A Systematic Review of Head, Neck and-Facial Injuries in Cricket.

This systematic review was conducted to identify the incidence, nature and mechanisms of head, neck and facial (HNF) injuries in cricket and the reported use of helmets. Five databases were searched up to 30th November 2020. From peer-reviewed cricket injury studies published in English, studies reporting on HNF cricket injuries as per the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines were selected. Twenty-nine studies were included. HNF injuries had a cumulative total of 794/5,886 injuries equating to 13% of all injuries. Non- specified HNF injuries (n=210, 26%) were the most prevalent type of injury followed by non-specified head injuries (n=130, 16%), other non-specified fractures (n=119, 15%) and concussions (n=60, 8%).The impact of the ball was reported as the most common mechanism for sustaining HNF injuries in cricket. The use of helmet was reported in only three studies (10%). From studies reporting on HNF cricket injuries, facial fractures, and concussions were the most common specified-types of injury. There is little evidence on reporting of HNF cricket injuries as per the international cricket consensus injury definitions, as well as the use of helmets at the time of injury.

Examining Single Session Peer-Teaching Instructional Approaches on Pre-Service Physical Education Teachers' Throwing Techniques.

An important role of a Physical Education (PE) teacher is to assist students to develop the fundamental motor skills (FMS) that will allow them to participate in physical activities with competence and confidence. Thus, PE teachers require the knowledge and skills to carry out this crucial task. In the crowded curricula of Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) programs, there are limited opportunities for pre-service PE teachers to learn how to analyze and perform a large list of motor skills. Our purposes in this study were to determine whether a single session peer-teaching intervention could improve pre-service PE teachers' short-term non-dominant hand overarm throwing performances and to examine these students' perceptions of the interventions. We allocated 47 pre-service PE teaching students (24 males; 23 females) to one of three experimental groups: a Video Analysis Group (VAG; n = 17), a Verbal Group (VG; n = 19), and a Control Group (CG; n = 11), based on the class in which they were enrolled. VAG and VG participants worked with a partner of their choice in reciprocal peer-teaching to improve each other's non-dominant hand throwing technique. VAG and VG interventions were identical except that VAG participants accessed video analysis technology. CG participants completed unrelated course work that involved no overarm throwing activities. A single 20-minute session of peer teaching with video analysis feedback during practice led to rapid enhancements in non-dominant hand overarm throwing skills. While all three groups improved their performance by retention testing, participants in the VAG group improved most quickly. Participants in both the VAG and VG groups reported that their respective interventions improved their throwing and Qualitative Movement Diagnosis (QMD) skills. Based on these results, we suggest that PETE programs integrate peer-teaching and video analysis sessions into fundamental movement courses to accelerate students' motor skill acquisitions.

Concussion assessment and management - What do community-level cricket participants know?

OBJECTIVES: To explore Australian cricket participants' knowledge of concussion assessment and management, and awareness of current concussion guidelines. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey. METHODS: Novel and validated surveys were disseminated online, among over 16 year Australian cricket players and officials at the end of the 2018/19 cricket season. Data were collected on knowledge and awareness of concussion and analysed using descriptive statistics and crosstabulations. Further comparisons were made for the players between injured and non-injured, and helmet wearers and non-helmet wearers using Fisher's exact statistical test. RESULTS: Both players (n = 224, 93 %) and officials (n = 36, 100 %) demonstrated strong knowledge of the importance of immediately evaluating suspected concussions. In comparison with players without helmets (n = 11), those using helmets (n = 135) considered replacing their helmets after a concussion to be vital to concussion assessment (p = 0.02). Overall, 80-97 % of players and 81-97 % of officials understood the importance of many factors regarding concussion management. When concussion management knowledge was compared by injury status, injured players (n = 17, 94 %) believed someone with a concussion should be hospitalised immediately, in contrast to non-injured players (n = 154, 69 %) (p = 0.04). Players (63 %) were less aware of concussion guidelines than officials (81 %). CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the knowledge of concussion assessment and management was satisfactory. However, there were discrepancies among players on some aspects of awareness of concussion guidelines. Increasing players' familiarity and experience in using the concussion guidelines is warranted. Targeted campaigns are needed to further improve concussion recognition and treatment at community-level cricket, so all participants play a role in making cricket a safe sport.

Self-Report Motor Competence in Adolescents Aged 12-18 Years in Regional and Rural Victoria (Australia).

