Apprendre à bien lire : une étude coût efficacité des Actions Lecture

How to Improve Pupils' Literacy? A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of the Action Lecture This article presents a cost-effectiveness analysis of an innovative teaching method run in some nursery and primary schools in Paris. This project, named Action Lecture, is designed to improve pupils' abilities and taste on literacy. We report the results of an evaluation of this program. We describe the experimental protocol that was built to estimate the program's impact on several types of indicators (academic abilities, attitude toward reading, school life) by comparing the evolution of treatment schools and control schools. Data were processed following a Differences-in-Differences (DID) method. Then we use the estimation of the impact on academic achievement to conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis and take a reduction of the class size program as a benchmark. The results are positive for the Action Lecture program both in terms of impact's evaluation and in terms of cost-effectiveness ratio.

A review of non-traditional occupational therapy practice placement education : a focus on role-emerging and project placements

Practice placement education has been recognised as an integral and critical component of the training of occupational therapy students. Although there is an extensive body of literature on clinical education and traditional practice placement education models, there has been limited research on alternative placements.-------- This paper reviews the literature on various practice placement education models and presents a contemporary view on how it is currently delivered. The literature is examined with a particular focus on the increasing range of practice placement education opportunities, such as project and role-emerging placements. The drivers for non-traditional practice placement education include shortages of traditional placement options, health reform and changing work practices, potential for role development and influence on practice choice. The benefits and challenges of non-traditional practice placement education are discussed, including supervision issues, student evaluation, professional and personal development and the opportunity to practise clinical skills.--------- Further research is recommended to investigate occupational therapy graduates' perceptions of role-emerging and project placements in order to identify the benefits or otherwise of these placements and to contribute to the limited body of knowledge of emerging education opportunities.

Upper body musculoskeletal disorders among Australian occupational therapy students

Although upper body musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) represent an increasingly important issue for university students, few if any studies have targeted the occupational therapy faculty. Given this dearth of information, it was considered necessary to investigate a cross-section of Australian occupational therapy students by means of an established questionnaire survey. Completed replies were obtained from 95.7%, 100% and 97.7% (n = 44, 55 and 48) of students in the first, second and fourth years of a large occupational therapy school in northern Queensland, Australia.---------- The 12-month period prevalence of MSDs was as follows: neck (67.4%), shoulder (46.3%) and upper back (39.5%). Three-quarters of all students (75.5%) reported an MSD occurring in at least one of these body regions. Over half (56.5%) reported an MSD over 2 days' duration in the past year. Almost 40% (39.5%) reported an MSD that had affected their daily life, while one-quarter (25.2%) needed some type of treatment.---------- Logistic regression indicated that students aged over 21 years were almost four times more likely to report shoulder-related MSD (OR 3.7, 95%CI: 1.4-10.2). Year of study in the occupational therapy course was another important MSD correlate, with adjusted odds ratios ranging from 3.3 at the upper back (OR 3.3, 95%CI: 1.2-9.6) to 10.9 at the neck (OR 10.9, 95%CI: 3.2-43.8). Computer usage also incurred a certain degree of risk, with students who spent over 5 hours per week on the computer having an increased risk of MSD at the neck (OR 5.0, 95%CI: 1.3-21.5) and shoulder (OR 4.7, 95%CI: 1.4-18.3).---------- Overall, this study suggests that Australian occupational therapy students have a large burden from MSDs in the upper body region, even more so than other student groups and some working populations. Since the distribution of MSD risk is not uniform among them, interventions to help reduce these conditions need to be carefully targeted. Further longitudinal investigations would also be useful in determining the mechanisms and contributory factors for MSDs among this unique student population.

The challenge of working in mental health settings: perceptions of newly graduated occupational therapists

Working in mental health settings is a growing area of practice for occupational therapists. The work nowadays is mostly within the community, where occupational therapists may be found in a wide variety of teams. This study investigated the specific challenges that new graduate occupational therapists are faced with when commencing work in a mental health setting. One-to-one semi-structured interviews were carried out with 15 newly graduated occupational therapists, working in mental health settings in south-east Queensland. The interview transcripts were analysed using a consensual qualitative research approach. Three domains were identified from the transcripts. The first related to the ideas of the participants about the skills and knowledge needed by new graduates commencing mental health practice; the second related to the extent to which undergraduate studies had prepared them for practice; and the third related to the means by which they acquired capacity to practise and overcame deficits in skills and knowledge. The core ideas and themes associated with these domains are examined and the implications of the findings for education and training and for orientation to practice are discussed.

