This study explores migrant identity construction in the curated stories of UK-based charity organisations. Drawing upon the paradigms of critical discourse analysis and narrative positioning, we ...demonstrate how the construction of migrant identities as successful, fulfilled, grateful and resilient reproduce a migration as transaction discourse. We problematise these representations as prerequisites to migrants’ acceptance, given that they not only speak to the neoliberal, neo-assimilatory paradigm of wider integration debates in UK public discourse, but also conflict with the overtly philanthropic aims of the charity organisations. The curated stories are, thus, transformed into sites of liquid racism in their entanglement of declared antiracist, covertly racist, positionings of migrants in the UK context. Our work contributes to the body of research that aims to scrutinise the largely unexamined work of institutionalised social actors who aim to ‘do the right thing’ by calling for greater reflexivity and the need for critical dialogue in order to unpack the embeddedness of antiracism in racism.
This book deals with speech representation in Greek adolescents' storytelling and investigates how members of different communities of practice present themselves and other characters as ...interactional protagonists through the stories they tell. The work puts forth a dynamic approach that examines (direct) speech representation at the local and the broader socio-cultural context in which it is embedded. The concept of community of practice accounts for direct speech variation, and direct speech is seen as the linguistic manifestation of shared repertoire of particular communities of practice. The book combines qualitative with quantitative methods of study and brings together relevant theories of speech representation, narrative analysis and self-presentation.
Guidance through an exercise program improves balance and gait in older adults, but the efficacy of the timing these are given is unclear. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effects of ...guidance delivery time on balance, gait, falls, and cognitive functions. In a single (participants)-blinded clinical trial, a convenient sample of 24 older adults (aged 74 ± 6 years) were separated in two age-matched groups, both of which received a progressive 12-week Otago Exercise Program (OEP) for strength and balance. Group 1 received visual and verbal guidance before the performance of each of the exercises, while group 2 received the visual and verbal guidance only synchronously with the exercises. Balance, gait, fear of falling, and cognitive function were evaluated at baseline, week 6, and week 12 of the program. Fall incidence and exercise adherence were also documented. Significant improvements (p < 0.05) were revealed in all assessed variables post intervention, regardless of the guidance delivery time. Only the mental function and the adherence to the exercise tended to be better when the guidance was given in advance of the exercise execution, but further studies of a bigger sample size and with a control group should be conducted before safe conclusions are extracted.
•We examine Scouse in middle-class school settings.•Stances towards Scouse range from tolerance, to distance to rejection.•Scouse is placed in lower scale levels of indexicality.•Our participants’ ...local positioning reflects a grammar school pressure.•The grammar school ideology intersects with the middle-class bias that dominates education in Britain.
This paper explores the use and position of Scouse in middle-class secondary schools. Despite a wide circulation of a ‘variation ideology’ (Cameron, 1995) that embraces and positively values regional speech in the UK, we discuss the hierarchical relationship between Scouse and standard English that is naturalised in the specific school settings. We focus on classroom talk and interviews from teachers and students in two all-girls grammar schools. We observe that student language use in the classroom, the social values indexed by Scouse and the stances towards Scouse in metapragmatic talk range from tolerance, to distance, to complete rejection of the local variety in the specific setting. We discuss how middle-class school settings can enforce and sustain homogenising language ideologies and address the power implications this practice has on non-confident speakers of standard English in relation to the wider issue of educational failure.
The aims of this study were to examine the relationship between neurological outcomes at 3- and 6-months corrected age with the neurodevelopmental outcome at 3 years of age; to identify the ...perinatal/neonatal risk factors for poor neurodevelopmental outcomes at 3 years of age.
In our single-centre longitudinal cohort study, of the 73 consecutive infants admitted to our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), 49 infants (80%) received both Hammersmith Infant Neurological Examination (HINE) at 3- and 6-months corrected age and Bayley-III neurodevelopmental assessment at 2-3 years chronological age. At 3 months follow up, 8.2% had suboptimal scores (below 10th percentile) on the HINE. At 6 months follow up, 4.1% had suboptimal scores (below 10th percentile) on the HINE. The means(±SD) for Bayley-III cognitive, language, and motor subscales were (96.3 ± 9.8), (99.9 ± 11.9), (93.2 ± 9.9).