Background: Poor motor skills are an increasing issue for adolescents in our local communities. In regional Victoria, almost 20% of children starting school in 2018 were considered at risk or developmentally vulnerable in the domain of physical health and wellbeing. Purpose: The aim of the current study was to examine factors (how adolescents perceive their fine and gross motor skills, activities of daily living, comparison to peers) of motor competence that may be important to adolescents in regional Victoria, Australia, using the Adolescent Motor Competence Questionnaire (AMCQ). Methods: A sample of 183 Australian adolescents ([138 females (Mage = 15.59 years, SD = 1.56); 45 males, (Mage = 15.82 years, SD = 1.95); 12-18 years old] completed the AMCQ. Results: The mean AMCQ score was 87.86 (SD = 7.55), with no significant difference between males (M = 89.67 SD = 7.29) and females [M = 87.28 SD = 7.56; t (181 = 1.86 p =.065)]. A Principal Component Analysis (PCA), extracted five factors (Eiqenvalue of 1.389) explaining 43.46% of variance, representing, Ball Skills and Kinesthesis; Activities of Daily Living; Fine Motor and Gross Motor; Proprioception and Exteroception; Public Performance. Conclusion: The results highlight key factors important in describing an adolescent's motor competence within regional Victoria. With physical health a priority in local communities, understanding these factors is an important first, that which may inform development of physical activity interventions for adolescents.

A decade of head, neck and facial cricket injury hospitalisations in Victoria, Australia: From 2007/08 to 2016/17.

OBJECTIVES: To present an epidemiological profile of hospital-treated head, neck and facial cricket injuries from 2007/08 to 2016/17 in Victoria, Australia. DESIGN: Retrospective analysis of emergency department and hospital admission data. METHODS: An analysis of Victorian hospital-treated head, neck and facial cricket injuries of all cricket participants over 5 years old between July 2007 and June 2017. RESULTS: Over the decade, 3907 head, neck, facial (HNF) cricket injuries were treated in Victorian hospitals. The number of HNF cricket injuries substantially increased in the 2014/15 season from 367 to 435 injuries and remained over 400 in the subsequent years. More injuries were reported for male compared to female participants, 3583 compared to 324 injuries. When adjusted for participation in competitive cricket, the injury incidence rate was 1.3 per 1000 participants for males and 0.4 per 1000 participants for females. The 10-14year age group most frequently required hospital treatment. Open wounds were the most common type of injury (1166, 29.8%) and the main mechanism for HNF cricket injury for this decade was hit/struck/crush (3361, 86.0%). CONCLUSIONS: This study provides a novel and current insight of the incidence and details of HNF injuries among cricket participants in Victoria over a decade. It is evident that males and younger participants, regardless of gender, have a higher risk of sustaining a HNF injury. This study provides a solid evidence base for stakeholders in developing strategies to minimise head, neck and facial injuries to make cricket a safe sport for all.

Slow motor responses to visual stimuli of low salience in autism.

The authors studied 2 tasks that placed differing demands on detecting relevant visual information and generating appropriate gaze shifts in adults and children with and without autism. In Experiment 1, participants fixated a cross and needed to make large gaze shifts, but researchers provided explicit instructions about shifting. Children with autism were indistinguishable from comparison groups in this top-down task. In Experiment 2 (bottom-up), a fixation cross remained or was removed prior to the presentation of a peripheral target of low visual salience. In this gap-effect experiment, children with autism showed lengthened reaction times overall but no specific deficit in overlap trials. The results show evidence of a general deficit in manual responses to visual stimuli of low salience and no evidence of a deficit in top-down attention shifting. Older children with autism appeared able to generate appropriate motor responses, but stimulus-driven visual attention seemed impaired.

Immediate movement history influences reach-to-grasp action selection in children and adults.

Action selection is subject to many biases. Immediate movement history is one such bias seen in young infants. Is this bias strong enough to affect adult behavior? Adult participants reached and grasped a cylinder positioned to require either pronation or supination of the hand. Successive cylinder positions changed either randomly or systematically between trials. Random positioning led to optimized economy of movement. In contrast, systematic changes in position biased action selection toward previously selected actions at the expense of movement economy. Thus, one switches to a new movement only when the savings outweigh the costs of the switch. Immediate movement history had an even larger influence on children aged 7-15 years. This suggests that switching costs are greater in children, which is consistent with their reduced grasping experience. The presence of this effect in adults suggests that immediate movement history exerts a more widespread and pervasive influence on patterns of action selection than researchers had previously recognized.

Online corrections in children with and without DCD.

