Other Rehabilitation and Therapy Commons^™

Therapeutic Listening® - Quickshifts Support For Pediatric Intervention, Bryant Luong, Ann Malloy, Shannon Preto

Student Research Posters

Few empirical studies have been conducted to provide evidence for the effectiveness of Therapeutic Listening - Quickshifts (TL-Q). Anecdotally, TL-Q has produced consistent positive results for therapists and clients as a pediatric intervention. Therefore, it is imperative to research TL-Q’s efficacy, which may lead to its broader implementation. In this study, the researchers examined the effectiveness of TL-Q intervention for children with sensory processing difficulties to improve participation and function in 1) school performance, (2) self-regulation and arousal, (3) activities of daily living (ADLs), (4) social/emotional skills, and (5) sensorimotor skills. Over the course of an 8 week prospective study, …

An Exploration Of The Underlying Mechanisms Causing Spasticity In Young People With Cerebral Palsy, Alexis Carnes

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Background and Objective(s): Spasticity is a common symptom experienced by individuals with cerebral palsy (CP). Spastic CP is often accompanied by hypertonia. Currently, there is a limited understanding of the contributions of spasticity to hypertonia which can in turn hinder the development of new rehabilitative measure to improve these conditions. Additionally, clinical evaluation of spasticity is limited to observational techniques such as the Ashworth scale. The purpose of this study was to compare differences in passive joint torque in the upper extremity between individuals with severe, spastic CP (MACS III-V) and healthy, age-matched controls at different speeds during passive stretching. …

Effectiveness Of Hydrotherapy As An Adjunct Treatment For The Management Of Breast Cancer Related Lymphoedema In Women Following Breast Cancer Surgery: A Systematic Review, Eleanor Bills, Matthew Delsar, Steven O'Donnell, Alexandra Rice, Cory Stone, Saravana Kumar

Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice

Cancer is a leading cause of death and disability around the world. Of all cancers, breast cancer commonly ranks amongst the top three. Surgical intervention for breast cancer is common and a possible side effect of this is breast cancer related lymphoedema (BCRL). Women with breast cancer related lymphoedema commonly have regional limb swelling and pain, which can negatively impact mental and social well-being as well as upper limb function. Hydrotherapy is therapeutic modality which may be used as an adjunct to self-management strategies after the intensive phase of lymphoedema management. Yet despite its popularity, recent research has questioned its …

A Wilderness And Art Therapy Program For Children With Social Concerns, Ashlynn C. Wardle

Honors Projects

For my honors project, I created an alternative therapy program for children with special needs. Activities were designed to support children with varied needs such as children with autism, ADHD, or learning disabilities. The program utilizes the most successful factors from the fields of art therapy, wilderness therapy, special education, applied behavior analysis, and speech and language therapy the program to form age appropriate, educational, and fun art and wilderness opportunities.

Evaluating Cardiovascular Dysfunction During Increased Activity And Exercise Rehabilitation Following Incomplete Thoracic Spinal Cord Injury In The Adult Rat., Kathryn A. Harman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in whole-body dysfunction. While the majority of SCI research is focused on improving locomotor function after injury, cardiovascular (CV) disease continues to be the leading cause of morbidity in the chronic SCI patient population. The combination of injury-induced destruction of autonomic pathways, maladaptive plasticity within lumbosacral circuits, and the progressive decline in physical fitness contribute to the poor CV status of SCI individuals. Currently, there is little emphasis on implementing appropriately-timed acute rehabilitation techniques aimed to curtail maladaptive remodeling and improve CV outcomes. Furthermore, no pre-clinical or clinical studies have investigated the most appropriate time-course …

Influence Of Posture-Cuing Shirt On Tennis Serve Kinematics In Division Iii Tennis Players, Joseph Zappala, Caroline Orrego, Emily Boe, Heather Fechner, Derek Salminen, Daniel Cipriani

Physical Therapy Faculty Articles and Research

Objective: Injuries to the shoulder complex are common in overhead athletes, often related to kinematics of the shoulder complex. This study evaluated the influence of a posture-cuing shirt on internal rotation velocity of the shoulder during a tennis swing and to determine this influence on shoulder external rotation position. Methods: Nine healthy competitive college tennis players from a Division III college participated in this study. High speed motion capture allowed for 3-D analysis of shoulder kinematics during a tennis serve. Two conditions were evaluated while the athletes performed a high velocity tennis serve: standard tennis shirt and a …

Assets And Barriers To Osteoarthritis, Allison K. Wiles

Scholars Week

Osteoarthritis has remained a prevailing health concern in our society for many years. OA is most commonly seen in middle aged men and women suffering from pain and stiffness in the hip, knee, and thumb areas. Risk factors for OA include age, obesity, previous joint injuries, overuse of joint areas, and weak muscles. If not treated, OA could lead to permanent discomfort and pain, and potentially develop into depression, lowered quality of life, or a need for long-term home health care.

