The lowering of bilirubin levels in patients with neonatal jaundice using massage therapy: A randomized,double-blind clinical trial

ObjectiveDue to the effects of massage on various laboratory parameters (including those related to jaundice) in infants and the expansion of existing studies to achieve effective and safe therapy in the treatment of neonatal jaundice, this study aimed to investigate the effect of massage on bilirubin levels in cases of neonatal jaundice.MethodsIn this study, 134 patients were randomly assigned to either an intervention group (massage combined with phototherapy, n = 67) or a control group (phototherapy only, n = 67). In both groups, serum total bilirubin level and frequency of daily bowel movements were measured and compared during each of the first four days of treatment.ResultsBaseline levels of bilirubin were similar between the two groups (P > 0.05). During the measurements obtained post-intervention, significant differences surfaces between the two groups in bilirubin levels and frequency of daily bowel movements (P < 0.05 for both). No significant relationship was observed during days 1 and 2 of massage therapy between daily frequency of bowel movements and serum bilirubin level (P > 0.05); this relationship became significant during the third and fourth days (P < 0.05).ConclusionMassage therapy combined with phototherapy is an effective method for reducing serum total bilirubin in infants with neonatal jaundice.     

The effects of baby bath and massage by fathers on the family system: The sunraysia australia intervention project

Instruction in baby massage and the Burleigh Relaxation Bath technique was given to one-half of our sample of 32 couples who had just had their first child. This brief intervention, given at 4 weeks post-partum, led to beneficial behavioural and psychological effects for the family system when assessed at 12 weeks postpartum. Depression and marital satisfaction were assessed with mothers and fathers at 4 weeks and 12 weeks after the birth of their child, and self-esteem was measured at 12 weeks only. The mothers and fathers who were shown baby bathing and massage techniques showed higher degrees of marital satisfaction and self-esteem, as well as lower levels of depression at 12 weeks post-partum, than parents who did not receive instruction. It seems likely that brief interventions which educate new parents concerning functional techniques of baby care may favourably affect their feelings of competence and be of benefit to the entire family system.     

The effects of massage velocity on heart rate and heart rate variability in healthy infants: A randomized crossover study

BackgroundInfant massage, in which mothers stroke their infant’s skin slowly and gently, can cause pleasant sensations in the infant that can be affected by the velocity of massage. However, the massage velocity at which infants feel the most pleasant sensations remains unclear.ObjectiveTo investigate the effects of massage velocity on heart rate (HR) and HR variability (HRV) in healthy infants.MethodTwenty-two infant-mother dyads two to seven months of age were recruited. Mothers stroked their infant’s skin at three massage velocities (5.0, 7.5, and 10.0 cm/s) in a randomized order for 15 min. The rhythm of massage velocity was calculated according to the length of three body areas. The massage velocity of the mothers was regulated using a metronome. HR and HRV (high frequency [HF] and low frequency [LF]) were measured at rest and during massage for each velocity. The effects on pleasantness were evaluated using percent change in median baseline value compared with median values for the three massage velocities. Statistical analysis was performed using analysis of variance mixed effect models to exclude “period” and “carryover” effects during massage.ResultsWhen measuring HF, massage (7.5 cm/s) caused a significant increase in pleasantness compared with 10.0 cm/s (p = 0.04). The HR and LF/HF ratio were not significantly changed between velocities.ConclusionResults of this study suggested that a massage velocity of 7.5 cm/s was the most pleasant for infants. Future research should investigate the relationship between an infant massage by optimal velocity and infant development in longitudinal studies.     

The efficacy of massage on short and long term outcomes in preterm infants

Purpose

Premature infants lack the tactile stimulation they would have otherwise experienced in the womb. Infant massage is a developmentally supportive intervention that has been documented for several decades to have a positive effect on both full term and preterm infants. The purpose of this study was to assess the short and long term benefits of massage on stable preterm infants.

Methods

A quasi experimental design was used, 66 infants were recruited from two university hospitals with tertiary level NICUs; 32 infants received the massage therapy by their mothers. Data collection by a researcher blind to the infants’ group assignments included weight at discharge, pain responses on the PIPP scale at discharge, length of stay in hospital, neuro-developmental outcome (Bayley scores) and breastfeeding duration at 12 months corrected age.

Results

Infants who were massaged had significantly lower scores on the PIPP after a heel-stick compared to before the massage and had lower PIPP scores at discharge compared to the control group. Massaged infants had higher cognitive scores at 12 months corrected age. Weight gain, length of stay, breastfeeding duration and motor scores did not differ between groups.

Conclusion

Stable preterm infants benefit from massage therapy given by their mothers and may be a culturally acceptable form of intervention to improve the outcomes of preterm infants.     

