public interest. The open editable content design of Wikipedia and quality control processes in place provide an opportunity to add high-value, evidence-based information and take an active role in improving the health care information infrastructure.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this project was to enhance Wikipedia health pages using high-quality, current research findings and track the persistence of those edits and number of page …

The Legalization Of Medical/Recreational Marijuana: Implications For School Health Drug Education Programs, Joseph Donnelly, Michael Young

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

BACKGROUND

More than half of US states have legalized medical marijuana. Several states have also legalized it for recreational use. In spite of states' actions, marijuana remains illegal under federal law. It remains to be seen, however, if the Trump administration will enforce federal law in states that have legalized marijuana. For now, it appears the move toward state legalization of marijuana will increase. Because of its legal status, research concerning the medical benefits of marijuana has been limited.

METHODS

We reviewed the literature pertaining to medical use and legalization of marijuana.

RESULTS

Available research shows that marijuana can benefit …

Optimization Of The Hockey Fans In Training (Hockey Fit) Weight Loss And Healthy Lifestyle Program For Male Hockey Fans, Wendy Blunt, Dawn P. Gill, Shannon Sibbald, Brendan Riggin, Roseanne Pulford, Ryan Scott, Karen Danylchuk, Cindy M. Gray, Sally Wyke, Christopher Bunn, Robert Petrella

Lifestyle Research Team

BACKGROUND:

The health outcomes of men continue to be poorer than women globally. Challenges in addressing this problem include difficulties engaging men in weight loss programs as they tend to view these programs as contrary to the masculine narrative of independence and self-reliance. Researchers have been turning towards sports fans to engage men in health promotion programs as sports fans are typically male, and tend to have poor health habits.

METHODS:

Developed from the highly successful gender-sensitized Football Fans in Training program, Hockey Fans in Training (Hockey FIT) recruited 80 male hockey fans of the London Knights and Sarnia Sting …

Opening A Student-Run Pro Bono Occupational Therapy Pediatric Clinic, Anne H. Zachry

Faculty Presentations

This presentation described the opening of a student-run pro bono pediatric therapy clinic that provides services to children/families who are economically disadvantaged. The benefits of participation for students and clients were reviewed, and fund-raising and the development of a mission statement were discussed.

Sex-Dependent Effects Of Ho-1 Deletion From Adipocytes In Mice, Peter A. Hosick, Mary Frances Weeks, Michael W. Hankins, Kyle H. Moore, David E. Stec

Department of Exercise Science and Physical Education Scholarship and Creative Works

Induction of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) has been demonstrated to decrease body weight and improve insulin sensitivity in several models of obesity in rodents. To further study the role of HO-1 in adipose tissue, we created an adipose-specific HO-1 knockout mouse model. Male and female mice were fed either a control or a high-fat diet for 30 weeks. Body weights were measured weekly and body composition, fasting blood glucose and insulin levels were determined every six weeks. Adipocyte-specific knockout of HO-1 had no significant effect on body weight in mice fed a high-fat diet but increased body weight in female mice …

Nebraska Sex Trafficking Survivors Speak – A Qualitative Research Study, Shireen S. Rajaram, Sriyani Tidball

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

This exploratory, qualitative research study was conducted by researchers Dr. Shireen S. Rajaram in the College of Public Health at University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) and Ms. Sriyani Tidball in the College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln (UNL), and was funded by the Women’s Fund of Omaha. The purpose of this study was to document the perspectives of adult women survivors of sex trafficking about the “3Ps” paradigm: to identify strategies to prevent sex trafficking, provide protection and support for survivors and prosecution of the perpetrators to reduce the demand for sex …

A Review Of Screening Processes For Physical Distress And Appropriate Outcome Measures For Outpatient Rehabilitation Referral In Cancer Survivorship, Ashley Tomaswick, Sebastian Stoltzfus, Margaret Masiak, Erika Lopez, Mary Leopold, Alyssa Grigware, Samantha Fisk, Matthew Denning

Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Papers

The goal of this project is to determine which physical distress screening tools are most appropriate to trigger a wellness or rehabilitation referral when it is warranted for a survivor. The use of effective screening tools will assist in directing cancer survivors, who experience physical and emotional burdens caused by the disease and subsequent treatment, to access services that will continue to improve their overall quality of life upon completion of cancer treatment or in a setting of ongoing palliative care. These measures should focus on functional mobility, balance, fatigue, and distress. Additionally, there are many common tests used to …

Self-Care Project For Faculty And Staff Of Future Health Care Professionals: Case Report, Nancy Macrae, Kelley Strout

Occupational Therapy Faculty Publications

Self-care among health care providers is an important component of their ability to provide quality health care to patients. Health care institutions have programs in place for students that emphasize health and wellness, but few programs are available for faculty and staff. To address this gap and facilitate modeling health and wellness strategies for students, a New England institution that educates health care practitioners began a pilot self-care project for faculty and staff. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The template used for this project could be used as a stepping-stone for future wellness self-care program in higher education …

Cancer Survivorship Care: An Emphasis On Rehabilitation Needs In Maine, Miranda Carlson, Nicole Christine, Charles Dowd, Cassandra Dawley, Irina Fedulow, Lisa Gerhardt, Erin Pike, Kaitlin Powers, Angela Serrani

Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Papers

The first section of this report addresses the evidence of causation concerning impairments developed as a result of a cancer diagnosis and cancer treatment. The second section investigates the evidence regarding rehabilitation and physical activity as an effective intervention in the prevention and treatment of impairments from cancer diagnosis and cancer treatment. The third section discusses the underlying behavioral change theory for incorporation of our Cancer Survivorship Rehabilitation Algorithm (Appendix 1), which details our proposed use of rehabilitation and wellness services in the continuum of cancer care and includes an outline for a survivorship care plan. This section also discusses …

Subsidized Housing, Public Housing, And Adolescent Violence And Substance Use, Tamara Leech

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

This study examines the separate relationships of public housing residents and subsidized housing residence to adolescent health risk behavior. Data included 2,530 adolescents aged 14 to 19 who were children of the National the Longitudinal Study of Youth. The author uses stratified propensity methods to compare the behaviors of each group—subsidized housing residents and public housing residents—to a matched control group of teens receiving no housing assistance. The results reveal no significant relationship between public housing residence and violence, heavy alcohol/marijuana use, or other drug use. However, subsidized housing residents have significantly lower rates of violence and hard drug use, …

College Student Perceptions On Campus Alcohol Policies And Consumption Patterns, Brenda L. Marshall, Katherine J. Roberts, Joseph Donnelly, Imani N. Rutledge

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Environmental strategies for colleges and universities to reduce alcohol consumption among their students include the development and enforcement of campus alcohol policies. This study examines students' knowledge and attitudes toward campus alcohol policies and how they relate to alcohol consumption and alcohol social norms. A sample of 422 freshman students was surveyed during their first month at a 4-year public college. Findings indicated that the majority of students (89%) were aware of campus policies, yet of those who were aware, less than half (44%) were accepting of these campus rules and regulations. In addition, the majority (79%) of students drank …

Subsidized Housing, Public Housing, And Adolescent Violence And Substance Use, Tamara Leech

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

This study examines the separate relationships of public housing residents and subsidized housing residence to adolescent health risk behavior. Data included 2,530 adolescents aged 14 to 19 who were children of the National the Longitudinal Study of Youth. The author uses stratified propensity methods to compare the behaviors of each group—subsidized housing residents and public housing residents—to a matched control group of teens receiving no housing assistance. The results reveal no significant relationship between public housing residence and violence, heavy alcohol/marijuana use, or other drug use. However, subsidized housing residents have significantly lower rates of violence and hard drug use, …

Reinvention Of Depression Instruments By Primary Care Clinicians, Seong-Yi Baik, Junius Gonzales, Barbara J. Bowers, Jean S. Anthony, Bas Tidjani, Jeffrey L. Susman

Publications from Provost Junius J. Gonzales

PURPOSE Despite the sophisticated development of depression instruments during the past 4 decades, the critical topic of how primary care clinicians actually use those instruments in their day-to-day practice has not been investigated. We wanted to understand how primary care clinicians use depression instruments, for what purposes, and the conditions that influence their use.

