The purpose of this study was to investigate QOL in parents/caretakers of children with cerebral palsy in the province of Kampong Cham, Cambodia. Forty parents/caretakers of children with cerebral ...palsy aged 1-13 years (F19/M21) participated in this study. The study was carried out using the Comprehensive Quality of life Scale A5 (ComQOL-A5) questionnaire. Results point out three major domains where quality of life is unsatisfactory: health, material well-being and emotional well-being. Of these areas, QOL in the health domain demonstrates the lowest scores. Results support a further commitment in providing comprehensive rehabilitation for parents and their children with CP in Kampong Cham. This study identifies the need for further research on QOL in parents/caretakers of children with CP in Cambodia and the need for development of valid and reliable QOL instruments targeting the developing world.
Children and youths with disabilities have low levels of physical activity and limited opportunities to participate in physical activity. This study aimed to explore the lived experiences and meaning ...of an adapted ice-skating approach with access to a tailored harness system as a physical activity for children and youths with disabilities in Sweden.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 guardians, 5 ice-skating trainers and 15 ice-skating children and youths with disabilities. The interviews were supplemented with participant observations of 23 children and youths with disabilities while ice-skating.
Four categories emerged: "
," "
," "
and "
." Ice-skating was found to be a source of joy of movement, zest for life and longing, enabling children and youths with disabilities to explore and develop their abilities, social interactions, confidence, identity, and independence in a safe and joy-bringing context.
The study highlights social and existential dimensions of an adapted ice-skating approach with access to a harness system tailored for children and youths with disabilities, that enables them to be included in ice-skating, regardless of disabilities, creating increased opportunities for physical activity and movement.
Although depression is associated to physical discomfort, meanings of the body in depression are rarely addressed in clinical research. Drawing on the concept of the lived body, this study explores ...depression as an embodied phenomenon. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, the analysis of narrative‐based interviews with 11 depressed adults discloses a thematic structure of an embodied process of an ambiguous striving against fading. Five subthemes elicit different dimensions of this process, interpreted as disabling or enabling: feeling estranged, feeling confined, feeling burdensome, sensing life and seeking belongingness. In relation to clinical practice, we suggest that the interdisciplinary team can focus on enhancing the enabling dimensions, for example through guided physical activities to support the patient to feel more alive, capable and connected. Moreover, we suggest that the treatment process benefits from an increased awareness of the ambiguity in the patient's struggle, acknowledging both destructive and recharging elements of the withdrawing, and the perceived conflict in‐between.
Although the effectiveness of physical exercise for depression has been studied for many years, few studies have described patients' experiences of what exercise means to them, beyond the biological ...focus. Moreover, exercise as a treatment for depression is rarely explored in a physical therapy context.
The purpose of this study was to explore a physical therapy exercise intervention, as experienced by people with major depression.
This study had an inductive approach and used qualitative content analysis.
Semistructured interviews were conducted with 13 people who participated in physical therapist-guided aerobic exercise in a randomized controlled trial. All participants were diagnosed with major depression according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Data were collected and analyzed in an inductive manner using qualitative content analysis according to Graneheim and Lundman.
Four categories emerged: (1) struggling toward a healthy self, (2) challenging the resistance, (3) feeling alive but not euphoric, and (4) needing someone to be there for you. The participants experienced that although the exercise intervention was hard work, it enhanced the feeling of being alive and made them feel that they were doing something good for themselves. These feelings were a welcome contrast to the numbness and stagnation they experienced during depression.
The study was conducted in Swedish primary care. Transferability of results must be viewed in relation to context.
Exercise in a physical therapy context can improve the patients' perception of their physical ability and create a sense of liveliness, improving their depressed state. The therapeutic relationship is essential for supporting the patient's vulnerability and ambiguity in an empathic and perceptive way.
Every aspect of research engages the body in some way.
In this article the researchers discuss the epistemological challenges of engaging with lived experiences and the opportunities and challenges ...that arise in conjunction with the embodied aspects of interviewing, analysis and turning visual and oral research material into written text.
The authors draw on experience from interviewing and reflect on how phenomenological philosophy of the body can both challenge and contribute to unpacking the role of the body in research processes.
Research on patients' experience of illness provides examples of how bodily experiences are intersubjective and subjective explored. The authors discuss how to let the bodily spoken contribute to the knowledge creation by "taking the body with them" in all parts of the research process.
The article contributes with theoretical perspectives and highlights intercorporeal and inter-affective bodily communication as an essential element in physiotherapy research practice.
