Patellar tendon shortening surgery restores the knee extensor mechanism in flexed knee gait in children with cerebral palsy.

BACKGROUND: This study evaluated a patellar tendon shortening (PTS) surgical procedure that uses an overlapping repair combined with an additional Tycron non-absorbable suture to support the shortening in children with Cerebral Palsy (CP). This study aimed to outline this surgical technique and to evaluate its effectiveness in restoring the knee extensor mechanism. METHODS: The sagittal plane lower limb kinematics, peak knee extensor moment, gait deviation index (GDI), localised movement deviation profile (MDP), temporospatial parameters, passive knee extension ROM, quadriceps lag, and knee extensor strength were calculated pre- and postoperatively. To determine significant differences a robust linear regression model with high breakdown point and high efficiency was fitted to the data. RESULTS: In this retrospective cohort study, a total of 41 patients with CP who were treated with unilateral or bilateral PTS in isolation or as part of single event multilevel surgery (SEMLS), with a mean age of 11.1 years were included. The knee extension angle improved at initial contact (p < 0.0001), and during stance phase (p < 0.0001). The peak internal knee extensor moment decreased during early (p = 0.0014) and late stance phase (p < 0.0001). The quadriceps lag decreased (p < 0.0001) and knee extensor strength increased (p < 0.0001). The GDI improved (p < 0.0001), as well as the localised MDP for sagittal angles (p < 0.0001) and moments (p = 0.0001). Walking speed (p = 1.0) remained unchanged, but the cadence decreased (p = 0.024) and step length increased (p = 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: The knee extension angle and moment during stance phase improved significantly. The children with CP in this study showed improvements in knee extensor strength and quadriceps lag. Thereby it can be concluded that the PTS procedure was able to restore the knee extensor mechanism effectively.

Disgusting Face, Disease-Ridden Place?: Emoji Influence on the Interpretation of Restaurant Inspection Reports.

Every year, millions of Americans get sick from foodborne illness and it is estimated half of all reported instances occur at restaurants. To protect the public, regulators are encouraged to conduct restaurant inspections and disclose reports to consumers. However, inspection reporting format is inconsistent and typically contains information unclear to most consumers who often misinterpret the inspection results. Additionally, consumers are increasingly searching for this information in a digital context. Limited research explores inspection reports as communication tools. Using affect-as-information and ELM as theoretical frameworks, this experiment investigated how discrete emotions (e.g., disgust) conveyed through pictorial cues (i.e., emojis) influenced consumers' processing of inspection reports. Participants, recruited from Amazon's MTurk, were randomly assigned to one of six experimental conditions in a 3 (emoji: smiling vs. disgusted vs. none) x 2 (violation level: low vs. high) between-subjects design. Then, participants completed a questionnaire regarding perceptions and cognitive processing of the message. Results revealed that, compared to text, disgusted face emoji increased risk perceptions and avoidance behavior. In terms of emotion, smiling face emoji motivated participants to feel more emotions related to sanitation. In turn, positive feelings decreased elaboration likelihood. As predicted by ELM, involvement also predicted elaboration, such that participants who were highly involved with inspection reports elaborated more than those less involved. Involvement also moderated the relationship between emoji presented and elaboration. Practical implications are also discussed.

Experimental Effects of Viewing Thin and Plus-Size Models in Objectifying and Empowering Contexts on Instagram.

To counter the negative effects of viewing unrealistically thin and attractive models in beauty and fashion advertisements, some companies depict women with larger bodies in their advertisement campaigns. Previous experimental evidence suggests women may feel more satisfied with their own bodies immediately after viewing advertisements featuring these models. The current study aimed to extend these findings by examining the moderating role of trait body discrepancies and the presence of objectifying advertising slogans in advertisements. A sample of 202 undergraduate students who identified as female viewed advertisements depicted on Instagram that varied in the model's body size (thin or plus-size) and slogan type (objectifying or empowering). Body satisfaction and actual-ideal body discrepancy were measured. As expected, the body size of the model significantly improved women's body satisfaction and this effect was moderated by participants' actual-ideal body discrepancy. No effects for objectifying slogans (versus empowering slogans) featured in the advertisements were discovered. The implications for these findings are discussed.

Perimenopausal women's voices: How does their period at the end of reproductive life affect wellbeing?