Cross-cultural perspective on dating relationships of young Iranian women: A pilot study

This study aimed to determine whether young Iranian women experience a conflict in values between their parents and those of mainstream America. Specifically, the study focused on dating and boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. Through an open-ended interview conducted in Farsi, the results indicated that the subjects experiencing the most pressure were those who had not yet forged an identity for themselves within either culture. Implications for cross-cultural counselling are discussed.     

Effects of physiologic jaundice on behavioral function in low-risk preterm infants

This study is aimed at assessing untoward effects of physiologic jaundice on apparently well babies 1 month after jaundice was cleared. Two measures of neonatal physiologic jaundice were correlated with 15 behavioral measures, taken from 37 low-risk Black preterm infants tested at expected date of birth. The behavioral measures evaluated visual function, motor function, affect, and central nervous system integrity. Higher bilirubin values were associated with poorer visual function, quicker cessation of distress in response to social intervention, and longer periods of active sleep. The pattern of the results was similar when the effects of health risks other than jaundice were statistically controlled. The results support the hypothesis that even physiologic jaundice is associated with individual differences in the behavioral outcome of preterm infants.     

Examining patience as a psycho-religious construct in Iranian patients with cardiovascular diseases: a pilot study

The current study aimed to compare patience and its components in cardiovascular patients (CVPs) with healthy individuals. Ninety-one patients with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) referring to the clinic of Imam Reza in the city of Shiraz in Iran, and 91 healthy individuals were recruited by convenience sampling method. They completed demographics questionnaire and the Patience Scale. The data were analysed by sets of analysis of covariance. Results showed significant difference between CVPs and healthy participants on patience (M?=?85.92, SD?=?12.69 vs. M?=?90.45, SD?=?11.33); patients had less patience mean than their healthy peers (F?=?9.423, η²?=?.050, p?=?.002). The results also indicated that cardiac patients had significantly lower scores on patience components of transcendence, persistence, and delay than the healthy group (all p’s?p?>?.05). According to the results of the present study, it can be inferred that less patience may play a key role in vulnerability to physical illnesses such as CVDs.     

The BDNFval66met polymorphism and individual differences in temperament in 4-month-old infants: A pilot study

Individual differences in infants’ temperament are under genetic control. We investigated the association between brain-derived-neurotrophic-factor (BDNF_val66met) polymorphism and temperament in 63 full-term infants. Met-carriers (N = 25) had lower Regulatory capacities compared to val-homozygotes (N = 38). These findings suggest that the BDNF polymorphism affects early temperament individual differences.     

Effects of natural stress relief meditation on trait anxiety: a pilot study

Natural Stress Relief meditation, a mental technique which is practiced for 15 minutes twice a day, aims to reduce stress and anxiety by eliciting a specific state of physiological rest along with mental alertness. The meditation is taught in a self-administered program, requiring one hour of training during the first three days, followed by the regular twice daily practice. Each 15-min. session consists in sitting quietly with closed eyes while applying a specific mental procedure. To test the effectiveness of meditation in reducing trait anxiety, Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was administered to 25 participants four times over a 3-wk. period: one week before starting to practice the meditation, a few hours before starting, 1 wk. after, and 2 wk. after. The difference in Trait Anxiety score between pretreatment and before starting the practice was not significant, while it was significant both after the first week of practice (Cohen d=.46) and after the first 2 wk. of practice (d=.67).     

Differential effects of massage and heelstick procedures on transcutaneous oxygen tension in preterm neonates

The present study investigated the differential effects of heelsticks and tactile-kinesthetic massage on transcutaneous oxygen tension (TcPO₂) in preterm infants. The sample was comprised of 37 stabilized preterm neonates from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. During the heelstick procedure, TcPO₂ significantly declined an average of 14 mmHg. When compared to the tactile-kinesthetic massage, TcPO₂ levels during the heelstick (M = 39.8) were significantly lower than during the stimulation (M = 72.8). Mean TcPO₂ levels remained clinically safe during the four massage sessions evaluated. The TcPO₂ levels during kinesthetic stimulation were somewhat more varied, and movement and pressurization of the TcPO₂ electrode were investigated as possible artifactual explanations for this phenomenon. Overall, the findings indicate that social forms of touch such as tactile-kinesthetic massage do not appear to have a medically compromising effect on TcPO₂ in the preterm neonate. These findings are evaluated in relation to the “minimal touch” policy, and implications for future handling of the stabilized preterm neonate are discussed.     

