Context: Health care providers (HCP) experience high stress and burnout rates. Mindfulness Based Interventions (MBI) with biofeedback may help improve resiliency but require further research.
Design And Study Participants: Aims were to evaluate changes in sleep patterns, nocturnal physiology, stress, mood disturbances, and perceived experience with biofeedback during the Mindfulness in Motion (MIM) intervention.
Athletic trainers are increasingly used in nontraditional settings, such as in law enforcement, where they can contribute to healthcare management, including concussion management of law enforcement officers (LEOs). Despite the prevalence of concussions among LEOs, there is a notable gap in concussion management guidelines for this population. LEOs may lack the education and resources necessary for concussion recognition and proper management.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLaw enforcement cadets (LECs) complete weeks of subject control technique training. Similar sport-related combat training has been shown to expose participants to head acceleration events (HAEs) that have potential to result in short- and long-term impairments. The purpose of this study was to describe the number and magnitude of HAEs in LECs throughout their training.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMerrigan, JJ, Strang, A, Eckerle, J, Mackowski, N, Hierholzer, K, Ray, NT, Smith, R, Hagen, JA, and Briggs, RA. Countermovement jump force-time curve analyses: reliability and comparability across force plate systems. J Strength Cond Res 38(1): 30-37, 2024-Considering the growing prevalence of commercial force plates providing automated force-time analyses, understanding levels of agreement across force plate systems is warranted.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Mindfulness in Motion (MIM) is a workplace resilience-building intervention that has shown reductions in perceived stress and burnout, as well as increased resilience and work engagement in health care workers.
Objective: To evaluate effects of MIM delivered in a synchronous virtual format on self-reported respiratory rates (RR), as well as perceived stress and resiliency of health care workers.
Methods: Breath counts were self-reported by 275 participants before and after 8 weekly MIM sessions.
This study aims to examine the effects of acute whole-body photobiomodulation (wbPBM), applied pre-exercise, on bouts of anaerobic cycling (Wingate) performances. Forty-eight healthy, active males and females participated in this single-blind, randomized, crossover study. Participants visited the laboratory three times to complete repeat (4 ×) Wingate testing, with one week between each visit.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMerrigan, JJ, Stone, JD, Galster, SM, and Hagen, JA. Analyzing force-time curves: Comparison of commercially available automated software and custom MATLAB analyses. J Strength Cond Res 36(9): 2387-2402, 2022-With the growing prevalence of commercial force plate solutions providing automated force-time curve analysis, it is critical to understand the level of agreement across techniques.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe primary purpose was to simplify external load data obtained during Division-I (DI) basketball competitions via principal component analysis (PCA). A secondary purpose was to determine if the PCA results were sensitive to load demands of different positional groups (POS). Data comprised 229 observations obtained from 10 men's basketball athletes participating in NCAA DI competitions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMerrigan, JJ, Stone, JD, Wagle, JP, Hornsby, WG, Ramadan, J, Joseph, M, and Hagen, JA. Using random forest regression to determine influential force-time metrics for countermovement jump height: a technical report. J Strength Cond Res 36(1): 277-283, 2022-The purpose of this study was to indicate the most influential force-time metrics on countermovement jump (CMJ) height using multiple statistical procedures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMerrigan, JJ, Rentz, LE, Hornsby, WG, Wagle, JP, Stone, JD, Smith, HT, Galster, SM, Joseph, M, and Hagen, JA. Comparisons of countermovement jump force-time characteristics among NCAA Division I American football athletes: use of principal component analysis. J Strength Cond Res 36(2): 411-419, 2022-This study aimed to reduce the dimensionality of countermovement jump (CMJ) force-time characteristics and evaluate differences among positional groups (skills, hybrid, linemen, and specialists) within National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) division I American football.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman performance optimization of tactical personnel requires accurate, meticulous, and effective monitoring of biological adaptations and systemic recovery. Due to an increased understanding of its importance and the commercial availability of assessment tools, the use of heart rate variability (HRV) to address this need is becoming more common in the tactical community. Measuring HRV is a non-invasive, practical method for objectively assessing a performer's readiness, workload, and recovery status; when combined with additional data sources and practitioner input, it provides an affordable and scalable solution for gaining actionable information to support the facilitation and maintenance of operational performance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA growing number of studies utilizing wearable technologies are examining the influence of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) on intense training, recovery, and injury risk. Exercise biometric (EB) data were collected on collegiate, female soccer players during a preseason camp. One player sustained an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCommercial off-the shelf (COTS) wearable devices continue development at unprecedented rates. An unfortunate consequence of their rapid commercialization is the lack of independent, third-party accuracy verification for reported physiological metrics of interest, such as heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV). To address these shortcomings, the present study examined the accuracy of seven COTS devices in assessing resting-state HR and root mean square of successive differences (rMSSD).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe purpose of this study was to evaluate intrasession reliability of countermovement jump (CMJ) and isometric mid-thigh pull (IMTP) force-time characteristics, as well as relationships between CMJ and IMTP metrics. Division I sport and club athletes ( = 112) completed two maximal effort CMJ and IMTP trials, in that order, on force plates. Relative and absolute reliability were assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) > 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
December 2020
A necessarily high standard for physical readiness in tactical environments is often accompanied by high incidences of injury due to overaccumulations of neuromuscular fatigue (NMF). To account for instances of overtraining stimulated by NMF, close monitoring of neuromuscular performance is warranted. Previously validated tests, such as the countermovement jump, are useful means for monitoring performance adaptations, resiliency to fatigue, and risk for injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The commercial market is saturated with technologies that claim to collect proficient, free-living sleep measurements despite a severe lack of independent third-party evaluations. Therefore, the present study evaluated the accuracy of various commercial sleep technologies during in-home sleeping conditions.