Human arm movements need 'online' corrections due to noise in perception and action. A Step-Perturbation paradigm explored online corrections in control children and children with DCD aged between 7 and 13 years. Control children found the task straightforward: a distracter had no effect and they managed to stop relatively quickly. Children with DCD found the task difficult and the apparatus was modified accordingly (decreased postural and force production demands). The distracter affected some children with DCD and some found it difficult to stop. All of the DCD population showed poorer performance in both the perturbation and non-perturbation condition. Nevertheless, there was no interaction between group and condition. Thus, this study found no evidence for specific deficits in online correction mechanisms in DCD. We suggest that: (i) fundamental problems in generating basic movements can account for the documented difficulties in correcting on-going movements, and (ii) such fundamental difficulties make it very difficult to pinpoint specific mechanism deficits.

Constrained action selection in children with developmental coordination disorder.

The effect of advance ('precue') information on short aiming movements was explored in adults, high school children, and primary school children with and without developmental coordination disorder (n=10, 14, 16, 10, respectively). Reaction times in the DCD group were longer than in the other groups and were more influenced by the extent to which the precue constrained the possible action space. In contrast, reaction time did not alter as a function of precue condition in adults. Children with DCD showed greater inaccuracy of response (despite the increased RT). We suggest that the different precue effects reflect differences in the relative benefits of priming an action prior to definitive information about the movement goal. The benefits are an interacting function of the task and the skill level of the individual. Our experiment shows that children with DCD gain a benefit from advance preparation in simple aiming movements, highlighting their low skill levels. This result suggests that goal-directed RTs may have diagnostic potential within the clinic.

Competing regulation of matrix biosynthesis by mechanical and IGF-1 signalling in elderly human articular cartilage in vitro.

This study investigates the separate and combined effects of IGF-1 and mechanical loads on chondrocytes in elderly human femoral head articular cartilage. Full depth biopsies of articular cartilage were subjected to either no load, static or cyclic (2 s on/2 s off) loading in unconfined compression at a stress of 1 MPa for 48 h with or without IGF-1 (300 ng ml(-1)). Chondrocyte biosynthetic activity was measured using 35S-sulphate and 3H-leucine during the last 24 h of loading. IGF-1 alone increased the rates of isotope incorporation, by 80% for 35S-SO4 and 40% for 3H-leucine, whereas loading alone reduced matrix biosynthesis. Applying load (cyclic or static) in the presence of IGF-1 returned the incorporation rates to their unstimulated levels. This study suggests elderly human articular cartilage is responsive to stimulation by IGF-1 but mechanical factors seem to act sufficiently strongly in the opposite direction to cancel this response.

The impact of handwriting difficulties on compositional quality in children with developmental coordination disorder.

INTRODUCTION: There is substantial evidence to support the relationship between transcription skills (handwriting and spelling) and compositional quality. For children with developmental coordination disorder, handwriting can be particularly challenging. While recent research has aimed to investigate their handwriting difficulties in more detail, the impact of transcription on their compositional quality has not previously been examined. The aim of this exploratory study was to examine compositional quality in children with developmental coordination disorder and to ascertain whether their transcription skills influence writing quality. METHOD: Twenty-eight children with developmental coordination disorder participated in the study, with 28 typically developing age and gender matched controls. The children completed the 'free-writing' task from the detailed assessment of speed of handwriting tool, which was evaluated for compositional quality using the Wechsler objective language dimensions. RESULTS: The children with developmental coordination disorder performed significantly below their typically developing peers on five of the six Wechsler objective language dimensions items. They also had a higher percentage of misspelled words. Regression analyses indicated that the number of words produced per minute and the percentage of misspelled words explained 55% of the variance for compositional quality. CONCLUSION: The handwriting difficulties so commonly reported in children with developmental coordination disorder have wider repercussions for the quality of written composition.

High levels of fat and (n-6) fatty acids in cancellous bone in osteoarthritis.

BACKGROUND: Osteoarthritis (OA) is strongly linked with obesity and patients with osteoporosis (OP) have a low body mass index. Anecdotal evidence, clinical and laboratory, suggests that OA bone contains more fat. However, conversion of osteoblasts to adipocytes is reported in OP and this would suggest that the more porous OP cancellous bone would have a high fat content. OBJECTIVES: To test the hypothesis that OA bone contains more fat than OP bone. METHODS: Cores of cancellous bone were obtained from femoral heads of patients undergoing surgery for either OA or OP. Lipids were extracted using chloroform-methanol, weighed and expressed as a fraction of core mass and volume. A fatty acid analysis was performed using gas chromatography. RESULTS: OA bone contained twice as much fat per unit volume of tissue as OP. Levels of n-6 fatty acids were elevated in OA, especially arachidonic acid (C20:4 n-6) which was almost double that found in OP. CONCLUSIONS: These data support the hypothesis that lipids may play a significant role in the pathogenesis of OA and may provide part of the key to understanding why OA and OP lie at opposite ends of the spectrum of bone masses.

