Publications by authors named "Neely K"

Gait adaptability is crucial for meeting environmental demands, and impaired gait adaptation increases fall risk, particularly in older adults. While prior research exists on older adults' gait adaptation, particularly in perturbation studies, the specific contributions of temporal and spatial adaptation strategies to step length asymmetry (SLA) during split-belt treadmill walking require further examination. This study fills this gap by evaluating how distinct adaptation strategies contribute to SLA in healthy young and older adults.

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  • The study examines how individuals with Essential Tremor (ET) manage dual tasks, focusing on their ability to combine mobility and cognitive functions during daily activities, which is crucial for preventing falls and maintaining independence.
  • Researchers compared 15 individuals with ET and 15 without ET during a standard and a challenging water-carry timed up-and-go (TUG) test to evaluate how each group handles motor and cognitive tasks simultaneously.
  • Results showed that neither group experienced significant difficulties when performing both tasks at the same time, with both groups prioritizing cognitive tasks, suggesting a need for personalized therapies that address the motor-cognitive challenges specific to those with ET.
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Clinical anxiety is a common comorbidity in autistic people. Due to the prevalence of anxiety in the autism population and the adverse effects it causes, there is a critical need to develop effective interventions which address anxiety symptoms for autistic people. Therefore, the purpose of this systematic review was to examine the effectiveness of the use of physical activity as an intervention to reduce anxiety in autistic people.

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Flexibility in performing various movements like standing, walking, and turning is crucial for navigating dynamic environments in daily life. Individuals with essential tremor often experience movement difficulties that can affect these postural transitions, limiting mobility and independence. Yet, little research has examined the performance of postural transitions in people with essential tremor.

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  • - Parents see sleep as important for their children's health and try to create good sleep habits at home, but face challenges like busy schedules and lack of role models.
  • - A study conducted with 25 Alberta parents revealed that they value school efforts to promote sleep but acknowledge barriers to implementing those strategies at home.
  • - To enhance the effectiveness of school-based sleep promotion, it's crucial to create resources that involve and support parents, addressing the obstacles they report in encouraging healthy sleep practices.
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While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here, we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available.

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Holmes, HH, Downs Talmage, JL, Neely, KA, and Roper, JA. Cognitive demands influence drop jump performance and relationships with leg stiffness in healthy young adults. J Strength Cond Res 37(1): 74-83, 2023-Sports-relevant cognition influences neuromuscular control and sports performance.

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Purpose: Humans experience the world through sensations of touch, taste, smell, vision, and audition. Alterations in sensory acuity occur across the adult life span in all types of sensation. The purpose of this study was to describe possible differences in lip and tongue somatosensation (sense of pressure) for healthy older adults using clinically available measurement tools as compared with previously published data using the same protocol.

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  • Sleep loss negatively impacts both physical and mental health, with specific concerns about how reduced sleep affects working memory and force control.
  • A study involving 14 men examined the effects of sleep restriction on their ability to produce force, using both visually guided and memory-guided tasks over an eleven-day period.
  • Results indicated that sleep restriction impaired visually guided force production, while memory-guided tasks remained relatively unaffected; additionally, feelings of alertness influenced performance in memory-guided tasks.
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Background: The purpose of this study was to explore perceived changes in physical activity (PA) due to Covid19 stay-at-home and social distancing guidance among older adults.

Methods: Participants (n = 1429, 77% female, 84% ≥60 years) living in Scotland completed an online survey in Summer 2020 measuring PA and wellbeing (indexed through loneliness, and health-related quality of life). The survey included open- and closed-ended questions about how these variables changed in response to Covid19 social distancing and 'shielding' guidelines.

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Exercise tolerance appears to benefit most from dietary nitrate (NO) supplementation when muscle oxygen (O) availability is low. Using a double-blind, randomized cross-over design, we tested the hypothesis that acute NO supplementation would improve blood flow restricted exercise duration in post-menopausal women, a population with reduced endogenous nitric oxide bioavailability. Thirteen women (57-76 yr) performed rhythmic isometric handgrip contractions (10% MVC, 30 per min) during progressive forearm blood flow restriction (upper arm cuff gradually inflated 20 mmHg each min) on three study visits, with 7-10 days between visits.