METHODS Grounded theory method was used to guide data collection and analysis. We conducted 70 individual interviews and 3 focus groups (n = 24) with a purposeful sample of 70 primary care clinicians (family physicians, general internists, and nurse practitioners) from 52 offices. Investigators’ field notes …

Area Specific Self-Esteem, Values, And Adolescent Substance Use, Joseph Donnelly, Michael Young, Rebecca Pearson, Tina M. Penhollow, Aida Hernandez

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

The use of illicit and licit drugs continues to be a major public health concern. Many prevention and drug education programs address this issue by attempting to enhance self-esteem. The idea is that increased levels of self-esteem will serve as a protective factor in decreasing the motivation and increasing the resistance to use drugs. This study explored the relationship between area specific self-esteem and adolescent substance use. Participants (n = 700) completed a self-report questionnaire which included items measuring the use and expected use of selected substances. Results indicated significant differences in home and school self-esteem scores between users/expected …

Impact Of Pedometer Use And Self-Regulation Strategies On Junior High School Physical Education Students' Daily Step Counts, Jane Shimon, Linda M. Petlichkoff

Kinesiology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: The aim of this study was to determine the impact of pedometer use and self-regulation strategies on adolescents’ daily physical activity.

Methods: Junior high school students (n = 113) enrolled in seventh- and eighth-grade physical education classes (52 girls, 61 boys) volunteered to participate in a 5-week study to assess daily step counts. Ten physical education classes were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups: (a) self-regulation, (b) open, and (c) control.

Results: A repeated-measures, mixed-model analysis of variance revealed a significant 3 × 4 (Group by Time) interaction effect, F_6,290 = 2.64, P < .02. Followup analyses indicated participants in the self-regulation group took 2071 to 4141 more steps/d than the control. No other significant differences emerged among groups on step counts.

Conclusions: It appears that …

Enhancement Of Claims Data To Improve Risk Adjustment Of Hospital Mortality, Michael Pine, Harmon S. Jordan, Anne Elixhauser, Donald E. Fry, David C. Hoaglin, Barbara Jones, Roger Meimban, David Warner, Junius Gonzales

Publications from Provost Junius J. Gonzales

Context Comparisons of risk-adjusted hospital performance often are important components of public reports, pay-for-performance programs, and quality improvement initiatives. Risk-adjustment equations used in these analyses must contain sufficient clinical detail to ensure accurate measurements of hospital quality.

Objective To assess the effect on risk-adjusted hospital mortality rates of adding present on admission codes and numerical laboratory data to administrative claims data.

Design, Setting, and Patients Comparison of risk-adjustment equations for inpatient mortality from July 2000 through June 2003 derived by sequentially adding increasingly difficult-to-obtain clinical data to an administrative database of 188 Pennsylvania hospitals. Patients were hospitalized for acute myocardial …

Naturally Occurring Changes In Time Spent Watching Television Are Inversely Related To Frequency Of Physical Activity During Early Adolescence, Robert W. Motl, Edward Mcauley, Amanda Birnbaum, Leslie A. Lytle

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

In this longitudinal study, we examined the relationship between changes in time spent watching television and playing video games with frequency of leisure-time physical activity across a 2-year period among adolescent boys and girls (N=4594" role="presentation" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; line-height: normal; font-size: 16.200000762939453px; word-spacing: normal; word-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; position: relative;">). Latent growth modelling indicated that a decrease in time spent watching television was associated with an increase in frequency of leisure-time physical activity. That relationship was strong in magnitude …

Risk Factors For Thyroid Cancer: A Prospective Cohort Study, Stephanie A. Navarro Silvera, Anthony B. Miller, Thomas E. Rohan

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Given the higher incidence rate of thyroid cancer among women compared to men and evidence that smoking and alcohol consumption may be inversely related to thyroid cancer risk, we examined thyroid cancer risk in association with menstrual, reproductive, and hormonal factors, and cigarette and alcohol consumption, in a prospective cohort study of 89,835 Canadian women aged 40–59 at recruitment who were enrolled in the National Breast Screening Study (NBSS). Linkages to national cancer and mortality databases yielded data on cancer incidence and deaths from all causes, respectively, with follow-up ending between 1998 and 2000. Cox proportional hazards models (using age …

