Publications by authors named "Julia Morley"
Objective: This study examined changes in postconcussive symptoms (PCS) over the acute postinjury recovery period, focusing on how daily PCSs differ between mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and other injury types.
Setting: An urban emergency department (ED) in Western Pennsylvania.
Subjects: A total of 108 adult patients with trauma being discharged from the ED were recruited and grouped by injury type: mild TBI (mTBI; n = 39), head injury without mTBI (HI: n = 16), and non-head-injured trauma controls (TCs: n = 53).
Concurrent and construct validation of the OMNI Scale of Thermal Sensations was examined in a sample of 16 adult men and 5 adult women. Concurrent validity was established by regressing OMNI ratings of thermal sensation against core and skin temperatures obtained during treadmill walking while wearing firefighter thermal-protective clothing in temperatures between 33 and 35 degrees C. Construct validity was established by regressing the OMNI scale against a construct-specific visual analogue scale.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To employ a battery of previously validated surveys and neuropsychological tests to compare changes in fatigue and cognitive abilities of air medical providers after 12- and 24-hour shifts.
Methods: A convenience sample of 34 flight nurses and flight paramedics employed by one air medical service completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the Chalder Fatigue Questionnaire (CFQ) to determine fatigue before and after 12-hour (n = 16) and 24-hour (n = 19) shifts. A battery of neuropsychological tests, including the University of Southern California Repeatable Episodic Memory Test (USC-REMT), Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT), Trail Making Test (TMT), and Stroop Color-Word Test were administered before and after the shift to measure changes in cognition.
Background: Temperature measurement is important for emergency medical services (EMS) providers when identifying and treating heat illness or infection. Direct measures of body core temperature (T(c)) are often expensive (ingestible capsules) or impractical (rectal probes) in the field. Multiple devices for estimating T(c) have been adopted by EMS providers, with little understanding of the agreement between these devices and T(c).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOccupational injuries are common among firefighters who perform strenuous physical exertion in extreme heat. The thermal protective clothing (TPC) worn by firefighters inhibits normal thermoregulation, placing the firefighter at risk of hypohydration and hyperthermia that may result in cognitive decline. We tested whether cognitive function changes after treadmill exercise in TPC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: We compared the use of two active cooling devices with passive cooling in a moderate-temperature (≈ 22 °C) environment on heart rate (HR) and core temperature (T(c)) recovery when applied to firefighters following 20 minutes of fire suppression.
Methods: Firefighters (23 men, two women) performed 20 minutes of fire suppression at a live-fire evolution. Immediately following the evolution, the subjects removed their thermal protective clothing and were randomized to receive forearm immersion (FI), ice water perfused cooling vest (CV), or passive (P) cooling in an air-conditioned medical trailer for 30 minutes.
Background: Performing fire suppression activities results in cardiovascular stress, hyperthermia, and hypohydration. Fireground rehabilitation (rehab) is recommended to blunt the deleterious effects of these conditions.
Objective: We tested the hypothesis that three rehydration fluids provided after exercise while wearing thermal protective clothing (TPC) would produce different heart rate or core temperature responses during a second bout of exercise in TPC.