By providing photo footage of every day health care issues, Photo voice persuades community members to change habits and …

The Benefits Of Alternative And Augmentative Communication: A Quality Of Life Issue, Richard Dressler, Lauren Bland, Meghan Baumgartner

Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice

This article summarizes the need for alternate forms of communication for those who are unable to use verbal speech. The importance of allied health professionals in understanding alternative communication is critical in patient care. The authors describe the various forms of augmentative and alternate communication devices that can be used to help a non-verbal individual communicate their wants, needs, and thoughts. Financial and social consequences for using these devices is discussed.

The Effect Of Exercise On Cognitive Function As Measured By Impact Protocol: Aerobic Vs. Anaerobic, John Brutvan Ma, Atc, Kimberly S. Peer Edd, Atc, Fnata, Jacob E. Barkley Phd, Jay Jonas Ms, Atc

Journal of Sports Medicine and Allied Health Sciences: Official Journal of the Ohio Athletic Trainers Association

Background: Exercise has long played a critical role in the recovery from athletic injuries. Of recent, concussion research has escalated creating new insights into the treatment of and rehabilitation from concussion syndromes. As part of the concussion research, multiple uses of the ImPACT tool have evolved to measure cognitive function. However, combining the variables of cognitive improvement as measured by the ImPACT protocol with aerobic and anaerobic exercise has not been investigated. Purpose: The purpose of this investigation was to assess the influence of acute bouts of aerobic versus resistance exercise on cognitive function of college-aged participants as measured …

Puzzleart Therapy: Connecting The Pieces In Search Of Answers, Jennifer Fortuna

Open Journal of Occupational Therapy: Occupation and the Artist

Alli Berman has been an artist, educator, author, and lecturer for more than 25 years. Her art can be found in private, corporate, and nonprofit collections around the world. Berman is the creator of PuzzleArt, a series of small abstract paintings that combine to form a modular puzzle. When a stroke impacted Berman’s quality of life, she turned to art for answers. Engagement in a meaningful activity, such as painting, provided her motivation and strength for continued physical and psychological healing. The PuzzleArt concept evolved from a simple exercise that helped Berman to fit all of the missing pieces back …

From Interview To Transcript To Story: Elucidating The Construction Of Journalistic Narrative As Qualitative Research, Jørgen Jeppesen

The Qualitative Report

There is a call to narrative investigators to be more explicit about their ways of working methodologically, in particular concerning dialogic/performative analysis. The purpose of this study was to examine how journalistic storytelling used as qualitative health research transformed, assembled and sequenced interview into transcripts, scenes, digressions, and other language products. A published story from a socio-narratological study of living with the terminal disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis was selected. Distribution and sequence of modes of transcription, versions of dialogue, transformation of observation and memory to scenes, and conversion of the researcher’s reflection to digression, were identified and calculated. Spots in …

Neural Control Of Tongue Movements Across Effort Levels, Megan Rovang, Angela M. Dietsch

UCARE: Research Products

Background

A hallmark of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a mismatch between the perceived effort and actual forces exerted during functional activities such as speech. Current evidence supports therapy to help reset this perception of effort, but the neurological underpinnings of such treatments are unclear. This study examined brain activity during tongue movements performed at varying levels of effort to determine (1) which brain areas are involved in each task, and (2) which areas, if any, scale in activation according to effort level. These results, considered with the neurological changes associated with PD, can be used to develop and refine treatment …

Specialized Medical Home For Patients With Spinal Cord Injury, Mendel Kupfer Md, Marci Ruediger Pt, Ms, Norah V. Dixon Ma

Population Health Matters (Formerly Health Policy Newsletter)

No abstract provided.

Can Gait Signatures Provide Quantitative Measures For Aiding Clinical Decision-Making? A Systematic Meta-Analysis Of Gait Variability Behavior In Patients With Parkinson’S Disease, Niklas König Ignasiak

Physical Therapy Faculty Articles and Research

A disturbed, inconsistent walking pattern is a common feature of patients with Parkinson's disease (PwPD). Such extreme variability in both temporal and spatial parameters of gait has been associated with unstable walking and an elevated prevalence of falls. However, despite their ability to discretise healthy from pathological function, normative variability values for key gait parameters are still missing. Furthermore, an understanding of each parameter's response to pathology, as well as the inter-parameter relationships, has received little attention. The aim of this systematic literature review and meta-analysis was therefore to define threshold levels for pathological gait variability as well as to …

1st Place Research Paper: The Effectiveness Of Yoga Therapy On An Adult, Post-Stroke Population: A Systematic Review, Baylor E. Hogan

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

Objectives: The objectives of this paper are to (1) give a brief overview of stroke pathophysiology (2) outline yoga as a therapeutic strategy (3) present the current research on yoga rehabilitation for stroke (4) discuss the efficacy of yoga for chronic stroke.

