Psychomotor semiology in depression: a standardized clinical psychomotor approach.

BACKGROUND: Although psychomotor symptoms are associated with the clinical symptomatology of depression, they are rarely assessed and standardized clinical evaluation tools are lacking. Psychomotor retardation is sometimes assessed through direct patient observations by clinicians or through a clinical observation grid, in the absence of a standardized psychomotor assessment. In this pilot study, we evaluated the feasibility of standardized psychomotor examination of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and detailed a psychomotor semiology in these patients. METHODS: We used a standardized psychomotor assessment to examine 25 patients with MDD and 25 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (HC) and compared their psychomotor profiles. Using standardized tests, we assessed muscle tone and posture, gross motor skills, perceptual-motor skills, and body image/organization. Clinical assessments of depressive symptoms (levels of psychomotor retardation, anxiety, and self-esteem) comprised this detailed psychomotor examination. RESULTS: All participants were examined using the standardized psychomotor assessment. The main results of the psychomotor examination highlighted low body image of MDD participants (p < 0.001). Significant differences between groups were found in passive muscle tone, posture, emotional control, jumping, manual dexterity, walking, and praxis. Among these psychomotor variables, body image, passivity, jumping and rhythm scores predicted an MDD diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: Beyond the psychomotor retardation known to be present in MDD patients, this examination revealed an entire psychomotor symptomatology characterized by elevated muscle tone, poor body image associated with poor self-esteem, slowness in global motor skills and manual praxis, and poor rhythmic adaptation. In light of these results, we encourage clinicians to consider using a standardized tool to conduct detailed psychomotor examination of patients with depressive disorders. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT04031937 , 24/07/2019.

Zone In Not Out! The Key to Winning High-Level Tetris.

Automating a perceptual-motor task will not win you a perceptual-motor contest. Despite claims that mindless automaticity is the essence of expertise, the view espoused here is that automaticity is worthwhile only because it enables the expert to plan and strategize. Indeed, the purpose of learning to manually shift gears is to eventually ignore that function to focus instead on actual driving. To perform well, the expert must transition their attention from a task's low-level components to its high-level nuances. This is best understood in real-world scenarios (e.g. driving, in which performance is dynamic and sometimes competitive). This argument is based on a years-long, longitudinal case study of learning to play the puzzle game, Tetris. Tetris is intensively perceptual-motor with complicated manual routines needed to manage expert game speeds. For this case study, the player began as an advanced novice but successfully transitioned to championship level in the 2020 Classic Tetris World Championship. Initially, the challenge was gaining enough skill to make and execute perceptual-motor decisions in a fraction of a second. However, once that process became automatic, the player could spend those freed mental resources elsewhere. Performance was better for all games when the player was mentally engaged and used their focused attention to plan ahead rather than just automatically respond to the game pieces. We argue that the end goal for automating perceptual-motor skills in competitive, dynamic environments is to free cognitive space in the brain for the user to excel strategically.

The use of visually guided behaviour in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) when crossing a virtual road.

The ability to safely cross a road is a perceptual-motor skill that involves coordination between a pedestrian's perception of the approaching vehicles and their locomotive capability to execute the road crossing action. Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is a chronic disorder that is characterised by significant motor difficulties that impact on daily living, including a reduced ability to perform visually guided actions. A total of 25 typically developing primary school aged children and 25 age- and gender-matched children with DCD were presented with a virtual desktop task that required them to select suitable temporal crossing gaps between vehicles a stream of traffic approaching at either 20mph, 30mph or 40mph from the near-side (one-lane) or both near+far-sides (two-lane). A best-PEST staircase procedure was used to measure the temporal gaps that children accepted and the maximum likelihood value was taken after nine reversals as each participant's threshold. Typically developing children accepted temporal gaps that were sufficient to execute a safe crossing for vehicles approaching at 20mph and 30mph, but insufficient for vehicles approaching at 40mph. In contrast, children with DCD selected insufficient temporal crossing gaps across all approach speeds, which if translated to the roadside would have resulted in collision. These findings add to our understanding of the difficulties that children with DCD appear to have with visually guided behaviour and suggest the potential impact on one aspect of daily functioning that could have significant consequences.

Predictors of low perceptual-motor skills in children at 4-5 years of age / Preditores da baixa habilidade percepto-motora em crianças de 4-5 anos de idade

Abstract Objectives: the purpose of this study was to evaluate the predictors of low perceptual-motor skills in children at preschool age. Methods: this is a cross-sectional study nested in a birth cohort involving mother-child pairs. The children's perceptual-motor skills were assessed individually in their homes when they were 4-5 years old using the Pre-Literacy Skills and Knowledge Test (THCP®), a vali-dated Brazilian instrument. Logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the association between cognitive perceptual-motor skills and potential maternal and child risk factors. Results: of the 199 children included in the study, 53.8% were boys, 90.8% attended school, and 91.1% were enrolled in a public school. Among the children, 114 (57.3%), 41 (20.6%) and 44 (22.1%) had low, moderate and high perceptual-motor skills, respectively. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed greater odds of children at preschool age having low perceptual motor skills for boys (OR=2.10; CI95%= 1.14-3.88), children who did not attend school (OR=4.61; CI95%= 1.21-17.49), and those with a household income <5 minimum wages (MW) (OR=4.28; CI95%= 1.49-12.26). Conclusions: our study showed that male gender, not attending school and a monthly household income <5 MW were predictors of low perceptual-motor skills in children at 4-5 years of age.

Resumo Objetivos: avaliar os preditores da baixa habilidade percepto-motora em crianças em idade pré-escolar. Métodos: trata-se de um estudo transversal aninhado a uma coorte de nascimentos envol-vendo pares de mães-crianças. A habilidade percepto-motora das crianças foi avaliada indi-vidualmente em suas residências quando completaram 4-5 anos de idade, utilizando-se o Teste de Habilidades e Conhecimento Pré-Alfabetização (THCP®), um instrumento brasileiro validado. Análise de regressão logística foi utilizada para estimar a associação entre a baixa habilidade percepto-motora das crianças e potenciais fatores de risco materno-infantil. Resultados: das 199 crianças incluídas no estudo, 53,8% eram meninos, 90,8% frequen-tavam a escola, e 91,1% estudavam em escola pública. Entre as crianças, 114 (57,3%), 41 (20,6%) e 44 (22,1%) revelaram baixa, moderada e elevada habilidade percepto-motora, respectivamente. A análise de regressão logística ajustada revelou maior chance de crianças em idade pré-escolar apresentar baixa habilidade percepto-motora quando em meninos (OR=2,10; IC95%=1,14-3,88), crianças que não frequentavam a escola (OR=4,61; IC95%=1,21-17,49), e possuíam renda familiar <5 salários mínimos (SM) (OR=4,28; IC95%=1,49-12,26). Conclusões: nosso estudo revelou que sexo masculino, renda familiar <5 SM, e não frequentar a escola foram preditores significativos da baixa habilidade percepto-motora em crianças de 4-5 anos de idade.