At 3 months corrected age, higher total HINE scores and subscores for function of cranial nerves, posture, tone, were associated with better cognitive scores while poorer scores for function of cranial nerves, posture, movements, tone, and total HINE score were associated with lower motor scores. Infants with a HINE subscore of function of cranial nerves in the suboptimal range have three times higher odds of having a motor delay. Infants with a HINE subscore of function of cranial nerves in the suboptimal range have more than two times higher odds of having a language delay. At 6 months corrected age, poorer scores for function of cranial nerves, movements, tone, reflexes, and total HINE score were associated with worse Bayley-III motor scores whilst infants who have a total HINE score and a subscore of reflexes in the suboptimal range have four and seven times, respectively, higher odds of having a motor delay.
Early identification of infants at risk for adverse long-term outcomes is essential in introducing early intervention therapies for optimizing neurodevelopmental outcomes.
Urinary incontinence affects approximately 200 million people worldwide. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of pelvic floor muscle (PFM) training with biofeedback (BF) in women ...with urinary incontinence in comparison to PFM training alone. The primary outcome was PFM strength with secondary outcomes being the severity of incontinence, other PFM parameters, quality of life (QoL), social life, satisfaction and adherence to treatment. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published from 2005 to 2023 in PubMed, MEDLINE, Scopus and Google Scholar were searched and evaluated with the PEDro scale. Nine moderate and two high methodological quality RCTs were selected. There was a statistically significant improvement in all parameters. In five studies, muscle strength and the severity of incontinence were statistically better in the BF group compared to the non-BF group. In most studies, no differences were found for QoL and social life between the groups. For adherence to treatment, the results were ambiguous. Τhe remaining variables (endurance, precontraction, function, adherence and satisfaction) had few studies to support the results. There was moderate level evidence that the group utilizing PFM exercises with BF showed significant improvements in the management of urinary incontinence. Concerning muscle strength and the severity of incontinence, findings were inconclusive, as only in some studies the results were statistically better in the BF group compared to the non-BF group.
Introduction Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected the healthcare system and the practice of physiotherapists. Telerehabilitation is an alternative method of delivering physiotherapy ...services. The aim of this study was to investigate physiotherapists' knowledge, beliefs, and willingness to use telerehabilitation in Greece during the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and methods In this cross-sectional study, Greek physiotherapists completed an online survey between January and February 2022. A questionnaire was distributed via the Panhellenic Physiotherapy Association (PSF). The questionnaire involved 26 items on demographic background, use of technology, overall perceptions, the experience of telerehabilitation, and their opinion on the future of telerehabilitation. The study protocol was approved by the Ethical Committee of the University of Patras, Greece. Results Participants in this study were 213 physiotherapists (female 57.7%; mean age 39.84±8 years). Most physiotherapists (n=118; 55.4%) were working in a private clinic in the areas of outpatient orthopedics, geriatrics, and neurorehabilitation. Overall, most participants (55%) reported increased use of telerehabilitation strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 130 physiotherapists (n=61.3%) believed that telerehabilitation may be beneficial as a supplementary way of patient management. Greek physiotherapists made use of low-cost and easily accessible digital technologies, such as mobile phones and online meeting tools (e.g., Skype, Zoom). Although most physiotherapists (79.8%) reported that they wanted to receive more information about digital technology and telerehabilitation, only 42.1% of them did intend to work remotely after the pandemic. Conclusion Most of the participants were willing to deliver physiotherapy via telerehabilitation. Specific education and training programs need to be provided to physiotherapists during and after the pandemic. Healthcare managers should consider the use of telerehabilitation and design guidelines and policies to manage telerehabilitation practices in Greece.