Materials And Methods: Data collection spanned 98 separate nights of sleep from five healthy adults.
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is being pushed to new capabilities which enable studies on systems that were previously out of reach. Among recent innovations, TEM through liquid cells (LC-TEM) enables in operando observation of biological phenomena. This work applies LC-TEM to the study of biological components as they interact on an abiotic surface.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDNA aptamers that bind biomolecular targets are of interest as the recognition element in colorimetric sensors based on gold nanoparticles (AuNP), where sensor functionality is related to changes in AuNP colloidal stability upon target binding. In order to understand the role of target binding on DNA-AuNP colloidal stability, we have used high-resolution NMR to characterize the interactions of the 36 nucleotide cocaine-binding aptamer (MN4) and related aptamers with AuNPs, cocaine, and cocaine metabolites. Changes in the aptamer imino proton NMR spectra with low (20 nM) concentrations of AuNP show that the aptamers undergo fast-exchange adsorption on the nanoparticle surface.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this work, we developed an assay to determine if an arbitrary white powder is a controlled substance, given the plasmonic response of aptamer-gold nanoparticle conjugates (Apt-AuNPs). Toward this end, we designed Apt-AuNPs with specific a response to common controlled substances without cross reactivity to chemicals typically used as fillers in street formulations. Plasmonic sensor variation was shown to produce unique data fingerprints for each chemical analyzed, supporting the application of multivariate statistical techniques to annotate unknown samples by chemical similarity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeurotransmitters detection is critical to understanding communication between the brain and peripheral tissue. Serotonin is a key neurotransmitter linked to a number of conditions, but a full understanding of its role in disease is still lacking. The development of fast and selective serotonin detection platforms will provide researchers with tools to monitor serotonin in individuals before and after treatment for the condition of interest.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurrently, diagnosis of influenza is performed either through tedious polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or through rapid antigen detection assays. The rapid antigen detection assays available today are highly specific but not very sensitive, and most importantly, lack the ability to show if the strain of influenza detected is susceptible to antiviral agents, such as Tamiflu and Relenza. The ability to rapidly determine if a patient has an infectious disease and what type of treatment the infection will respond to, would significantly reduce the treatment decision time, shorten the impact of symptoms, and minimize transfer to others.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImmobilization of nucleic acid aptamer recognition elements selected free in solution onto the surface of biosensor platforms has proven challenging. This study investigated the binding of multiple aptamer/target pairs immobilized on a commercially available microarray as a model system mimicking biosensor applications. The results indicate a minimum distance (linker length) from the surface and thymine nucleobase linker provides reproducible binding across varying conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMonitoring the periodic diurnal variations in cortisol from small volume samples of serum or saliva is of great interest, due to the regulatory role of cortisol within various physiological functions and stress symptoms. Current detection assays are immunologically based and require cumbersome antibody immobilization chemistries, thereby limiting the assay versatility, kinetics, and reproducibility. We present a quantitative aptamer-based detection methodology for cortisol that does not require target labeling, capture probe immobilization on the detection surface or wash steps prior to readout.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA method for identifying an aptamer in a single round was developed using custom DNA microarrays containing computationally derived patterned libraries incorporating no information on the sequences of previously reported thrombin binding aptamers. The DNA library was specifically designed to increase the probability of binding by enhancing structural complexity in a sequence-space confined environment, much like generating lead compounds in a combinatorial drug screening library. The sequence demonstrating the highest fluorescence intensity upon target addition was confirmed to bind the target molecule thrombin with specificity by surface plasmon resonance, and a novel imino proton NMR/2D NOESY combination was used to screen the structure for G-quartet formation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSmall molecules provide rich targets for biosensing applications due to their physiological implications as biomarkers of various aspects of human health and performance. Nucleic acid aptamers have been increasingly applied as recognition elements on biosensor platforms, but selecting aptamers toward small molecule targets requires special design considerations. This work describes modification and critical steps of a method designed to select structure-switching aptamers to small molecule targets.
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