An examination of writing pauses in the handwriting of children with developmental coordination disorder.

Difficulties with handwriting are reported as one of the main reasons for the referral of children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) to healthcare professionals. In a recent study we found that children with DCD produced less text than their typically developing (TD) peers and paused for 60% of a free-writing task. However, little is known about the nature of the pausing; whether they are long pauses possibly due to higher level processes of text generation or fatigue, or shorter pauses related to the movements between letters. This gap in the knowledge-base creates barriers to understanding the handwriting difficulties in children with DCD. The aim of this study was to characterise the pauses observed in the handwriting of English children with and without DCD. Twenty-eight 8-14 year-old children with a diagnosis of DCD participated in the study, with 28 TD age and gender matched controls. Participants completed the 10 min free-writing task from the Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting (DASH) on a digitising writing tablet. The total overall percentage of pausing during the task was categorised into four pause time-frames, each derived from the literature on writing (250 ms to 2 s; 2-4 s; 4-10 s and >10 s). In addition, the location of the pauses was coded (within word/between word) to examine where the breakdown in the writing process occurred. The results indicated that the main group difference was driven by more pauses above 10 s in the DCD group. In addition, the DCD group paused more within words compared to TD peers, indicating a lack of automaticity in their handwriting. These findings may support the provision of additional time for children with DCD in written examinations. More importantly, they emphasise the need for intervention in children with DCD to promote the acquisition of efficient handwriting skill.

Handwriting speed in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder: are they really slower?

Handwriting difficulties are often included in descriptions of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). They are cited as the most common reason for referral to health professionals following parent and teacher concerns about slow and untidy writing. The aim of this study was to compare handwriting performance in English children with and without DCD across a range of writing tasks, to gain a better understanding of the nature of 'slowness' so commonly reported. Twenty-eight 8-14 year-old children with a diagnosis of DCD participated in the study, with 28 typically developing age and gender matched controls. Participants completed the four handwriting tasks from the Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting (DASH) and wrote their own name; all on a digitising writing tablet. The number of words written, speed of pen movements and the time spent pausing during the tasks were calculated. The findings confirmed what many professionals report, that children with DCD produce less text than their peers. However, this was not due to slow movement execution, but rather a higher percentage of time spent pausing. Discussion centres on the understanding of the pausing phenomenon in children with DCD and areas for further research.

A test of motor (not executive) planning in developmental coordination disorder and autism.

Grip selection tasks have been used to test "planning" in both autism and developmental coordination disorder (DCD). We differentiate between motor and executive planning and present a modified motor planning task. Participants grasped a cylinder in 1 of 2 orientations before turning it clockwise or anticlockwise. The rotation resulted in a comfortable final posture at the cost of a harder initial reaching action on 50% of trials. We hypothesized that grip selection would be dominated by motoric developmental status. Adults were always biased towards a comfortable end-state with their dominant hand, but occasionally ended uncomfortably with their nondominant hand. Most 9- to 14-year-olds with and without autism also showed this "end-state comfort" bias but only 50% of 5- to 8-year-olds. In contrast, children with DCD were biased towards selecting the simplest initial movement. Our results are best understood in terms of motor planning, with selection of an easier initial grip resulting from poor reach-to-grasp control rather than an executive planning deficit. The absence of differences between autism and controls may reflect the low demand this particular task places on executive planning.

The effect of distance on reaction time in aiming movements.

Target distance affects movement duration in aiming tasks but its effect on reaction time (RT) is poorly documented. RT is a function of both preparation and initiation. Experiment 1 pre-cued movement (allowing advanced preparation) and found no influence of distance on RT. Thus, target distance does not affect initiation time. Experiment 2 removed pre-cue information and found that preparing a movement of increased distance lengthens RT. Experiment 3 explored movements to targets of cued size at non-cued distances and found size altered peak speed and movement duration but RT was influenced by distance alone. Thus, amplitude influences preparation time (for reasons other than altered duration) but not initiation time. We hypothesise that the RT distance effect might be due to the increased number of possible trajectories associated with further targets: a hypothesis that can be tested in future experiments.