Multitasking situations exacerbate gait impairments and increase the risk of falling among people with Parkinson disease (PD). This study compared obstacle negotiation among 10 subjects with PD and ...10 nonparkinsonian control (CTRL) subjects in two test conditions differentiated by the presence of music played through a personal music player. Subjects walked the length of a 10 m walkway at a self-selected pace, crossing a 0.15 m obstacle placed at the midpoint of the walkway. The results indicated that subjects with PD crossed the obstacle slower than CTRL subjects and that concurrent music differentially altered obstacle crossing behaviors for the CTRL subjects and subjects with PD. Subjects with PD further decreased obstacle-crossing velocities and maintained spatial parameters in the music condition. In contrast, CTRL subjects maintained all spatiotemporal parameters of obstacle crossing with music. The alterations to crossing behaviors observed among the subjects with PD support our previous suggestion that listening to music while walking may be an attentionally demanding task.
We examined whether people with Parkinson disease (PD) have difficulty negotiating a gait obstruction in threatening (gait path and obstacle raised above floor) and nonthreatening (gait path and ...obstacle at floor level) contexts. Ten PD patients were tested in both Meds OFF and Meds ON states, along with 10 age-matched controls. Participants completed 18 gait trials, walking 4.7 m at a self-selected speed while attempting to cross an obstacle 0.15 m in height placed near the centre point of the walkway. Kinematic and kinetic parameters were measured, and obstacle contact errors were tallied. Results indicated that PD patients made more obstacle contacts than control participants in the threatening context. Successful crossings by PD patients in the threatening condition also exhibited kinematic differences, with Meds OFF PD patients making shorter crossing steps, with decreased initiation and crossing velocities. The findings from this study lend support to the theory that PD patients rely on directed attention to initiate and control movement, while providing indication that the motor improvements provided by current PD pharmacotherapy may be limited by contextual interference. These movement patterns may be placing PD patients at risk of obstacle contact and falling.
This study assessed the effect of changing daily movement behaviour on C-reactive protein (CRP) measured in saliva. Two groups of women either reduced daily movement or increased physical activity ...for 10 days. Salivary CRP increased by 31% in the sedentary group (0.378 ± 0.596 to 0.487 ± 0.793 μg·L
−1
) and decreased by 22% in the active group (0.414 ± 0.640 to 0.259 ± 0.284 μg·L
−1
). These results suggest short-term changes in daily movement behaviour can affect salivary CRP, a marker of systemic inflammation.
Childcare work appears to be full of the physical and mental risk factors frequently associated with chronic exertion leading to injury of the musculoskeletal system. The purpose of this study was to ...examine the affordances and mechanics for lifting a child, and to associate those mechanics with physical demands reports provided by experienced childcare workers. Participants perceived a smaller safe reaching distance to a child compared to a conventional handling target, despite the identical load and similar load distribution. This difference may reflect the influence of coupling (suitcase had 'good' coupling, child manikin had 'poor' coupling), or an increased concern for the safety of the child over the suitcase. While lifting at a smaller affordant distance could contribute to decreasing spinal loading from reactive moments, the greater trunk and knee flexions observed in child lifting may be contributing to childcare workers' musculoskeletal discomfort and injury in those regions.
This qualitative study explored potential factors that lead to turnover and absenteeism and how to improve well-being and retention among professional older-adult-caregivers in Alberta's assisted ...living (AL) and long-term care (LTC) facilities. Four hundred and forty-seven participants aged 45-54 years were interviewed through a five-item, content-validated open-ended questionnaire. The questionnaire was self-administered in the English language and the soft copy of their responses was transferred into NVIVO version 12 software for coding. A thematic narrative analysis grounded in the "happy productive worker" theory was completed. The main themes were caregivers' perception of the factors affecting their well-being, absenteeism, and turnover, and caregivers' suggestions on ways to improve their well-being and retention. Participants reported that their professional well-being was suboptimal. They suggested that their employers should provide them with the needed social, psychological, and professional support, improve wages and hire more staff to ameliorate absenteeism and turnover rates.
Many animal species use reaching for food to place in the mouth (reach-to-eat) with a hand, and it may be a primitive movement. Although researchers (I. Q. Whishaw, 2005; A. N. Iwaniuk & I. Q. ...Whishaw, 2000; M. Gentiluci, I. Toni, S. Chieffi, & G. Pavesi, 1994) have described visual guidance of reaching in both normal and brain-injured human and nonhuman primates, researchers have not described the contribution of vision during advance of the limb to grasp food and during withdrawal of the limb with food to the mouth. To evaluate visual contributions, the authors monitored eye movements in young adults as they reached for food with and without vision. Participants visually engaged the target prior to the 1st hand movement and disengaged it as the food was grasped. Visual occlusion slowed limb advance and altered digit shaping but did not affect withdrawal. The dependence on visual control of advance but not withdrawal suggests that the reach-to-eat movement is a composite of 2 basic movements under visual and tactile/proprioceptive guidance, respectively.
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