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Manual motor deficits are common in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); however, it is unclear whether these impairments persist into adulthood. The aim of this study was to examine manual dexterity and strength in young adults with ADHD aged 18-25 years. Sixty-one individuals with confirmed ADHD and 56 adults without ADHD completed Purdue Pegboard tasks for manual dexterity and maximal hand- and pinch-grip tests for strength.

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Introduction: Performance on executive function (EF) tasks is only modestly predictive of a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), despite the common assumption that EF deficits are ubiquitous to the disorder. The current study sought to determine whether ex-Gaussian parameters of simple reaction time are better able to discriminate between children and adults with and without ADHD, compared with traditional measures of inhibitory control.

Methods: Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analyses and the area under the curve (AUC) were used to examine the ability of performance on two commonly used tasks of inhibitory control (i.

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Study Objectives: Schools are an important setting to teach and reinforce positive health behaviors such as sleep, however, research that incorporates the student perspective of school-based sleep promotion initiatives is limited. This study explored student's perceptions of sleep behavior (how they understood and valued positive and negative sleep behaviors) and determined if and how students translate school-based sleep promotion to the home.

Methods: Forty-five grade 4 and 5 children (aged 9-11 years) were purposefully sampled from 3 schools participating in the Alberta Project Promoting healthy Living for Everyone in schools (APPLE) in Edmonton, Canada.

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This study examined the impact of social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic on loneliness, wellbeing, and social activity, including social support, in Scottish older adults. A mixed methods online survey was used to examine these factors during social distancing mid-lockdown, July 2020. Participants were asked to state whether loneliness, wellbeing, social activity, and social support had changed since pre-social distancing, and to provide details of strategies used to keep socially active.

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Aims: This study evaluates a protocol for early, routine ethics consultation (EC) for patients on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) to support decision-making in the context of clinical uncertainty with the aim of mitigating ethical conflict and moral distress.

Methods: We conducted a single-site qualitative analysis of EC documentation for all patients receiving ECMO support from 15 August 2018 to 15 May 2019 (n=68). Detailed analysis of 20 ethically complex cases with protracted ethics involvement identifies four key ethical domains: limits of prognostication, bridge to nowhere, burden of treatment and system-level concerns.

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Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a predominant neurobehavioral disorder of childhood with motor and sensory symptoms often persisting into adulthood. Motor control theories highlight the importance of the bidirectional relationship between sensation and movement for maintaining skilled behaviors like speech. The impact of ADHD on speech in adults has not been well established.

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Background: The primary purpose of this research was to explore Comprehensive School Health (CSH) stakeholders' perceptions of the essential conditions for taking a CSH approach in other contexts across Canada. The secondary purpose was to examine the need for and development of an evaluative tool or resource to assess the implementation of the essential conditions.

Methods: Data were generated through individual semi-structured interviews (n = 38) and small group interviews (n = 3) with 45 participants across Canada involved in implementing policies or programs which take a CSH approach.

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Since 2014, Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) has led to mass mortality of the majority of hard coral species on the Florida Reef Tract. Following the successful treatment of SCTLD lesions on laboratory corals using water dosed with antibiotics, two topical pastes were developed as vehicles to directly apply antibiotic treatments to wild corals. These pastes were tested as placebos and with additions of amoxicillin on active SCTLD lesions on multiple coral species.

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Background: Our previous work demonstrates that adults with ADHD produce more force at the fingertips compared to adults without ADHD. One possibility is that somatosensation is impaired in ADHD. However, ADHD is often comorbid with anxiety, and anxiety influences sensory responsivity.

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Multimethod assessment is recommended as "best practice" in clinical assessment and is often implemented through the combined use of symptom rating scales and structured interviews. While this approach increases confidence in the validity of assessment, it also increases burden, expense, and leads to the accumulation of redundant information. To address this problem, we evaluate the use a planned missingness design within the framework of adult Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) assessment.

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