Effects of a Participative Workplace Intervention on Work Strategies and Expectations of Availability Among Office-Based Employees With Flexible Work Arrangements.

Occupational ApplicationsWork strategies changed following a participatory workplace intervention among office-based employees with flexible work arrangements (FWA). Also, the intervention likely led to clearer rules and routines for FWA within the work group. As FWA increases, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, it will be important to revise work strategies for both the individual and the work group. The results of this study are relevant in the context of interventions that can support organizations and employees in adopting work strategies promoting good working conditions and health in FWA.

Background Flexible work arrangements (FWA) are common, but knowledge on how to organize flexible work to reduce negative consequences and preserve positive aspects is currently sparse, which hampers organizational initiatives.Purpose This study aimed to determine the extent to which work strategies, work-related use of information and communication technology (ICT) outside regular working hours (i.e., use of laptop, tablet, or smartphone, to handle information and facilitate communication), perceived productivity, expectations of availability, and clarity of expectations about availability, had changed among office-based employees with FWA 2 and 4 months after a participative two-step workplace intervention.Methods An intervention group (n = 97) was compared to a control group working as usual (n = 70). The intervention, initiated and approved by the top management of the organization, included individual education intended to change work strategies, and workshops developing common rules and routines for FWA within the work group.Results Participants were satisfied with the intervention and reported larger changes than the control group in work strategies. No statistically significant effects were found, however, on ICT use, perceived productivity, or expectations of availability.Conclusions This participative workplace intervention was successful in changing employees work strategies but may not be effective in influencing ICT use outside regular working hours, perceived productivity, expectations of availability, or clarity of expectations about availability. The results should be treated with caution due to a possible selection bias of the study population, both for technical reasons and due to the specific occupational context.

Development of Motor Imagery in School-Aged Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Longitudinal Study.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a diagnosis based on social communication deficits and prevalence of repetitive stereotyped behaviors, but sensorimotor disturbances are commonly exhibited. This longitudinal study aimed at exploring the development of the ability to form mental motor representations (motor imagery; MI) in 14 children with ASD and 17 typically developing (TD) children at 7, 8 and 9 years of age. MI was investigated using a hand laterality paradigm from which response times (RT) and error rates were extracted and compared with performance on a visually based mental rotation task (VI). A criterion task was used to ensure that the children could perform the task. The results showed wide performance variability in the ASD group with more failures than TD in the MI criterion task, especially at 7 years. For all age levels and both the MI and VI tasks, the error rates were significantly higher and RTs longer for the ASD group compared with TD. Signs of MI strategies were however noted in the ASD group as biomechanically constrained orientations had longer RTs than less constrained orientations, a RT pattern that differed from the VI task. The presence of MI in the ASD group was most evident at 9 years, but the error rates remained high at all ages, both in the MI and VI task. In comparison, the TD group showed stable MI strategies at all ages. These findings indicate that MI ability is delayed and/or impaired in children with ASD which may be related to difficulties performing required mental rotations.

Motor planning and movement execution during goal-directed sequential manual movements in 6-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder: A kinematic analysis.

BACKGROUND: Atypical motor functioning is prevalent in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Knowledge of the underlying kinematic properties of these problems is sparse. AIMS: To investigate characteristics of manual motor planning and performance difficulties/diversity in children with ASD by detailed kinematic measurements. Further, associations between movement parameters and cognitive functions were explored. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Six-year-old children with ASD (N = 12) and typically developing (TD) peers (N = 12) performed a sequential manual task comprising grasping and fitting a semi-circular peg into a goal-slot. The goal-slot orientation was manipulated to impose different motor planning constraints. Movements were recorded by an optoelectronic system. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: The ASD-group displayed less efficient motor planning than the TD-group, evident in the reach-to-grasp and transport kinematics and less proactive adjustments of the peg to the goal-slot orientations. The intra-individual variation of movement kinematics was higher in the ASD-group compared to the TD-group. Further, in the ASD-group, movement performance associated negatively with cognitive functions. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Planning and execution of sequential manual movements proved challenging for children with ASD, likely contributing to problems in everyday actions. Detailed kinematic investigations contribute to the generation of specific knowledge about the nature of atypical motor performance/diversity in ASD. This is of potential clinical relevance.

Direction-Specific Impairments in Cervical Range of Motion in Women with Chronic Neck Pain: Influence of Head Posture and Gravitationally Induced Torque.

