A tool for measuring mental workload during prosthesis use: The Prosthesis Task Load Index (PROS-TLX).

When using a upper-limb prosthesis, mental, emotional, and physical effort is often experienced. These have been linked to high rates of device dissatisfaction and rejection. Therefore, understanding and quantifying the complex nature of workload experienced when using, or learning to use, a upper-limb prosthesis has practical and clinical importance for researchers and applied professionals.

Towards automation of dynamic-gaze video analysis taking functional upper-limb tasks as a case study.

Background And Objective: Previous studies in motor control have yielded clear evidence that gaze behavior (where someone looks) quantifies the attention paid to perform actions. However, eliciting clinically meaningful results from the gaze data has been done manually, rendering it incredibly tedious, time-consuming, and highly subjective. This paper aims to study the feasibility of automating the coding process of the gaze data taking functional upper-limb tasks as a case study.

Exploring Strategies for Using Social Media to Self-Manage Health Care When Living With and Beyond Breast Cancer: In-Depth Qualitative Study.

Background: As breast cancer survival rates improve and structural health resources are increasingly being stretched, health providers require people living with and beyond breast cancer (LwBBC) to self-manage aspects of their care.

Objective: This study aimed to explore how women use and experience social media to self-manage their psychosocial needs and support self-management across the breast cancer continuum.

Methods: The experiences of 21 women (age range 27-64 years) were explored using an in-depth qualitative approach.

Upper limb activity of twenty myoelectric prosthesis users and twenty healthy anatomically intact adults.

The upper limb activity of twenty unilateral upper limb myoelectric prosthesis users and twenty anatomically intact adults were recorded over a 7-day period using two wrist worn accelerometers (Actigraph, LLC). This dataset reflects the real-world activities of the participants during their normal day-to-day routines. Participants included students, working adults, and retirees recruited from across the United Kingdom.

Upper- and lower-limb amputees show reduced levels of eeriness for images of prosthetic hands.

The "uncanny phenomenon" describes the feeling of unease associated with seeing an image that is close to appearing human. Prosthetic hands in particular are well known to induce this effect. Little is known, however, about this phenomenon from the viewpoint of prosthesis users.

Corrigendum: The Reality of Myoelectric Prostheses: Understanding What Makes These Devices Difficult for Some Users to Control.

[This corrects the article on p. 7 in vol. 10, PMID: 27597823.

"Thanks for Letting Us All Share Your Mammogram Experience Virtually": Developing a Web-Based Hub for Breast Cancer Screening.

Background: The decision around whether to attend breast cancer screening can often involve making sense of confusing and contradictory information on its risks and benefits. The Word of Mouth Mammogram e-Network (WoMMeN) project was established to create a Web-based resource to support decision making regarding breast cancer screening. This paper presents data from our user-centered approach in engaging stakeholders (both health professionals and service users) in the design of this Web-based resource.

Skill assessment in upper limb myoelectric prosthesis users: Validation of a clinically feasible method for characterising upper limb temporal and amplitude variability during the performance of functional tasks.

Upper limb myoelectric prostheses remain challenging to use and are often abandoned. A proficient user must be able to plan/execute arm movements while activating the residual muscle(s), accounting for delays and unpredictability in prosthesis response. There is no validated, low cost measure of skill in performing such actions.

Visualisation of upper limb activity using spirals: A new approach to the assessment of daily prosthesis usage.

Background: Current outcome measures used in upper limb myoelectric prosthesis studies include clinical tests of function and self-report questionnaires on real-world prosthesis use. Research in other cohorts has questioned both the validity of self-report as an activity assessment tool and the relationship between clinical functionality and real-world upper limb activity. Previously, we reported the first results of monitoring upper limb prosthesis use.

The Reality of Myoelectric Prostheses: Understanding What Makes These Devices Difficult for Some Users to Control.

Users of myoelectric prostheses can often find them difficult to control. This can lead to passive-use of the device or total rejection, which can have detrimental effects on the contralateral limb due to overuse. Current clinically available prostheses are "open loop" systems, and although considerable effort has been focused on developing biofeedback to "close the loop," there is evidence from laboratory-based studies that other factors, notably improving predictability of response, may be as, if not more, important.

Visuomotor behaviours when using a myoelectric prosthesis.

Background: A recent study showed that the gaze patterns of amputee users of myoelectric prostheses differ markedly from those seen in anatomically intact subjects. Gaze behaviour is a promising outcome measures for prosthesis designers, as it appears to reflect the strategies adopted by amputees to compensate for the absence of proprioceptive feedback and uncertainty/delays in the control system, factors believed to be central to the difficulty in using prostheses. The primary aim of our study was to characterise visuomotor behaviours over learning to use a trans-radial myoelectric prosthesis.

The effect of gym training on multiple outcomes in Parkinson's disease: a pilot randomised waiting-list controlled trial.

There is accumulating evidence for the benefits of exercise in Parkinson's disease (PD), but less is known about group exercise interventions. We evaluated the effect of gym-training programme on people with PD. Thirty-two adults with mild to moderate PD, not currently exercising formally, were randomised to an immediate 20-week biweekly gym training programme at a local leisure complex, or a 10-week programme starting 10 weeks later.

An investigation of co-speech gesture production during action description in Parkinson's disease.

Introduction: Parkinson's disease (PD) can impact enormously on speech communication. One aspect of non-verbal behaviour closely tied to speech is co-speech gesture production. In healthy people, co-speech gestures can add significant meaning and emphasis to speech.

Object affordance and spatial-compatibility effects in Parkinson's disease.

Movement in Parkinson's disease (PD) is strongly influenced by sensory stimuli. Here, we investigated two features of visual stimuli known to affect response times in healthy individuals; the spatial location of an object (the spatial effect) and its action-relevance (the 'affordance' effect). Poliakoff et al.

Sensing without seeing in comparative visual search.

Rensink [Rensink, R. A. (2004).

The effect of viewing graspable objects and actions in Parkinson's disease.

Viewing action-relevant stimuli such as a graspable object or another person moving can affect the observer's own motor system. Evidence exists that external stimuli may facilitate or hinder movement in Parkinson's disease, so we investigated whether action-relevant stimuli would exert a stronger influence. We measured the effect of action-relevant stimuli (graspable door handles and finger movements) on reaction times compared with baseline stimuli (bars and object movements).

Object-based attention is mediated by collinearity of targets.

Same-object bias occurs when tasks associated with processing a single object are faster than tasks associated with two objects. Over five experiments we assessed whether same-object bias is mediated by the collinearity of the targets. Participants decided whether two targets, presented either within a single object or across two objects, were the same or different.

Eye movements during search and detection in comparative visual search.

Motivated by the fact that previous visual memory paradigms have imposed encoding and retrieval constraints, the present article presents two experiments that address how observers allocate eye movements in memory and comparison processes in the absence of constraints. A comparative visual search design (Pomplun, Sichelschmidt, et al., 2001) was utilized in which observers searched for a difference between two images presented side by side.

Eye fixation scanpaths of younger and older drivers in a hazard perception task.

Our previous research has shown that observing patterns of eye fixations is a successful method of establishing differences in underlying cognitive processes between groups of drivers. Eye movements recorded from drivers in a laboratory while they watch film clips recorded from a driver's perspective can be used to identify scanpaths and search patterns that reveal ability differences. In the present study 12 older subjects (60-75 years) and 12 younger subjects (30-45 years) watched clips for potential hazards such as other road users appearing on an intersecting trajectory.