Narrowing the physiotherapy knowledge-practice gap: faculty training beyond the health sciences.

Physiotherapists seek to improve client movement and promote function within an individual's unique environmental and social realities. Despite this intention, there is a well-noted knowledge-practice gap, that is, therapists generally lack sufficient foundational preparation to effectively navigate societal challenges impacting contemporary healthcare. As one step toward addressing the issue, we propose an educational solution targeting current and future physiotherapy faculty, whose responsibilities for entry-level course development and curriculum design substantially impact student readiness for clinical practice.

Reciprocal Influence of Mobility and Speech-Language: Advancing Physical Therapy and Speech Therapy Cotreatment and Collaboration for Adults With Neurological Conditions.

Unlabelled: Mobility and speech-language impairments and limitations in adults with neurological conditions manifest not in isolated anatomical components but instead in the individual-environment system and are task-dependent. Optimization of function thus requires interprofessional care to promote participation in meaningful life areas within appropriate task and environmental contexts. Cotreatment guidelines (ie, the concurrent intervention of disciplines) were established by the physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech-language and hearing professional organizations nearly 2 decades ago to facilitate seamless interprofessional care.

Children and adolescents with cerebral palsy flexibly adapt grip control in response to variable task demands.

Background: Children and adolescents with cerebral palsy demonstrate impairments in grip control with associated limitations in functional grasp. Previous work in cerebral palsy has focused on grip control using relatively predictable task demands, a feature which may limit generalizability of those study results in light of recent evidence in typically developing adults suggesting that grip control strategies are task-dependent. The purpose of this study was to determine whether and how varying upper extremity task demands affect grip control in children and adolescents with cerebral palsy.

Comparison of gait speeds from wearable camera and accelerometer in structured and semi-structured environments.

A feasibility study was conducted to investigate the use of a wearable gait analysis system for classifying gait speed using a low-cost wearable camera in a semi-structured indoor setting. Data were collected from 19 participants who wore the system during indoor walk sequences at varying self-determined speeds (slow, medium, and fast). Gait parameters using this system were compared with parameters obtained from a vest comprising of a single triaxial accelerometer and from a marker-based optical motion-capture system.

Variable and intermittent grip force control in response to differing load force dynamics.

A recent study (Grover et al. Exp Brain Res 236(10):2531-2544, 2018) found that the grip force applied to maintain grasp of a hand-held object exhibited intermittent coupling to the changing load forces exerted by the object as it was oscillated. In particular, the strength and consistency of grip force response to load force oscillations was tied to overall load force levels and the prominence of load force oscillations.

Intermittent coupling between grip force and load force during oscillations of a hand-held object.

Tightly coordinated grip force adaptations in response to changing load forces have been reported as continuous, stable, and proportional to the load force changes. Considering the existence of inherent sensorimotor feedback delays, current accounts of grip force-load force coupling invoke explicit predictive mechanisms in the form of internal models for feedforward control to account for anticipatory grip force modulations. However, recent findings suggest that the stability and regularity of grip force-load force coupling is less persistent than previously thought.

Children with cerebral palsy effectively modulate postural control to perform a supra-postural task.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether signatures of adaptive postural control remain present in children with cerebral palsy (CP) when they performed a supra-postural task (i.e., a task performed above and beyond the control of posture) requiring them to balance a marble inside a tube held in the hands.

Interaction between intention and environmental constraints on the fractal dynamics of human performance.

The current study investigated whether the influence of available task constraints on power-law scaling might be moderated by a participant's task intention. Participants performed a simple rhythmic movement task with the intention of controlling either movement period or amplitude, either with or without an experimental stimulus designed to constrain period. In the absence of the stimulus, differences in intention did not produce any changes in power-law scaling.