Effects of anxiety on handgun shooting behavior of police officers: a pilot study

Abstract

The current pilot study aimed at providing an initial assessment of how anxiety influences police officers’ shooting behavior. Seven police officers participated and completed an identical shooting exercise under two experimental conditions: low anxiety, against a non-threatening opponent, and high anxiety (HA), against a threatening opponent who occasionally shot back using colored soap cartridges. Measurements included shooting accuracy, movement times, head/body orientation, and blink behavior. Results showed that under HA, shooting accuracy decreased. Underlying this degradation of performance, participants acted faster and made themselves smaller to reduce the chance of being hit. Furthermore, they blinked more often, leading to increases in the amount of time participants had their eyes closed. Findings provide support for attentional control theory, hereby also pointing to possible interventions to improve police officers’ shooting performance under pressure.     

Prediction in infants and adults: A pupillometry study

Adults use both bottom‐up sensory inputs and top‐down signals to generate predictions about future sensory inputs. Infants have also been shown to make predictions with simple stimuli and recent work has suggested top‐down processing is available early in infancy. However, it is unknown whether this indicates that top‐down prediction is an ability that is continuous across the lifespan or whether an infant's ability to predict is different from an adult's, qualitatively or quantitatively. We employed pupillometry to provide a direct comparison of prediction abilities across these disparate age groups. Pupil dilation response (PDR) was measured in 6‐month olds and adults as they completed an identical implicit learning task designed to help learn associations between sounds and pictures. We found significantly larger PDR for visual omission trials (i.e. trials that violated participants’ predictions without the presentation of new stimuli to control for bottom‐up signals) compared to visual present trials (i.e. trials that confirmed participants’ predictions) in both age groups. Furthermore, a computational learning model that is closely linked to prediction error (Rescorla‐Wagner model) demonstrated similar learning trajectories suggesting a continuity of predictive capacity and learning across the two age groups.     

Group-based problem-solving therapy in self-poisoning females: A pilot study

Aims: The treatment of suicidal behaviour remains limited in efficacy. This pilot study assessed the effectiveness of a time-limited, group-based problem-solving therapy intervention compared with a treatment as usual control group, in females who self-poison. Method: A total of 18 clients were equally randomised to treatment or control groups. All clients were assessed using standardised questionnaires for depression, hopelessness, suicidal ideation and social problem-solving skills, at pre-treatment, post-treatment and two months follow-up. Results: The treatment group experienced significant reductions in levels of depression, hopelessness, suicidal ideation and improvements in self-assessed social problem-solving skills. Improvements in mental health and aspects of self-assessed problem-solving skills for the treatment group continued to be evident at two months follow-up. The control group did not change significantly over time on mental health measures or social problem solving abilities. Conclusion: Although limited by small sample size, the results suggest that group-based problem-solving therapy is effective in the management of deliberate self-poisoning. This paper is a unique contribution in that it examines the implementation of problem solving therapy with a homogenous population and in a group format. Methodological concerns and directions for future research are discussed.     

Effects of joint attention on long-term memory in 9-month-old infants: an event-related potentials study

Joint attention develops during the first year of life but little is known about its effects on long-term memory. We investigated whether joint attention modulates long-term memory in 9-month-old infants. Infants were familiarized with visually presented objects in either of two conditions that differed in the degree of joint attention (high versus low). EEG indicators in response to old and novel objects were probed directly after the familiarization phase (immediate recognition), and following a 1-week delay (delayed recognition). In immediate recognition, the amplitude of positive slow-wave activity was modulated by joint attention. In the delayed recognition, the amplitude of the Pb component differentiated between high and low joint attention. In addition, the positive slow-wave amplitude during immediate and delayed recognition correlated with the frequency of infants' looks to the experimenter during familiarization. Under both high- and low-joint-attention conditions, the processing of unfamiliar objects was associated with an enhanced Nc component. Our results show that the degree of joint attention modulates EEG during immediate and delayed recognition. We conclude that joint attention affects long-term memory processing in 9-month-old infants by enhancing the relevance of attended items.     

Effects of Personality and Information Technology on Plagiarism: An Iranian Perspective

Information technology has played a remarkably important role in developing the contemporary educational system. It not only provides easy access to enormous stores of information but also increases students' scientific efficiency. However, the availability of this technology has also led to increased plagiarism. This study attempted to explore how access to Internet technology contributes to plagiarism problems from the perspective of university students in Iran. A qualitative method to semistructured interviews with 20 students suggested important themes: uncertainty avoidance, tendency to use shortcuts to progress, symbolic certification, social learning and modeling of faculty members as mentors, and plagiarism in the name of justice. Survey data from 180 university students suggest that the personality characteristic of conscientiousness had a negative effect on using information technology to commit plagiarism.     

