Developmentally appropriate access to technology can support toddlers in learning and play. While touch screens are a popular interaction modality for children under the age of three, they may not be appropriate for all children or all tasks. We know comparatively little about how toddlers interact with joystick-based technology, and more fundamental research is required to understand joystick interactions at different ages and developmental stages.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAccess to powered mobility can support play and development for toddlers with disabilities. Using powered mobility in a standing posture has been theorized to support development of muscle coordination, balance, head and trunk stability, and transition to ambulation. The purpose of this study was to quantify and characterize joystick control, bodyweight support, and muscle activity while using the Permobil Explorer Mini in seated and supported standing postures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Mental health remains an unmet need among Chinese Americans. This study aims to identify specific needs and strategies that may address the needs.
Design: A total of 55 Chinese Americans consented and participated in online focus groups conducted in either Chinese or English using nominal group technique.
Study Background: The nursing profession is facing a multiplicity of stressors that have both predated and been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The emotional and physical demands entailed in nursing predispose nurses to suboptimal mental health and burnout.
Purpose: This paper draws upon the narrative interviews of 53 Canadian nurses as part of a larger pan-Canadian, cross disciplinary study that examined the gendered experiences of mental health, leaves of absence, and return to work of 7 professions.
Healthcare systems and health professionals are facing a litany of stressors that have been compounded by the pandemic, and consequently, this has further perpetuated suboptimal mental health and burnout in nursing. The purpose of this paper is to report select findings from a larger, national study exploring gendered experiences of mental health, leave of absence (LOA), and return to work from the perspectives of nurses and key stakeholders. Given the breadth of the data, this paper will focus exclusively on the qualitative results from 53 frontline Canadian nurses who were purposively recruited for their workplace insight.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: We sought to identify modifiable factors associated with cancer screening in a community-based health assessment.
Methods: 24 organizations at 47 community events in central North Carolina distributed a 91-item survey from April-December 2017. Responses about (1) interest in disease prevention, (2) lifestyle choices (e.
User preference is a promising objective for the control of robotic exoskeletons because it may capture the multifactorial nature of exoskeleton use. However, to use it, we must first understand its characteristics in the context of exoskeleton control. Here, we systematically measured the control preferences of individuals wearing bilateral ankle exoskeletons during walking.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
September 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic is a unique transboundary crisis which has disrupted people's way of life more dramatically than any event in generations. Given the ambiguity surrounding the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and its enduring negative effects, it is important to understand how this has affected important future of work trends. The aim of the current paper is to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on commonly discussed future of work trends relevant to occupational safety and health priority areas.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: User preference has the potential to facilitate the design, control, and prescription of prostheses, but we do not yet understand which physiological factors drive preference, or if preference is associated with clinical benefits.
Methods: Subjects with unilateral below-knee amputation walked on a custom variable-stiffness prosthetic ankle and manipulated a dial to determine their preferred prosthetic ankle stiffness at three walking speeds. We evaluated anthropomorphic, metabolic, biomechanical, and performance-based descriptors at stiffness levels surrounding each subject's preferred stiffness.
Background: Telehealth is an increasingly important component of health care delivery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, well-documented disparities persist in the use of digital technologies.
Objective: This study aims to describe smartphone and internet use within a diverse sample, to assess the association of smartphone and internet use with markers of health literacy and health access, and to identify the mediating factors in these relationships.