The Functional Gait Assessment (FGA) was cross-culturally adapted into Greek, according to international guidelines. The final Greek version of the scale (FGAGR) was evaluated for its reliability and ...was correlated with the mini-Balance Evaluation Systems Test (mini-BESTest), the Berg Balance Scale (BBS), the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test, and the Falls Efficacy Scale-International (FES-I) questionnaire, for testing the concurrent validity. The discriminant validity between individuals reporting low and those reporting high concern about falls as well as the predictive validity in identifying people with high risk of falls were assessed. The FGAGR was characterized as comprehensible in its content and orders. Psychometric testing in 24 Greek-speaking individuals (six men and eighteen women, 66 ± 7 years old) yielded excellent test-retest (ICC = 0.976) and inter-rater reliability (ICC = 0.984), but moderate internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.660). The FGAGR scale proved its concurrent and discriminant validity while a maximum cutoff point of 25, with sensitivity of 84% and specificity of 100%, was identified to be optimal for predicting risk of falls in the elderly. The good psychometric characteristics of the FGAGR confirm its applicability in assessing gait of Greek-speaking older adults.
This study aimed to investigate the psychometric characteristics of reliability, validity and ability to detect change of a newly developed balance assessment tool, the Mini-BESTest, in Greek ...patients with stroke.
A prospective, observational design study with test-retest measures was conducted.
A convenience sample of 21 Greek patients with chronic stroke (14 male, 7 female; age of 63 ± 16 years) was recruited. Two independent examiners administered the scale, for the inter-rater reliability, twice within 10 days for the test-retest reliability. Bland Altman Analysis for repeated measures assessed the absolute reliability and the Standard Error of Measurement (SEM) and the Minimum Detectable Change at 95% confidence interval (MDC
) were established. The Greek Mini-BESTest (Mini-BESTest
) was correlated with the Greek Berg Balance Scale (BBS
) for assessing the concurrent validity and with the Timed Up and Go (TUG), the Functional Reach Test (FRT) and the Greek Falls Efficacy Scale-International (FES-I
) for the convergent validity.
The Mini-BESTestGR demonstrated excellent inter-rater reliability (ICC (95%CI) = 0.997 (0.995-0.999, SEM = 0.46) with the scores of two raters within the limits of agreement (mean
= -0.143 ± 0.727, p > 0.05) and test-retest reliability (ICC (95%CI) = 0.966 (0.926-0.988), SEM = 1.53). Additionally, the Mini-BESTest
yielded very strong to moderate correlations with BBS
(r = 0.924, p < 0.001), TUG (r = -0.823, p < 0.001), FES-I
(r = -0.734, p < 0.001) and FRT (r = 0.689, p < 0.001). MDC
was 4.25 points.
The exceptionally high reliability and the equally good validity of the Mini-BESTest
, strongly support its utility in Greek people with chronic stroke. Its ability to identify clinically meaningful changes and falls risk need further investigation.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
The purported ergogenic actions of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) applied to motor cortex (M1) on force production and perception of effort were investigated using a 10-item numerical ...rating scale (0-10 NRS) in nonfatiguing bouts of a force-matching task utilizing isometric elbow flexion. Using a crossover design, 12 healthy volunteers received sham, anodal, and cathodal tDCS randomly for 10 min (1.5 mA, 62 μA/cm2) to the left M1 in a double-blind manner. Corticospinal excitability changes were also monitored using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with surface electromyography (sEMG) to monitor both motor evoked potentials (MEPs) and force-EMG from right m. biceps brachii and m. brachioradialis brachii. No significant differences between the verum and sham stimulation were obtained for elbow flexion maximum voluntary force, perception of effort, or sEMG. There were also no significant differences in MEP changes for the types of tDCS, which is consistent with reports that tDCS excitability effects are diminished during ongoing cognitive and motor activities.
![‘[P]aying back to the commu...](http://api.summon.serialssolutions.com/2.0.0/image/issn/XR4PS5YY4K/0957-9265_1460-3624/small "‘[P]aying back to the community and to the British people’: Migration as transactional discourse in curated stories by UK charity organisations")
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