OBJECTIVE: To explore perimenopausal women's feelings towards their periods, the impact on their wellbeing and how we can support them. STUDY DESIGN: Participants were recruited for focus groups through social media advertisements. In 6 online focus groups, 31 perimenopausal women aged 40-55 living in the UK were asked 5 questions relating to periods and perimenopause, support and education. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Content analysis. RESULTS: When asked How do you feel about having a period? The participants often related back to the stress of menarche and said their period negatively impacted their wellbeing their whole lives. During perimenopause, their periods had become unpredictable, heavy, and a debilitating disruption to their lives. The women desired support at work through policy, and from family and friends. They believed that educating girls and boys during school was the best place to start, but that education through work and community groups was also needed. They felt healthcare professionals should have mandatory training regarding women's health issues and menopause. CONCLUSION: The study highlights the impact of menstrual experiences on the wellbeing of perimenopausal women, emphasising the need for improved menstrual education from an early age. Comprehensive menstrual education in schools involving both genders to enable informed decision-making and improved training for healthcare professionals are recommended. Support networks for perimenopausal women will promote better quality of life for women as they go through their perimenopause journey.

Freshmen anxiety and COVID-19: Practical implications from an online intervention for supporting students affected by health inequities.

OBJECTIVE: This study explored how college freshmen, particularly those affected by health inequities, are affected by COVID-19 and whether they would use a university-created online wellness intervention for help. PARTICIPANTS: Nine-hundred and eighty-nine freshmen at a large southeastern university. METHOD: Students responded to an online survey regarding their anxiety, worry, number of life disruptions, perceived resilience and their use of the online intervention during the pandemic (June to mid-September 2020). RESULTS: During COVID-19, Latinx, Black, women and non-heterosexual students reported significantly greater worry, daily life disruptions than their non-Latinx, white, male and heterosexual counterparts. Women and non-heterosexual students also reported greater anxiety and less resilience. Additionally, Latinx students reported using the university's online intervention for help during COVID-19 more than others. Overall, freshmen, especially Black and women students, reported the online intervention would help them with struggles. CONCLUSIONS: Universities should identify unique worries faced by students during a health crisis and provide institutional support. Practical implications are discussed.

Emerging perception of causality in action-and-reaction sequences from 4 to 6 months of age: is it domain-specific?

Two experiments (N=136) studied how 4- to 6-month-olds perceive a simple schematic event, seen as goal-directed action and reaction from 3 years of age. In our causal reaction event, a red square moved toward a blue square, stopping prior to contact. Blue began to move away before red stopped, so that both briefly moved simultaneously at a distance. Primarily, our study sought to determine from what age infants see the causal structure of this reaction event. In addition, we looked at whether this causal percept depends on an animate style of motion and whether it correlates with tasks assessing goal perception and goal-directed action. Infants saw either causal reactions or noncausal delayed control events in which blue started some time after red stopped. These events involved squares that moved either rigidly or nonrigidly in an apparently animate manner. After habituation to one of the four events, infants were tested on reversal of the habituation event. Spatiotemporal features reversed for all events, but causal roles changed only in reversed reactions. The 6-month-olds dishabituated significantly more to reversal of causal reaction events than to noncausal delay events, whereas younger infants reacted similarly to reversal of both. Thus, perceptual causality for reaction events emerges by 6 months of age, a younger age than previously reported but, crucially, the same age at which perceptual causality for launch events has emerged in prior research. On our second question, animate/inanimate motion had no effect at any age, nor did significant correlations emerge with our additional tasks assessing goal perception or goal-directed object retrieval. Available evidence, here and elsewhere, is as compatible with a view that infants initially see A affecting B, without differentiation into physical or psychological causality, as with the standard assumption of distinct physical/psychological causal perception.

Imitation in infancy: the wealth of the stimulus.

Imitation requires the imitator to solve the correspondence problem--to translate visual information from modelled action into matching motor output. It has been widely accepted for some 30 years that the correspondence problem is solved by a specialized, innate cognitive mechanism. This is the conclusion of a poverty of the stimulus argument, realized in the active intermodal matching model of imitation, which assumes that human neonates can imitate a range of body movements. An alternative, wealth of the stimulus argument, embodied in the associative sequence learning model of imitation, proposes that the correspondence problem is solved by sensorimotor learning, and that the experience necessary for this kind of learning is provided by the sociocultural environment during human development. In a detailed and wide-ranging review of research on imitation and imitation-relevant behaviour in infancy and beyond, we find substantially more evidence in favour of the wealth argument than of the poverty argument.