Multidrug-resistant has emerged as a threat to global health. The relationship between gepotidacin exposure and prevention of on-therapy amplification of drug-resistant was examined using a 7-day hollow-fiber infection model. The study design included both inactive (no-treatment and ciprofloxacin) and active (ceftriaxone) control regimens.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The complexity of nursing practice increases the risk of nurses suffering from mental health issues, such as substance use disorders, anxiety, burnout, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These mental health issues can potentially lead to nurses taking leaves of absence and may require accommodations for their return to work. The purpose of this review was to map key themes in the peer-reviewed literature about accommodations for nurses' return to work following leaves of absence for mental health issues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAchieving cancer health equity is a national imperative. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States and in North Carolina (NC), where the disease disproportionately impacts traditionally underrepresented race and ethnic groups, those who live in rural communities, the impoverished, and medically disenfranchised and/or health-disparate populations at high-risk for cancer. These populations have worse cancer outcomes and are less likely to be participants in clinical research and trials.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The migration of Caribbean nurses, particularly to developed countries such as Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, remains a matter of concern for most countries of the region. With nursing vacancy rates averaging 40%, individual countries and the region collectively are challenged to address this issue through the development and implementation of sustainable, feasible strategies. The aim of this scoping review is to examine the amount, type, sources, distribution, and focus of the conceptual and empirical literature on the migration of Caribbean nurses, and to identify gaps in the literature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Engaging diverse populations in biomedical research, including biospecimen donation, remains a national challenge. This study examined factors associated with an invitation to participate in biomedical research, intent to participate in biomedical research in the future, and participation in biomedical research and biospecimen donation among a diverse, multilingual, community-based sample across 3 distinct geographic areas.
Methods: Three National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers engaged in community partnerships to develop and implement population health assessments, reaching a convenience sample of 4343 participants spanning their respective catchment areas.
A phase 2 study of gepotidacin demonstrated the safety and efficacy of 3 gepotidacin doses (750 mg every 12 h [q12h], 1,000 mg q12h, and 1,000 mg every 8 h [q8h]) in hospitalized patients with suspected/confirmed Gram-positive acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSIs). Evaluating microbiology outcomes and responses were secondary endpoints. Pretreatment isolates recovered from infected lesions underwent susceptibility testing per Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBody-in-the-loop optimization algorithms have the capability to automatically tune the parameters of robotic prostheses and exoskeletons to minimize the metabolic energy expenditure of the user. However, current body-in-the-loop algorithms rely on indirect calorimetry to obtain measurements of energy cost, which are noisy, sparsely sampled, time-delayed, and require wearing a respiratory mask. To improve these algorithms, the goal of this work is to predict a user's steady-state energy cost quickly and accurately using physiological signals obtained from portable, wearable sensors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPowered ankle prostheses have been designed to reduce the energetic burden that individuals with transtibial amputation experience during ambulation. There is an open question regarding how much power the prosthesis should provide, and whether approximating biological ankle kinetics is optimal to reduce the metabolic cost of users. We tested 10 individuals with transtibial amputation walking on a treadmill wearing the BiOM powered ankle prosthesis programmed with 6 different power settings (0-100%), including a prosthetist-chosen setting, chosen to approximate biological ankle kinetics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe evaluated microbiological correlates for the successful treatment of isolates from a phase 2 study of gepotidacin, a novel triazaacenaphthylene antibacterial, for therapy of uncomplicated urogenital gonorrhea. Culture, susceptibility testing, genotypic characterization, and frequency of resistance (FoR) were performed for selected isolates. Microbiological success was defined as culture-confirmed eradication of Against 69 baseline urogenital isolates, gepotidacin MICs ranged from ≤0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The aim of this review of the literature is to synthesis the knowledge attained about determinants of student-faculty relationships and its impact on student outcomes. While adding to the body knowledge, the researchers discuss the importance, barriers, and facilitators to student-faculty academic relationships in nursing education.
Design: We conducted a narrative literature review using a modified version of the framework of the Population, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome method to develop the research question for this review.
Olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) are unique glia that support axon outgrowth in the olfactory system, and when used as cellular therapy after spinal cord injury, improve recovery and axon regeneration. Here we assessed the effects of combining OEC transplantation with another promising therapy, epidural electrical stimulation during a rehabilitative motor task. Sprague-Dawley rats received a mid-thoracic transection and transplantation of OECs or fibroblasts (FBs) followed by lumbar stimulation while climbing an inclined grid.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To examine barriers recruiters encounter when enrolling African American study participants, identify motivating factors to increase research participation, and provide recommendations to facilitate successful minority recruitment.
Background: Recruiters are often the first point of contact between the research study and potential African American participants. While challenges in enrolling African Americans into clinical and epidemiologic research has been reported in numerous studies the non-physician recruiter's role as a determinant of overall participation rates has received minimal attention.