BACKGROUND: Cervical range of motion (ROM) is commonly assessed in clinical practice and research. In a previous study we decomposed active cervical sagittal ROM into contributions from lower and upper levels of the cervical spine and found level- and direction-specific impairments in women with chronic non-specific neck pain. The present study aimed to validate these results and investigate if the specific impairments can be explained by the neutral posture (defining zero flexion/extension) or a movement strategy to avoid large gravitationally induced torques on the cervical spine. METHODS: Kinematics of the head and thorax was assessed in sitting during maximal sagittal cervical flexion/extension (high torque condition) and maximal protraction (low torque condition) in 120 women with chronic non-specific neck pain and 40 controls. We derived the lower and upper cervical angles, and the head centre of mass (HCM), from a 3-segment kinematic model. Neutral head posture was assessed using a standardized procedure. FINDINGS: Previous findings of level- and direction-specific impairments in neck pain were confirmed. Neutral head posture was equal between groups and did not explain the direction-specific impairments. The relative magnitude of group difference in HCM migration did not differ between high and low torques conditions, lending no support for our hypothesis that impairments in sagittal ROM are due to torque avoidance behaviour. INTERPRETATION: The direction- and level-specific impairments in cervical sagittal ROM can be generalised to the population of women with non-specific neck pain. Further research is necessary to clarify if torque avoidance behaviour can explain the impairments.

Between- and within-subject variance of motor variability metrics in females performing repetitive upper-extremity precision work.

Kinematic motor variability is extensively studied in occupational, clinical and sports biomechanics, but the consistency of most motor variability metrics have never been reported. In this study, fourteen subjects performed a repetitive pipetting task on three separate days. Movements of hand, arm and pipette tip were recorded in 3D and used to compute shoulder elevation, elbow flexion and shoulder-arm coordination angles, as well as pipette-tip endpoint precision. Cycle-to-cycle motor variability was quantified using linear dispersion measures of standard kinematics properties such as peak velocity, range of motion, and inter-segmental relative phase. Between- and within-subject consistencies of these variability metrics were quantified by variance components estimated using a nested random effects model. For most metrics, the variance between subjects was larger than that between days and cycles. Entering the variance components in statistical power equations showed that for most metrics, a total of 80-100 subjects will be required to detect a 20% difference between two groups with sufficient power, while this difference can typically be detected in repeated-measures (paired) designs using 25 subjects. The reported between and within-subject variance components can be used as a data base to facilitate efficient designs of future studies of kinematic motor variability.

Effects of neck coordination exercise on sensorimotor function in chronic neck pain: a randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of neck coordination exercise on sensorimotor function in women with neck pain compared with best-available treatment and sham treatment. DESIGN: Observer-blinded randomized controlled trial with short-term and 6-month follow-ups. SUBJECTS: Women with chronic non-specific neck pain were randomized to 3 groups: neck coordination exercise with a novel training device; strength training for the neck and shoulders; or massage. Each group had 36 participants. METHODS: The intervention period was 11 weeks with 22 individually supervised sessions. Primary outcomes were postural sway measures and precision of goal-directed arm movements. Secondary outcomes were range of motion for the neck, peak speed of axial rotation, and neck pain. A repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted separately on the primary outcomes for the short-term and 6-month evaluations and on the sensorimotor secondary outcomes for the 6-month effect. The 6-month effect on pain was analysed with a repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). RESULTS: No significant treatment effects in favour of neck coordination exercise were found for short-term or 6-month evaluations. CONCLUSION: Neck coordination exercise is no better than strength training and massage in improving sensorimotor function. Further research should investigate the use of cut-offs for sensorimotor dysfunctions prior to proprioceptive or coordinative training.

Range of motion in the upper and lower cervical spine in people with chronic neck pain.

Reduced cervical range of motion (ROM) is a common finding in people with neck pain. With few exceptions, only the angle between head and thorax has been measured. Our aim was to use an extended model to compare active cervical flexion and extension, separate for upper and lower cervical levels, between people with chronic non-traumatic neck pain and controls. We also investigated associations between ROM measures, symptoms and self-rated functioning. In this cross-sectional study, 102 subjects with neck pain and 33 healthy controls participated. An electromagnetic tracker system was used to measure the kinematics to construct a three-segment model including the thorax, cervical spine and head. Neutral flexion/extension were defined at subjects' self-selected seated posture. We found that in the neck pain group, extension in the upper cervical levels and predominately flexion for the lower levels were reduced. The ratio between ROM for the upper and lower levels was altered in the neck pain group so that the lower levels contributed to a lesser extent to the total sagittal ROM compared to controls. These findings could not be explained by a greater forward head posture but must have other origins. For the neck pain group, ROM measures were weakly associated to pain and self-rated functioning. Altogether, this implies that using a three-segment model for assessment of ROM can be a valuable improvement for characterisation of patients and treatment evaluation.

Is the P600/SPS affected by the richness of semantic content? A linguistic ERP study in Swedish.

The study investigated whether the P600/SPS component is sensitive to the richness of semantic content in sentences. ERPs were recorded while 30 native Swedish speakers read sentences, of which half were syntactically correct and half contained a syntactic violation. Both kinds of sentences came in one of three types of descending semantic completeness: semantically coherent sentences, sentences which were incoherent due to violations of selectional restrictions, or sentences of pseudo words, hence void of lexical content. In the semantically coherent sentences a P600/SPS was found for the syntactic violation. A less salient positivity was found for the violation in the semantically incoherent sentences. No P600/SPS was found for the syntactic violation in the pseudo word sentences and no LAN component in any sentence type. The results are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that the P600/SPS component reflects a semantically based reanalysis process.