A study of reaching actions in walking infants

Acquiring motor skills transforms the perceptual and cognitive world of infants and expands their exploratory engagement with objects. This study investigated how reaching is integrated with walking among infant walkers (n = 23, 14.5–15.5 months). In a walk-to-reach paradigm, diverse object retrieval strategies were observed. All infants were willing to use their upper and lower bodies in concert, and the timing of this coordination reflected features of their environment. Infants with an older walking age (months since walking onset) retrieved items more rapidly and exploited their non-reaching hand more effectively during object retrieval than did same-age infants with a younger walking age. This suggests that the actions of the upper- and lower-body are flexibly integrated and that this integration may change across development. Mechanisms that shape sophisticated upper-body use during upright object retrieval are discussed. Infants flexibly integrate emerging motor skills in the service of object retrieval in ways not previously documented.     

Refractoriness and the healthy brain: A behavioural study on semantic access

While many behavioural studies on refractory phenomena in lexical/semantic access have focused on the mechanisms involved in the oral production of names, comprehension tasks have been almost exclusively used in neuropsychological studies on brain damaged patients. We report the results of two experiments on healthy participants conducted by means of speeded word to picture matching tasks. They assess the effects of the same variables examined in the study of refractory access dysphasic patients: semantic distance and word frequency (experiment 1) and presentation rate and serial position effects (experiment 2). Semantic access patients usually show little effect of word frequency but a large semantic distance effect. However, critical in characterising the syndrome as ‘refractory’, effects of presentation rate and serial position should also be present. The experiments involved the use of a deadline response procedure. The critical manipulation was the absence of a Response Stimulus Interval (RSI) in the fast presentation rate conditions; slower presentation rates involved 1 s RSI. With these manipulations the typical behavioural pattern of performance provided by semantic access dysphasic patients was reproduced. Semantic distance effects were more powerful than word frequency effects (experiment1). Presentation rate effects were found and, most important for a “refractory” account of the effects, a serial position effect was obtained (experiment 2). These results provide the first evidence of such a broad range of refractory effects at the same time in comprehension tasks in healthy subjects and support a purely semantic account for the locus of refractoriness. Moreover, error analysis showed a predominance of perseverative errors with subsequent representations of the same target, supporting a failure of cognitive control mechanisms as the cause of refractory behaviour. The findings are discussed in the light of current models of lexical and semantic processing.     

Real-time MRI comparisons of brass players: A methodological pilot study

This paper describes the use of real-time MRI at 30 frames/s in studying motor function within the oropharyngeal cavity of a trumpet, horn, trombone, and tuba player. Using Image J and customized MB-Ruler Pro software, analyses of discrete 33.3 ms snapshots of motion extracted from real-time MRI films obtained during an ascending five note sequence performed on a plastic practice device (B.E.R.P.) revealed inter-instrument differences in oropharyngeal cavity size and tongue conformation when moving from lower to higher notes. Tuba and trombone show a progressive decrease in oropharyngeal area featuring an upward and forward displacement of the tongue. Trumpet showed progressive increases in oropharyngeal area, with the posterior compartment showing the largest change, while horn essentially showed no change. A novel dynamic quantitative analysis method is also described utilizing Matlab. This method employs user-specified line profiles, aligned to the direction of the movement of interest. It takes advantage of time-varying pixel luminescence to derive spatial and temporal gradients. These gradients make possible the acquisition of kinematic data to describe movement in terms of slower position changes (spatial gradient) as well as fast, articulatory movements (temporal gradient). Spatial gradient analysis for the trumpet player demonstrates a progressive raising of the tongue during the ascending five note exercise. Temporal gradient analysis of double-tonguing revealed similarities in range of motion, anti-phase behavior, and frequency across instruments with respect to movements of the tongue tip and back of tongue. The paper concludes by making recommendations for extending these methods to studying musician’s dystonia.     

The effects of stimulating the cerebellum on social sequences: A tDCS-fMRI pilot study

Research on the involvement of the cerebellum in social behavior and its relationship with social mentalizing has just begun. Social mentalizing is the ability to attribute mental states such as desires, intentions, and beliefs to others. This ability involves the use of social action sequences which are believed to be stored in the cerebellum. In order to better understand the neurobiology of social mentalizing, we applied cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on 23 healthy participants in the MRI scanner, immediately followed by measuring their brain activity during a task that required to generate the correct sequence of social actions involving false (i.e., outdated) and true beliefs, social routines and non-social (control) events. The results revealed that stimulation decreased task performance along with decreased brain activation in mentalizing areas, including the temporoparietal junction and the precuneus. This decrease was strongest for true belief sequences compared to the other sequences. These findings support the functional impact of the cerebellum on the mentalizing network and belief mentalizing, contributing to the understanding of the role of the cerebellum in social sequences.