Methods: Relevant terms were searched in PubMed, Web of Science, Academic OneFile, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar electronic databases. Studies were excluded if they contained pediatric stroke, non-stroke neurological diseases, or subjects with comorbidities. Statistically significant data was extracted for the primary measures of nine trials.

Results: Four studies measured statistically significant outcomes (p<0.05). These included improvements in balance, independence, endurance, trait anxiety, fear of falling, self-efficacy, pain, strength, range of motion (ROM), activity, participation, and quality of life (QoL). Discussion: Lack of statistical significance in post-stroke depression (PSD) measures may be due to inadequate intervention length or a psychosocial cause of depression. Improvements in balance, flexibility, and strength from yoga participation permitted progress in disability and functionality. Finally, overall health-related quality of life (HRQL) is affected by the severity of mental disorders and physical disability. Yoga can have a positive effect in both domains and therefore, may improve HRQL.

Conclusion: …

Language-Mixing In Discourse In Bilingual Individuals With Non-Fluent Aphasia, Avanthi Paplikar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Language-mixing (LM) as defined by Chengappa (2009, p. 417) is an “intra-sentential phenomenon referred to as the mixing of various linguistic units (morphemes, words, modifiers, phrases, etc.), primarily from two participating grammatical systems”. LM is influenced by grammatical, environmental, and social constraints (e.g., Milroy & Wei, 1995; Bhat & Chengappa, 2005). Researchers have suggested that LM in patients with aphasia is a communicative strategy used to achieve successful exchanges between speakers; the effectiveness of this mixing, however, had yet to be demonstrated quantitatively.

In the current study we investigated whether LM is present in bilingual speakers with aphasia, and if …

Revealing The Quality Of Movement: A Meta-Analysis Review To Quantify The Thresholds To Pathological Variability During Standing And Walking, Niklas König Ignasiak

Physical Therapy Faculty Articles and Research

Neuromotor processes are inherently noisy, which results in variability during movement and fluctu-ations in motor control. Although controversial, low levels of variability are traditionally considered healthy, while increased levels are thought to be pathological. This systematic review and meta-analysisof the literature investigates the thresholds between healthy and pathological task variability.

After examining 13,195 publications, 109 studies were included. Results from over 3000 healthy sub-jects and 2775 patients revealed an overall positive effect size of pathology on variability of 0.59 forwalking and 0.80 for sway. For the coefficient of variation of stride time (ST) and sway area (SA), upperthresholds of 2.6% …

Trunk-Pelvis Coordination During Turning: A Cross Sectional Study Of Young Adults With And Without A History Of Low Back Pain, Jo Armour Smith, Kornelia Kulig

Physical Therapy Faculty Articles and Research

Background

During steady-state locomotion, symptomatic individuals with low back pain demonstrate reduced ability to modulate coordination between the trunk and the pelvis in the axial plane. It is unclear if this is also true during functional locomotor perturbations such as changing direction, or if this change in coordination adaptability persists between symptomatic episodes. The purpose of this study was to compare trunk-pelvis coordination during walking turns in healthy individuals and asymptomatic individuals with a history of low back pain.

Methods

Participants performed multiple ipsilateral turns. Axial plane inter-segmental coordination and stride-to-stride coordination variability were quantified using the vector coding technique. …

1st Place Contest Entry: The Effectiveness Of Yoga Therapy On An Adult, Post-Stroke Population: A Systematic Review, Baylor E. Hogan

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

This is Baylor Hogan's submission for the 2016 Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize, which won first place. She wrote about the effects of yoga therapy on the physical and mental wellbeing of stroke patients. You can read the final essay that came out of her research here.

Baylor is a senior at Chapman University, majoring in Kinesiology. Her faculty mentor is Dr. Elizabeth DeBaets.

Tune Up Your Teaching Toolbox, Anne H. Zachry, J. Flick, S. B. Lancaster

Faculty Presentations

Occupational therapy (OT) educators strive to prepare entry-level practitioners who have the expertise to meet the diverse health care needs of society. A variety of instructional methods are used in the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) MOT program, including traditional lecture-based instruction (LBI), problem-based learning (PBL), team-based learning (TBL), and game-based learning (GBL). Research suggests that active learning strategies develop the critical thinking and problem-solving skills that are necessary for effective clinical reasoning and decision-making abilities. PBL, TBL, GBL are being successfully implemented in the UTHSC MOT Program to enhance the learning process and improve student engagement.