To verify the association between Human Activity Profile and functional capacity, functional class and systolic function of the patients with Chagas heart disease (CHD).
Sixty-two patients with CHD ...were evaluated by echocardiography, maximal exercise testing and Human Activity Profile questionnaire. The sample was stratified, according to the values of peak oxygen uptake (low or normal), functional class (symptomatic or asymptomatic), and left ventricular ejection fraction (preserved or systolic dysfunction). Linear regression and two-group comparisons analyses were used. Receiver-operating characteristic analysis was used to determine different cutoff values of the Human Activity Profile for low peak oxygen uptake prediction.
Peak oxygen uptake was an independent predictor of Human Activity Profile (R
2
-adjusted = 0.27). Patients with low peak oxygen uptake had lower scores in Human Activity Profile difference of 6.9 (95%CI 2.5-11.4) than those with normal peak oxygen uptake. Symptomatic patients also showed lower scores when compared to the asymptomatic difference of 6.2 (95%CI 1.7-10.8). There was no difference between left ventricular ejection fraction classes. The Human Activity Profile score of 76.5 was the optimal cut point value in predicting low peak oxygen uptake (sensitivity = 66.0% and specificity = 71.8%).
The Human Activity Profile questionnaire is associated with functional capacity of patients with CHD and is able to identify individuals with low peak oxygen uptake.
Implications for rehabilitation
Functional impairment is one of the most common clinical findings in all stages and is an important predictor of poor prognosis of the Chagas heart disease;
A patient-derived measure of functional capacity is potentially useful in the setting of the Chagas heart disease;
The Human Activity Profile questionnaire is effective in the identification of patients with Chagas heart disease with functional impairment and may be a valid method for functional evaluation.
Although the notion that recovery is a process rather than a state lies at the heart of recovery theory, the continuous cycle of depletion and replenishment of resources itself has not yet been ...investigated empirically. In the present article, I therefore build on recovery theory and on evidence from chronobiological research and adopt a temporal research approach that allows investigating change trajectories in fatigue over the course of the day. Furthermore, the role of sleep quality and psychological detachment in these change trajectories is investigated. Hypotheses are tested in an experience-sampling study involving 133 employees who were asked to provide fatigue ratings 4 times a day over 5 consecutive workdays. Growth curve analyses revealed that on average fatigue decreased in the morning, reaching a nadir around midday and then increased until bedtime. Additionally, daily sleep quality explained variation in individuals' fatigue change trajectories: When sleep quality was low, next day fatigue decreased between morning and midday and then increased again until bedtime; when sleep quality was high, fatigue remained stable until midday and then increased again between the end of work and bedtime. Theoretical implications for the recovery literature and practical implications are discussed in conclusion.
Introduction
Individuals with severe mental illnesses (SMI) often find it hard to perform daily activities such as grocery shopping, which require intact executive functions. The use of ...performance-based evaluations is valuable, but lacks the subjects’ point of view during task performance.
Objectives
The aim of the current presentation is to bring together performance-based observation and cognitive science methods to provide insights regarding real-life behavior and problem solving in SMI populations.
Methods
In this quasi-experimental study, forty-three individuals performed the Test of Grocery Shopping Skills (TOGSS) while wearing an eye-tracking device. Eye-movement patterns served as a proxy of executive functions in people with and without SMI during a real-life ingredient selection task. We hypothesized that significant differences will be found between people with SMI and controls in TOGSS sub-outcomes as well as in eye-fixation durations.
Results
TOGSS sub-outcomes indicative of performance efficiency (time and redundancy) were significantly higher in the research group compared to matched controls (P<0.01). Average fixation duration was found to be significantly higher for the research group compared to matched controls (P<0.05) for two of the four item-selection tasks.
Conclusions
These preliminary findings indicate that when confronted with a selection task, individuals with SMI spend more dwelling time while selecting ingredients. Further analyses on these data will examine how this time is spent (e.g. focusing on irrelevant information). The outlined approach may prove beneficial in illuminating specific behavioral and physiological difficulties in individuals with SMI, particularly in the evolving Covid-19 situation, which poses novel social and health-related challenges on real-life tasks.
Disclosure
No significant relationships.
Avoiding inactivity and staying active during cancer therapy have great health effects.
The aims of this study were to describe level of daily, leisure, and physical activities before, during, and ...after radiotherapy and to investigate whether patients who had not restored activity level after radiotherapy differed from patients who had restored activity level regarding different characteristics.
In this descriptive longitudinal study, 196 patients undergoing pelvic-abdominal radiotherapy reported their activity level at baseline, weekly during radiotherapy, and at 1 month after radiotherapy.
Patients decreased activity level during radiotherapy (P < .001 for all activities): physical activity (34% of patients decreased level), walking (26%), leisure activities (44%), social activities (15%), housework (34%), shopping (28%), and activities in general (28%). Almost half (47%) had not restored activity level after radiotherapy. Patients with colorectal cancer, older than 65 years, who had less education than university, and high capacity in overall daily activities at baseline were more likely than other patients not to restore activity level after radiotherapy. The patients not restoring their activity level after radiotherapy were more likely than others to experience anxious mood (P = .016), depressed mood (P = .003), and poor quality of life (P = .003) after radiotherapy.
Patients' activity level decreased during radiotherapy, and almost half of patients did not restore activity level after radiotherapy.
Given that restored activity level after radiotherapy was less common in certain subgroups and that patients who restored activity level experienced better quality of life and less frequent anxious and depressed mood, cancer nursing professionals should consider supporting these subgroups of patients in performing activities.