Scale Development For Perceived School Climate For Girls’ Physical Activity, Amanda Birnbaum, Kelly R. Evenson, Robert W. Motl, Rod K. Dishman, Carolyn C. Voorhees, James F. Sallis, John P. Elder, Marsha Dowda

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

Objectives: To test an original scale assessing perceived school climate for girls' physical activity in middle school girls. Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM). Results: CFA retained 5 of 14 original items. A model with 2 correlated factors, perceptions about teachers' and boys' behaviors, respectively, fit the data well in both sixth and eighth-graders. SEM detected a positive, significant direct association of the teacher factor, but not the boy factor, with girls' self-reported physical activity. Conclusions:School climate for girls' physical activity is a measurable construct, and preliminary evidence suggests a relationship with physical activity.

Predictors Of Violent Behavior In An Early Adolescent Cohort: Similarities And Differences Across Genders, Jonathan L. Blitstein, David M. Murray, Leslie A. Lytle, Amanda Birnbaum, Cheryl L. Perry

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

The authors assessed a cohort of 2,335 students from the Minneapolis, Minnesota, area to identify predictors of violent behavior and to determine whether the predictors varied by gender. The sample was 76% White; boys and girls were equally represented. The majority lived with two parents. A measure of violent behavior collected at the end of the eighth-grade year (2000) was entered into Poisson regression against baseline data collected at the beginning of the seventh-grade year (1998). Predictors of violent behavior influencing both boys and girls included depressive symptoms, perceived invulnerability to negative future events, paternal nonauthoritative behavior, and drinking alcohol. …

Assessing Intervention Effects In A School-Based Nutrition Intervention Trial: Which Analytic Model Is Most Powerful?, Jessica B. Janega, David M. Murray, Sherri P. Varnell, Jonathan L. Blitstein, Amanda Birnbaum, Leslie A. Lytle

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

This article compares four mixed-model analyses valid for group-randomized trials (GRTs) involving a nested cohort design with a single pretest and posttest. This study makes estimates of intraclass correlations (ICCs) available to investigators planning GRTs addressing dietary outcomes. It also provides formulae demonstrating the potential benefits to the standard error of the intervention effect (σΔ) from adjustments for both fixed and time-varying covariates and correlations over time. These estimates will allow other researchers to use these variables to plan their studies by estimating a priori detectable differences and sample size requirements for any of the four analytic options. These methods …

Assessing The Most Powerful Analysis Method For School-Based Intervention Studies, Jessica B. Janega, David M. Murray, Sherri P. Varnell, Jonathan L. Blitstein, Amanda Birnbaum, Leslie A. Lytle

Department of Public Health Scholarship and Creative Works

This article compares four mixed-model analyses valid for group-randomized trials (GRTs) involving a nested cohort design with a single pretest and a single posttest, the most common design used in GRTs. This study makes estimates of intraclass correlations (ICCs) available to investigators planning GRTs with alcohol, tobacco, and other drug measures as the outcomes of interest. It also provides formulae demonstrating the potential benefits to the standard error of the intervention effect of both adjustments for fixed and time-varying covariates, as well as correlations over time. These estimates will allow other researchers using these variables to plan their studies by …

Race, Gender, And Partnership In The Patient-Physician Relationship, Lisa Cooper-Patrick, Joseph J. Gallo, Junius Gonzales, Hong Thi Vu, Neil R. Powe, Christine Nelson, Daniel E. Ford

Publications from Provost Junius J. Gonzales

Context Many studies have documented race and gender differences in health care received by patients. However, few studies have related differences in the quality of interpersonal care to patient and physician race and gender.

Objective To describe how the race/ethnicity and gender of patients and physicians are associated with physicians' participatory decision-making (PDM) styles.

Design, Setting, and Participants Telephone survey conducted between November 1996 and June 1998 of 1816 adults aged 18 to 65 years (mean age, 41 years) who had recently attended 1 of 32 primary care practices associated with a large mixed-model managed care organization in an urban …