Helping students cope with adversity: the influence of a web-based intervention on students' self-efficacy and intentions to use wellness-related resources.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of an online wellness intervention on college students' self-efficacy, intentions to seek help, general resilience and whether adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) act as a moderating variable. Participants: Three-hundred and eighty-two undergraduate students. Method: Students were assigned to two conditions: treatment or control. The treatment group participated in an online intervention designed to enhance student wellness, the control group did not. Both groups completed an online questionnaire. Results: Students exposed to the intervention reported greater self-efficacy, a higher likelihood to engage in self-help activities and greater intention to use campus resources. Additionally, among students with more ACEs, those who were exposed to the site were more likely to recommend resources. Conclusion: The online intervention presented here may be an effective tool to reduce barriers for students seeking help for mental health and may increase student wellness.

Goal attribution to schematic animals: do 6-month-olds perceive biological motion as animate?

Infants are sensitive to biological motion, but do they recognize it as animate? As a first step towards answering this question, two experiments investigated whether 6-month-olds selectively attribute goals to shapes moving like animals. We habituated infants to a square moving towards one of two targets. When target locations were switched, infants reacted more to movement towards a new goal than a new location - but only if the square moved non-rigidly and rhythmically, in a schematic version of bio-mechanical movement older observers describe as animal-like (Michotte, 1963). Goal attribution was specific to schematic animal motion: It did not occur if the square moved rigidly with the same rhythm as the animate stimulus, or if the square had the same amount of non-rigid deformation, but in an inanimate configuration. The data would seem to show that perception of schematic animal motion is linked to a system for psychological reasoning from infancy. This in turn suggests that 6-month-olds may already interpret biological motion as animate.

Causal perception of action-and-reaction sequences in 8- to 10-month-olds.

Four experiments with 202 8- to 10-month-old infants studied their sensitivity to causation-at-a-distance in schematic events seen as goal-directed action and reaction by adults and whether this depends on attributes associated with animate agents. In Experiment 1, a red square moved toward a blue square without making contact; in "reaction" events blue moved away while red was approaching, whereas in "delay" events blue started after red stopped. Infants were habituated to one event and then tested on its reversal. Spatiotemporal features reversed for both events, but causal roles changed only in reversed reactions. Infants dishabituated more to reversed reaction events than to reversed delay events. Squares moved rigidly or in a nonrigid animal-like fashion. Infants discriminated these, but motion pattern did not affect responses to reversal. Infants also discriminated reactions from launching and dishabituated to reversed reactions lacking self-initiated motion. These results suggest that sensitivity to causation-at-a-distance depends on the event structure but not pattern or onset typical of animal motion.

Imitation of lateralised body movements: doing it the hard way.

Two experiments examined imitation of lateralised body movement sequences presented at six viewing angles (0 degrees , 60 degrees , 120 degrees , 180 degrees , 240 degrees , and 300 degrees rotation relative to the participant's body). Experiment 1 found that, when participants were instructed simply to "do what the model does", at all viewing angles they produced more actions using the same side of the body as the model (anatomical matches), than actions using the opposite side (anatomical non-matches). In Experiment 2 participants were instructed to produce either anatomical matches or anatomical non-matches of observed actions. When the model was viewed from behind (0 degrees ), the anatomically matching group were more accurate than the anatomically non-matching group, but the non-matching group was superior when the model faced the participant (180 degrees and 240 degrees ). No reliable differences were observed between groups at 60 degrees , 120 degrees , and 300 degrees . In combination, the results of Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that, when they are confronting a model, people choose to imitate the hard way; they attempt to match observed actions anatomically, in spite of the fact that anatomical matching is more subject to error than anatomical non-matching.

A Trauma-Informed Approach to Building College Students' Resilience.

PURPOSE: This paper describes the development of a new psychoeducational universal prevention resilience program ( https://strong.fsu.edu ) designed to complement existing mental health services at a large public university. The first set of descriptive data (n = 229) from the project's student surveys is discussed. METHODS: A voluntary and anonymous online questionnaire was used to determine student attitudes toward the new program. RESULTS: A large majority of participants (more than 80%) perceived the website to be credible, rating it as believable, trustworthy, and accurate. 90% believe the university resources included in the project would help themselves and others overcome struggles and challenges. Other results are also discussed. DISCUSSION: This data from a unique project shows the promise of using an online, integrative tool for a campus resilience initiative. The project is dynamic; analysis of student responses will inform ongoing revisions and refinements.

Perceived physical and social causality in animated motions: spontaneous reports and ratings.