People with mild to moderate intellectual or multiple disabilities may have serious difficulties in accessing leisure events, managing communication exchanges with distant partners, and performing ...functional daily activities. Recently, efforts were made to develop and assess technology-aided programs aimed at supporting people in all three areas (i.e., leisure, communication, and daily activities). This study assessed a new technology-aided program aimed at helping four participants with intellectual and multiple disabilities in the aforementioned areas. The program, which was implemented following a non-concurrent multiple baseline across participants design, relied on the use of a smartphone or tablet connected
via
Bluetooth to a two-switch device. This device served to select leisure and communication events and to control the smartphone or tablet’s delivery of step instructions for the activities scheduled. Data showed that during the baseline phase (with only the smartphone or tablet available), three participants failed in each of the areas (i.e., leisure, communication and functional activities) while one participant managed to access a few leisure events. During the intervention phase (with the support of the technology-aided program), all participants managed to independently access leisure events, make telephone calls, and carry out activities. These results suggest that the program might be a useful tool for helping people with intellectual and multiple disabilities improve their condition in basic areas of daily life.
People spontaneously segment continuous ongoing actions into sequences of events. Prior research found that gaze similarity and pupil dilation increase at event boundaries and that older adults ...segment more idiosyncratically than do young adults. We used eye tracking to explore age-related differences in gaze similarity (i.e., the extent to which individuals look at the same places at the same time as others) and pupil dilation at event boundaries. Older and young adults watched naturalistic videos of actors performing everyday activities while we tracked their eye movements. Afterward, they segmented the videos into subevents. Replicating prior work, we found that pupil size and gaze similarity increased at event boundaries. Thus, there were fewer individual differences in eye position at boundaries. We also found that young adults had higher gaze similarity than older adults throughout an entire video and at event boundaries. This study is the first to show that age-related differences in how people parse continuous everyday activities into events may be partially explained by individual differences in gaze patterns. Those who segment less normatively may do so because they fixate less normative regions. Results have implications for future interventions designed to improve encoding in older adults.
Public Significance Statement
It is commonly said that everyone looks at things differently. In this study, we found differences in where young and older adults looked while watching real-world events, especially at important moments when their understanding changed. In addition, we found that idiosyncrasies in the way some older adults looked at everyday events, likely reflected idiosyncrasies in their understanding of those events.
Joint tissue mechanics (e.g., stress and strain) are believed to have a major involvement in the onset and progression of musculoskeletal disorders, e.g., knee osteoarthritis (KOA). Accordingly, ...considerable efforts have been made to develop musculoskeletal finite element (MS-FE) models to estimate highly detailed tissue mechanics that predict cartilage degeneration. However, creating such models is time-consuming and requires advanced expertise. This limits these complex, yet promising, MS-FE models to research applications with few participants and makes the models impractical for clinical assessments. Also, these previously developed MS-FE models have not been used to assess activities other than gait. This study introduces and verifies a semi-automated rapid state-of-the-art MS-FE modeling and simulation toolbox incorporating an electromyography- (EMG) assisted MS model and a muscle-force driven FE model of the knee with fibril-reinforced poro(visco)elastic cartilages and menisci. To showcase the usability of the pipeline, we estimated joint- and tissue-level knee mechanics in 15 KOA individuals performing different daily activities. The pipeline was verified by comparing the estimated muscle activations and joint mechanics to existing experimental data. To determine the importance of the EMG-assisted MS analysis approach, results were compared to those from the same FE models but driven by static-optimization-based MS models. The EMG-assisted MS-FE pipeline bore a closer resemblance to experiments compared to the static-optimization-based MS-FE pipeline. Importantly, the developed pipeline showed great potential as a rapid MS-FE analysis toolbox to investigate multiscale knee mechanics during different activities of individuals with KOA.
This research review shows how isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic has affected
daily activities such as quality of sleep, physical activity, and work life. This review
exercise is developed to ...provide information that will help different professionals to
point out the psychological impact and possible changes presented in the daily
activities of people during confinement. Sleep hygiene and quality of sleep were
affected due to factors such as age – young, sex – female, history of mental illness,
insomnia, anxiety, depression, psychological distress, low back pain, and
stress.
Evidence about the impact of art on well-being is confined to studies of participatory arts and receptive arts that involve attending cultural events. This investigation examined the impact of art on ...well-being by framing people's engagement with art as encounters with artistic imagination. These encounters include traditional forms of cultural activity, such as a gallery or theater visit, but also encompass everyday activities, such as watching a screen drama or reading fiction. Three studies examined how such encounters affect emotional well-being, life satisfaction, meaning in life, and mental well-being. A survey study (N = 544) found that participants on average spent over 4 hr engaged with art the previous day. This study and an experience-sampling study (N = 50), in which participants completed a questionnaire via their smartphones twice daily for 10 days (854 responses), revealed that individuals' variety of encounters with art and accompanying elevating emotional experiences were associated with well-being. Live arts engagement was positively associated with all aspects of well-being, and visual and literary arts with greater meaning in life, whereas screen arts, audio arts, and sports spectating (for comparison) were not positively associated. A third study using (live) arts attendance and well-being data (n = 27,918) from 2 waves (3-year interval) of a large longitudinal panel survey showed that frequency of attendance predicted subsequent well-being, whereas arts participation did not. Overall, the evidence indicates that encounters with artistic imagination contribute to people's well-being, with effects varying according to the art form and the type of well-being assessed.
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