Occupational Therapy and Clinical Research in Mental Health Rehabilitation

Practitioners working in Australian mental health services are faced with the challenge of providing appropriate evidence-based interventions that lead to measurable improvement and good outcomes. Current government policy is committed to the development of strategic mental health research. One focus has been on under-researched practice areas, which include the development of psychosocial rehabilitation systems and models that facilitate recovery. To meet this challenge, an Australian rehabilitation service formed a collaborative partnership with a university. The purposes of the collaboration were to implement new forms of service delivery based on consumer need and evidence and to design research projects to evaluate components of the rehabilitation programme. This article examines the process of developing the collaboration and provides examples of how research projects have been used to inform practice and improve the effectiveness of service delivery. Challenges to the sustainability of this kind of collaboration are considered.

Host rather than graft origin of Matrigel-induced adipose tissue in the murine tissue-engineering chamber

We have recently shown that Matrigel-filled chambers containing fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF2) and placed around an epigastric pedicle in the mouse were highly adipogenic. Contact of this construct with pre-existing tissue or a free adipose graft was required. To further investigate the mechanisms underpinning formation of new adipose tissue, we seeded these chambers with human adipose biopsies and human adipose-derived cell populations in severe combined immunodeficient mice and assessed the origin of the resultant adipose tissue after 6 weeks using species-specific probes. The tissues were negative for human-specific vimentin labeling, suggesting that the fat originates from the murine host rather than the human graft. This was supported by the strong presence of mouse-specific Cot-1 deoxyribonucleic acid labeling, and the absence of human Cot-1 labeling in the new fat. Even chambers seeded with FGF2/Matrigel containing cultured human stromal-vascular fraction (SVF) labeled strongly only for human vimentin in cells that did not have a mature adipocyte phenotype; the newly formed fat tissue was negative for human vimentin. These findings indicate that grafts placed in the chamber have an inductive function for neo-adipogenesis, rather than supplying adipocyte-precursor cells to generate the new fat tissue, and preliminary observations implicate the SVF in producing inductive factors. This surprising finding opens the door for refinement of current adipose tissue-engineering approaches.

Minimum cost of transport in human running is not ubiquitous

Purpose This study explores recent claims that humans exhibit a minimum cost of transport (CoTmin) for running which occurs at an intermediate speed, and assesses individual physiological, gait and training characteristics. Methods Twelve healthy participants with varying levels of fitness and running experience ran on a treadmill at six self-selected speeds in a discontinuous protocol over three sessions. Running speed (km[middle dot]hr-1), V[spacing dot above]O2 (mL[middle dot]kg-1[middle dot]km-1), CoT (kcal[middle dot]km-1), heart rate (beats[middle dot]min-1) and cadence (steps[middle dot]min-1) were continuously measured. V[spacing dot above]O2 max was measured on a fourth testing session. The occurrence of a CoTmin was investigated and its presence or absence examined with respect to fitness, gait and training characteristics. Results Five participants showed a clear CoTmin at an intermediate speed and a statistically significant (p < 0.05) quadratic CoT-speed function, while the other participants did not show such evidence. Participants were then categorized and compared with respect to the strength of evidence for a CoTmin (ClearCoTmin and NoCoTmin). The ClearCoTmin group displayed significantly higher correlation between speed and cadence; more endurance training and exercise sessions per week; than the NoCoTmin group; and a marginally non-significant but higher aerobic capacity. Some runners still showed a CoTmin at an intermediate speed even after subtraction of resting energy expenditure. Conclusion The findings confirm the existence of an optimal speed for human running, in some but not all participants. Those exhibiting a COTmin undertook a higher volume of running, ran with a cadence that was more consistently modulated with speed, and tended to be aerobically fitter. The ability to minimise the energetic cost of transport appears not to be ubiquitous feature of human running but may emerge in some individuals with extensive running experience.