Identifying patterns of neurocognitive dysfunction through direct comparison of children with leukemia, central nervous system tumors, and sickle cell disease.

PURPOSE: To quantify and compare the magnitude and type of neurocognitive dysfunction in at-risk children with central nervous system (CNS) tumors, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), and sickle cell disease (SCD) using a common instrument and metric to directly compare these groups with each other. METHODS: Fifty-three participants between the ages of 7 and 12 years (n = 27 ALL, n = 11 CNS tumor, n = 15 SCD) were enrolled and assessed using the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery (NIHTCB). Participants with ALL or CNS tumor were 0-18 months posttherapy, while participants with SCD possessed the SS or Sß0 genotype, took hydroxyurea, and had no known history of stroke. RESULTS: Independent sample t-tests showed that participants with ALL and CNS tumor experienced greatest deficits in processing speed (ALL d = -0.96; CNS tumor d = -1.2) and inhibitory control and attention (ALL d = -0.53; CNS tumor d = -0.97) when compared with NIHTCB normative data. Participants with SCD experienced deficits in cognitive flexibility only (d = -0.53). Episodic memory was relatively spared in all groups (d = -0.03 to -0.32). There were no significant differences in function when groups were compared directly with each other by analysis of variance. CONCLUSIONS: Use of a common metric to quantify the magnitude and type of neurocognitive dysfunction across at-risk groups of participants by disease shows that participants perform below age-expected norms in multiple domains and experience dysfunction differently than one another. This approach highlights patterns of dysfunction that can inform disease- and domain-specific interventions.

Generalizability of Footwear Traction Performance across Flooring and Contaminant Conditions.

BACKGROUND: To prevent slip and fall events at the workplace, mechanical slip testing is conducted on shoes. Such experiments may involve redundant testing across floorings and contaminant conditions, causing wasted time and effort. PURPOSE: Quantify the correlations between shoe traction across different contaminant-flooring conditions to reduce redundant slip testing efforts. METHODS: The available coefficient-of-friction (ACOF) was quantified for 17 shoes across five floorings and three contaminant conditions. Redundant testing conditions were identified when the shoe ACOF values for one floor-contaminant condition were highly correlated with a second floor-contaminant condition. RESULTS: High correlations were observed among quarry floorings across different contaminants and among vinyl (composite tile) floorings with the same contaminant. However, vinyl floorings exhibited low correlations with quarry floorings. Low correlations were also observed across contaminants within vinyl tiles. CONCLUSIONS: This study was able to determine the generalizability of traction performance of shoes across vinyl and quarry floorings. This information is anticipated to reduce redundant traction testing of shoes across vinyl and quarry floorings.