Athletes trained using stable compared to unstable surfaces exhibit distinct postural control profiles when assessed by traditional and nonlinear measures

Athletes are assumed to exhibit better balance than non-athletes; however, few studies have examined the role of different types of sports on balance measures. Two athlete groups that experience divergent sport-specific balance training are stable- (i.e. basketball) and unstable-surface athletes (i.e. surfers). The purpose of this study was to quantify the effect of stable- compared to unstable-surface sports on postural stability.MethodsEight non-athletes (NON), eight stable-surface athletes (SSA) and eight unstable-surface athletes (USA) performed five 20-s quiet standing trials while ground reaction forces were recorded. Approximate entropy (ApEn), total excursion and root mean square distances (RMS) of the center of pressure position were calculated. Univariate ANOVAs with post hoc tests were conducted for each variable.ResultsApEn values were lower in SSA compared to NON in the ML direction (p = 0.012) and USA had lower ApEn values compared to SSA in the AP direction (p = 0.036). The USA had smaller AP RMS compared to SSA (p = 0.002) while the USA had greater ML RMS (p = 0.008) and resultant RMS values compared to SSA (p = 0.025).DiscussionThese data suggest that USA and SSA may exhibit direction-specific differences in balance strategy due to feedback paradigm.     

Aversive racism and medical interactions with Black patients: A field study

Medical interactions between Black patients and nonBlack physicians are usually less positive and productive than same-race interactions. We investigated the role that physician explicit and implicit biases play in shaping physician and patient reactions in racially discordant medical interactions. We hypothesized that whereas physicians’ explicit bias would predict their own reactions, physicians’ implicit bias, in combination with physician explicit (self-reported) bias, would predict patients’ reactions. Specifically, we predicted that patients would react most negatively when their physician fit the profile of an aversive racist (i.e., low explicit-high implicit bias). The hypothesis about the effects of explicit bias on physicians’ reactions was partially supported. The aversive racism hypothesis received support. Black patients had less positive reactions to medical interactions with physicians relatively low in explicit but relatively high in implicit bias than to interactions with physicians who were either: (a) low in both explicit and implicit bias, or (b) high in both explicit and implicit bias.     

Life Experience Is Not a Disease or Why Medicalizing Madness Is Counterproductive to Recovery

Abstract

The author draws on her personal experience as the family member of an individual with mental illness, on her anthropological research and on that of others to argue that medicalizing madness can be counterproductive to recovery. The medical model is sometimes used in a way that strips away the meaning of the illness experience. Analogies drawn to diseases do not help the understanding of mental illness. Psychiatry is a social practice embedded in a social milieu and that renders it less than objective. It is useful to recognize that the experiences called symptoms have meaning and may have positive and pleasurable aspects.     

Evaluating Medical Marijuana Dispensary Policies: Spatial Methods for the Study of Environmentally-Based Interventions

In 1996, California was the first state to pass a Compassionate Use Act allowing for the legal use of marijuana for medical purposes. Here we review several current policy and land use environmental interventions designed to limit problems related to the influx of medical marijuana dispensaries across California cities. Then we discuss the special challenges, solutions, and techniques used for studying the effects of these place-based policies. Finally, we present some of the advanced spatial analytic techniques that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of environmental interventions, such as those related to reducing problems associated with the proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries. Further, using data from a premise survey of all the dispensaries in Sacramento, this study will examine what characteristics and practices of these dispensaries are related to crime within varying distances from the dispensaries (e.g., 100, 250, 500, and 1,000 feet). We find that some security measures, such as security cameras and having a door man outside, implemented by medical marijuana dispensary owners might be effective at reducing crime within the immediate vicinity of the dispensaries.     

Cognitive control and consistency in compliance

Abstract

The purpose of this prospective study was two-fold. First, three modes of compliance assessment were used to examine whether renal dialysis patients comply consistently across medical regimens (fluid, potassium, phosphorous, protein) and whether compliance is consistent across mode of assessment (patient self assessment, medical staff ratings, physiological data). Second. a cognitive model predicting fluid compliance was tested to see if it would generalize to predict dietary compliance and medication taking. Patients' self-control perceptions of compliance, staff assessments of compliance, and physiological data were collected prospectively for 85 end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients. Results indicated substantial consistency across medical regimen depending on the mode of assessment; staff assessment showed the most consistency, followed by patients' self-assessments and lastly by physiological data. Despite this consistency across medical regimens, the cognitive-control model only predicted fluid compliance; the model failed to explain dietary and medication compliance. Reasons and implications for these results are discussed.     

Recognizing Anxiety Disorders in the Aftermath of the World Trade Center Crisis

This article seeks to educate the reader on how to recognize the presence of anxiety disorders as they occur in the church community. The author uses medical information, Scriptural wisdom and a case illustration to help concerned Christians to assist sufferers in getting appropriate care. Anxiety disorders in the aftermath of the World Trade Center trajedy will be on the rise and the paper addresses this matter particularly for clergy, caregivers and professional counselors.     

Assessing the Readability of Mental Health Internet Brochures for Children and Adolescents

We investigated the readability of seven mental health brochures on mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders in children that were selected from a website developed by the Center for Mental Health Services at http://www.mentalhealth.org. The reading grade levels of the brochures ranged from 11.1 to 14.8 (mean 13.23), considerably higher than the 8th grade level recommended for educational material by the U. S. Department of Education (1986). On other readability variables, assessed using the Readability Assessment Instrument (RAIN; Singh, 1994), all brochures met criterion on most variables but failed on those for new words (audience appropriateness) and print size. This is a favorable result in comparison with other studies that have assessed readability of mental health information on the Internet using the RAIN, although less so with reading grade levels.     

A case of subcortical dementia due to sarcoidosis of the hypothalamus and fornices

A patient with sarcoidosis involving predominantly the hypothalamus and fornices was evaluated for dementia. He showed a relative sparing of fund of knowledge and orientation. Memory skills, particularly short-term memory, were severely impaired. Behavioral changes included apathy and a lack of spontaneity. Insight was relatively preserved. The pattern of his deficits showed some similarities to the pattern reported in patients with Huntington's disease and was different from that described in Alzheimer's disease. The dementia caused by subcortical pathology may differ in important respects from that caused by diffuse cortical dysfunction.     

Serial learning: Identification of subjective subsequences

Learning of fixed arbitrary sequences proceeds by idiosyncratic subsequencing and assembly of the resulting subsequences. An error item that just precedes a subjective subsequence is a closely constrained member of that subsequence. Identification and characterization of subjective subsequences were accomplished by analyses of forward serial learning, free recall, and backward serial learning. We conclude that ordinary serial learning cannot be represented by traditional continuous-process theories, but instead must be treated by an organizational model.     

Retrieval of propositional information from long-term memory

Three experiments are reported in which subjects learn propositions like A hippie is in the park. The experiments manipulate the number of such propositions involving a particular person (e.g., hippie) or a particular location (e.g., park). After learning the material, subjects are asked to judge whether particular probe propositions are from the study set. Times to make these judgments about probe propositions increase with the number of study propositions involving the person or location used in the probe proposition. A model is presented which assumes a subject simultaneously accesses memory from all concepts in a probe proposition and serially searches through all study propositions involving each concept. Search of memory terminates as soon as one search process from a concept finds the probe proposition or exhausts the study propositions attached to that concept.