Michotte argued that we perceive cause-and-effect, without contributions from reasoning or learning, even in displays of two-dimensional moving shapes. Two studies extend this line of work from perception of mechanical to social causality. We compared verbal reports with structured ratings of causality to gain a better understanding of the extent to which perceptual causality occurs spontaneously or depends on instruction or context. A total of 120 adult observers (72 in the main experiment, 48 in an initial experiment) saw 12 (or 8) different computer animations of shape A moving up to B, which in turn moved away. Animations factorially varied the temporal and spatial relations of the shapes, and whether they moved rigidly or in a non-rigid, animal-like manner. Impressions of social as well as physical causality appeared in both free reports and ratings. Perception of physical causality was stronger than perception of social causality, particularly in free reports. No differences of this nature appear in infants and children, so the asymmetry may reflect learnt knowledge. Physical causality was relatively unspecific initially, but discrimination of causal and delayed control events improved with exposure to multiple events. Experience seems to affect the causal illusion even over a short timeframe; the idea of 'one-trial causality' may be somewhat misleading. Regardless of such effects on the absolute level of responses, the different measures showed similar patterns of variation with the spatio-temporal configuration and type of motion. The good fit of ratings and reports validates much recent work in this area.

Do Elderly Patients Use Patient-Controlled Analgesia Medication Delivery Systems Correctly?

BACKGROUND: Although prior studies have shown patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) to be appropriate for use by children and adults, no studies have specifically evaluated the ability of elderly patients to use the technology correctly. PURPOSE: To determine whether elderly, postoperative patients can properly use PCA devices. METHODS: Using a descriptive study design, a convenience sample of elderly, postoperative orthopedic patients was observed while using a PCA device and surveyed about the proper use of the device. Participants were observed and surveyed 12 to 20 hours after admission to the postoperative patient care unit. Frequency and amount of analgesic medication administration over the postoperative time period were also recorded. Data were summarized with descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis was used to determine whether confounding variables explained problems using the PCA device correctly. RESULTS: A total of 58 orthopedic patients were studied during the first day after surgery. Patients had used the PCA device for 16.6 ± 3.0 (mean ±SD) hours at the time of the observation and survey. Virtually all patients correctly identified and depressed the PCA activation button when instructed, knew when to use the PCA device, and who was allowed to depress the PCA button. Slightly more than half of the patients (57%) correctly identified how often they could have PCA medication, with 38% not sure of PCA medication frequency. The PCA medication was requested an average of 23.3 ± 52.7 times during the study period. The majority of the patients (86%) requested PCA medication less than 25% of the times that they could receive PCA medication. All patients in the study had PCA devices programmed to deliver up to 5 doses per hour of PCA medication, yet an average of 11.2 ± 10.8 doses of PCA medication were actually delivered during the entire study period (average 16.6 hours). Average doses of fentanyl and morphine sulfate received by patients were 13.5 µg/hour and 1.0 mg/hour, respectively. CONCLUSION: Elderly patients were very knowledgeable about how to use the PCA device but not about how often they could receive PCA medication. This lack of knowledge may have influenced how often they requested pain medication, because almost 90% of patients received less than 25% of the PCA allowable medication dose. This low usage of PCA medication delivery calls into question the cost-effectiveness of this method of medication delivery for the elderly. Additional studies are needed to verify these findings in other elderly patients.

Spatial S-R compatibility effects in an intentional imitation task.

The active intermodal mapping hypothesis suggests that intentional imitation is mediated by a highly efficient, special-purpose mechanism of actor-centered movement encoding. In the present study, using methods from stimulus-response (S-R) compatibility research, we found no evidence to support this hypothesis. In two experiments, the performance of adult participants instructed to imitate actor-centered spatial properties of head, arm, and leg movements was affected by task-irrelevant, egocentric spatial cues. In Experiment 1, participants imitated using the same side of their bodies as did the model, and performance was less accurate when egocentric stimulus location was response incompatible than when it was response compatible. This effect was reversed in Experiment 2 when participants imitated using the opposite side of their bodies. These findings, in line with general process theories of imitation, imply that intentional imitation is mediated by the same processes that mediate responding to inanimate stimuli on the basis of arbitrary S-R mappings.

Unimpaired perception of social and physical causality, but impaired perception of animacy in high functioning children with autism.

We investigated perception of social and physical causality and animacy in simple motion events, for high-functioning children with autism (CA = 13, VMA = 9.6). Children matched 14 different animations to pictures showing physical, social or non-causality. In contrast to previous work, children with autism performed at a high level similar to VMA-matched controls, recognizing physical causality in launch and social causality in reaction events. The launch deficit previously found in younger children with autism, possibly related to attentional/verbal difficulties, is apparently overcome with age. Some events involved squares moving non-rigidly, like animals. Children with autism had difficulties recognizing this, extending the biological motion literature. However, animacy prompts amplified their attributions of social causality. Thus children with autism may overcome their animacy perception deficit strategically.