1,721,264 research outputs found
Falls prevention in older People: Australian Falls Prevention 2nd Biennial Conference
No full textThis second biennial conference has again attracted strong interest from researchers and health workers dedicated to improving the health care of older people. Falls are the leading cause of injury-related death and hospitalisation in persons aged 65 years and over and falls injury prevention has been identified as a Commonwealth and State health priority area. Reducing falls injury is a priority because, with the ageing of Australia's population, falls injuries and associated costs are expected to more than double between 2001 and 2051 unless effective falls prevention strategies can be identified and implemented. As many findings from the conference presentations have the potential for immediate application, there is real potential for this conference to facilitate effective changes in practice, with resultant heath care cost savings across Australia.\ud
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While the present conference follows on from the inaugural conference in Sydney in 2004, it has built on and complemented National and State-based Falls Prevention Meetings and Forums. It is also a direct outcome of the highly successful collaborations resulting from the National Health and Medical Research Council Injury Prevention Partnership, Prevention of Older People’s Injuries. With the support of so many delegates, sponsors and industries, the Australian Falls Prevention Conference will continue as a regular feature on the conference calendar.\ud
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The conference is also recognised as part of international efforts to prevent falls in at-risk groups. Many participants are connected to their professional bodies in other countries and participate in international forums that focus on falls in older people. There is a strong linkage with The Prevention of Falls Network Europe, which co-ordinates research across Europe into the prevention of falling amongst older people. These international connections are further evident in the delegates who are attending this conference, not only from all the Australian States and Territories, but also from the United Kingdom, Canada, China, New Zealand, Finland, Belgium, Germany, Japan and Singapore. Many national and international sponsors and exhibitors have also generously supported the conference.\ud
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Delegates from a broad range of professional disciplines are attending the conference. This provides excellent opportunities for researchers, exercise physiologists, medical practitioners, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, podiatrists, optometrists, health promotion workers and aged care providers to meet, learn from each other and exchange ideas.\ud
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The conference addresses the important current issues in falls and falls injury in older people. The topics include: understanding balance and the mechanisms of falls; falls epidemiology; falls risk assessment; risk factors for falls in older people and clinical groups; preventing falls in older people, hospital inpatients, aged care resident facility residents and at-risk groups; optimal exercise programs for preventing falls; the role of assistive devices including hip protectors; maximising compliance in falls interventions; falls prevention initiatives in health promotion and falls policy development. The conference includes keynote speakers from Australia and overseas, free papers, poster sessions, workshops, trade exhibitions and a lively group discussion to round off the conference. \ud
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I have great pleasure in welcoming you to the second biennial Australian Falls Prevention conference. I hope that you are stimulated by your time at the conference and enjoy the social events and your time in Brisbane.\ud
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Graham Kerr\ud
Convenor, Australian Falls Prevention 2nd Biennial Conferenc
Anticipatory and reactive response to falls: Muscle synergy activation of forearm muscles
No full textWe investigated the surface electromyogram response of six forearm muscles to falls onto the outstretched hand. The extensor carpi radialis longus, extensor carpi radialis brevis, extensor carpi ulnaris, abductor pollicis longus, flexor carpi radialis and flexor carpi ulnaris muscles were sampled from eight volunteers who underwent ten self-initiated falls. All muscles initiated prior to impact. Co-contraction is the most obvious surface electromyogram feature. The predominant response is in the radial deviators. The surface electromyogram timing we recorded would appear to be a complex anticipatory response to falling modified by the ef- fect on the forearm muscles following impact. The mitigation of the force of impact is probably more importantly through shoulder abduction and extension and elbow flexion rather than action of the forearm muscles
A meta-analysis of six prospective studies of falling in Parkinson's disease
No full textRecurrent falls are a disabling feature of Parkinson's disease (PD). We have estimated the incidence of falling over a prospective 3 month follow-up from a large sample size, identified predictors for falling for PD patients repeated this analysis for patients without prior falls, and examined the risk of falling with increasing disease severity. We pooled six prospective studies of falling in PD (n = 473), and examined the predictive power of variables that were common to most studies. The 3-month fall rate was 46% (95% confidence interval: 38-54%). Interestingly, even among subjects without prior falls, this fall rate was 21% (12-35%). The best predictor of falling was two or more falls in the previous year (sensitivity 68%; specificity 81%). The risk of falling rose as UPDRS increased, to about a 60% chance of falling for UPDRS values 25 to 35, but remained at this level thereafter with a tendency to taper off towards later disease stages. These results confirm the high frequency of falling in PD, as almost 50% of patients fell during a short period of only 3 months. The strongest predictor of falling was prior falls in the preceding year, but even subjects without any prior falls had a considerable risk of sustaining future falls. Disease severity was not a good predictor of falls, possibly due to the complex U-shaped relation with falls. Early identification of the very first fall therefore remains difficult, and new prediction methods must be developed
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Functional near-infrared spectroscopy to probe sensorimotor region activation during electrical stimulation-evoked movement
No full textThis study used non-invasive functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) neuroimaging to monitor bilateral sensorimotor region activation during unilateral voluntary (VOL) and neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES)-evoked movements
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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