Although there is a vast amount of research on different strategies to alleviate depression, knowledge of movement-based treatments focusing on body awareness is sparse. This study explores the ...experiences of basic body awareness therapy (BBAT) in 15 persons diagnosed with major depression who participated in the treatment in a randomized clinical trial. Hermeneutic phenomenological methodology inspired the approach to interviews and data analysis. The participants' experiences were essentially grasped as a process of enhanced existential openness, opening toward life, exceeding the tangible corporeal dimension to also involve emotional, temporal, and relational aspects of life. Five constituents of this meaning were described: vitality springing forth, grounding oneself, recognizing patterns in one's body, being acknowledged and allowed to be oneself, and grasping the vagueness. The process of enhanced perceptual openness challenges the numbness experienced in depression, which can provide hope for change, but it is connected to hard work and can be emotionally difficult to bear. Inspired by a phenomenological framework, the results of this study illuminate novel clinical and theoretical insight into the meaning of BBAT as an adjunctive approach in the treatment of depression.
The aim of this study was to describe and analyse the nonverbal affect attunement in relation to the verbal dialogue in mentalization-based treatment (MBT) for patients with borderline personality ...disorder (BPD). The therapists' nonverbal affect attunement documented in five video recorded individual sessions in MBT, with five women, diagnosed with BPD, was analysed with part process analysis, a qualitative method developed for video recorded material. Four categories of nonverbal affect attunement were identified in the results: (1) nonverbal affect attunement that supports the therapeutic process; (2) nonverbal misattunement that supports the therapeutic process; (3) nonverbal misattunement that does not support the therapeutic process; (4) no nonverbal affect attunement that does not support the therapeutic process. The study suggests that making therapists more aware of the significance of nonverbal affect attunement could be supportive in helping patients to develop their ability to regulate affects and develop and stabilize the mentalizing ability.
Our aim with the present study was to explore the lived experiences of the process leading to exhaustion. Within a hermeneutic phenomenological perspective, semistructured interviews were conducted ...with eleven individuals on sick leave because of exhaustion disorder. The findings were interpreted as a process of five stages of losing one's homelikeness in the body and in the familiar world: (a) the body calling for attention, (b) loss of self-recognition, (c) uncanniness, (d) fighting for survival, and (e) existential breakdown. Findings help us to identify early signs of exhaustion disorder and highlight the need for treatments that focus on bodily experiences and habitual stress-related patterns. Helping the patient to regain homelikeness is an important treatment goal.
Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of an Arabic language version (Ar) of the Falls Efficacy Scale-International (FES-I) with respect to its use with ...Arabic-speaking elderly subjects. Subjects and Methods: For cross-cultural adaptation, the translation of the original English version of the scale was conducted based on the protocol of the Prevention of Falls Network Europe (ProFaNE). The FES-I (Ar) was administered via face-to-face interviews to 108 community-dwelling elderly Palestinians (61 women and 47 men, aged 60-84 years). Statistical analyses were used to determine group differences with respect to age, gender and fall history. To assess validity, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was used to examine the correlation between the total scores of FES-I (Ar) and the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test, gait speed and balance. Test-retest reliability between the two test occasions was assessed in accordance with Svensson's method. Results: The FES-I (Ar) total scores were positively correlated with TUG (r s = 0.641, p < 0.001) and negatively correlated with gait speed (r s = -0.670, p < 0.001) and balance (r s = -0.592, p < 0.001). All items of the FES-I (Ar) indicated a high percentage agreement (from 88 to 93%), and the relative position ranged from 0.01 to 0.06. Conclusion: In this study, the FES-I (Ar) was shown to be a comprehensible, valid and reliable measure of the concern about falling among community-dwelling elderly subjects. In clinical practice and future research, the FES-I (Ar) instrument could be used to effectively assess concern about falling in Arabic-speaking elderly persons.
There is little written about the cultural, social, and ethical challenges encountered by physiotherapists engaging in development work. This article takes a critical perspective on what it means to ...engage in development work as an expatriate physiotherapist, through a self-critical reflection on experiences from Afghanistan. The field notes from an ethnographic study of a development project conducted in Afghanistan were analysed to explore the transformative process of personal and professional development of the development worker. The critical reflective process entailed a change in meaning perspective, described as a shift from the position of an Idealistic Helper to an Enterprising Learner. Of importance in this process were "disorienting dilemmas" that challenged personal perceptions. Critical reflection over such dilemmas led to deeper understanding facilitating the process of change. The essential lesson learned is that the baseline for understanding others is an understanding of one's own meaning perspectives and manner of participation in relation to others and their context. The insights gained have implications for physiotherapists working in development contexts, for other development workers, and for physiotherapists working with patients in clinical practice in a nondevelopment context. Exploring how to collaborate in development contexts could be done using reflective groups with expatriate and local physiotherapists and or patients. This could lead to greater understanding of oneself, each other, and the local context.
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