Iowa Veterans Home Annual Report, FY2014

Annual report for the Iowa Veterans Home. To provide a continuum of care to Iowa’s veterans and their spouses in an environment focusing on individualized services to enhance their quality of life.

Iowa Veterans Home Annual Report, FY2015

Annual report for the Iowa Veterans Home. To provide a continuum of care to Iowa’s veterans and their spouses in an environment focusing on individualized services to enhance their quality of life.

Life is a journey, Discover your Iowa Veterans Home, August 2012

To provide a continuum of information and care to Iowa’s veterans and their spouses in an environment focusing on individualized services to enhance their quality of life.

Family Support Subsidy and Children at Home Program SFY 2015, October 30, 2015

The Family Support Subsidy (FSS) program provides a monthly payment to help families with the cost of raising a child with a developmental disability. Parents of children with disabilities were very active in getting state and federal policy makers to look at how they could divert some of the funds going to institutional care. Families with severely disabled children wanted to raise their children at home but were met with a lot of resistance and policy barriers when they tried to get home-based support.

Aging and Disability Resource Center and MHDS Commission Home Modification Assistance Program Plan, December 2015

This report was prepared as a directive to Aging and Disability Resource Centers and The Mental Health and Disability Commission to jointly develop a plan for a home modification assistance program to provide grants and individual income tax credits to assist with expenses related to the making or permanent home modifications that permit individual with a disability to remain in the homes.

Una mirada a l'home que juga

En la primera part, de manera molt sintètica, s’indica que l’interès per l’activitat lúdica es desenvolupa sobretot a partir de la curiositat que desperta la infància en el segle XIX, la qual comença a considerar-se com un estat diferenciat de l’adult. Acostar-se al món infantil significà ocupar-se d’una de les activitats principals i primordials que desenvolupen els infants: el joc. D’aquesta manera fou com començarien a desplegar-se, des de perspectives diverses, variades teories explicatives en torn d’aquest fenomen. En l’abordatge d’aquest objecte d’estudi, però, els fruits han estat escassos i som lluny de trobar una teoria explicativa general. En aquest article, resseguint Huizinga, intentem acostar-nos a una definició en torn del joc a partir de considerar diversos dels elements constitutius de la seva essència. No obstant això, cal ser conscients que el joc no es deixa aprehendre amb facilitat, sobretot si aquesta aproximació a l’homo ludens no s’efectua des de la seva dimensió bio-psico-social. Per això el monogràfic té un caràcter multidisciplinari. La segona part d’aquest article té com a finalitat presentar cadascun dels tretze escrits, sabedors que, a pesar de significar interessants aportacions a l’estudi del joc, els articles no esgoten el discurs que es desplega quan estem interessats a fixar la nostra atenció en l’home que juga.

The relationship between virtual body ownership and temperature sensitivity.

In the rubber hand illusion tactile stimulation seen on a rubber hand, that is synchronous with tactile stimulation felt on the hidden real hand, can lead to an illusion of ownership over the rubber hand. This illusion has been shown to produce a temperature decrease in the hidden hand, suggesting that such illusory ownership produces disownership of the real hand. Here we apply immersive virtual reality (VR) to experimentally investigate this with respect to sensitivity to temperature change. Forty participants experienced immersion in a VR with a virtual body (VB) seen from a first person perspective. For half the participants the VB was consistent in posture and movement with their own body, and in the other half there was inconsistency. Temperature sensitivity on the palm of the hand was measured before and during the virtual experience. The results show that temperature sensitivity decreased in the consistent compared to the inconsistent condition. Moreover, the change in sensitivity was significantly correlated with the subjective illusion of virtual arm ownership but modulated by the illusion of ownership over the full virtual body. This suggests that a full body ownership illusion results in a unification of the virtual and real bodies into one overall entity - with proprioception and tactile sensations on the real body integrated with the visual presence of the virtual body. The results are interpreted in the framework of a"body matrix" recently introduced into the literature.

Medicaid Home and Community Based Services Elderly Waiver Program

The Medicaid Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) Elderly Waiver program provides assistance to qualified individuals who are 65 or older and prefer to stay in their own home or another community setting when needing long-term health care services. The Elderly Waiver program provides services and support to older Iowans who are medically qualified for the level of care provided at a nursing facility but do not wish to live in a nursing home. The program allows older Iowans to age in environments that are familiar and comfortable, while saving money from expensive nursing home costs.

Drift and ownership toward a distant virtual body.

In body ownership illusions participants feel that a mannequin or virtual body (VB) is their own. Earlier results suggest that body ownership over a body seen from behind in extra personal space is possible when the surrogate body is visually stroked and tapped on its back, while spatially and temporal synchronous tactile stimulation is applied to the participant's back. This result has been disputed with the claim that the results can be explained by self-recognition rather than somatic body ownership. We carried out an experiment with 30 participants in a between-groups design. They all saw the back of a VB 1.2 m in front, that moved in real-time determined by upper body motion capture. All felt tactile stimulation on their back, and for 15 of them this was spatially and temporally synchronous with stimulation that they saw on the back of the VB, but asynchronous for the other 15. After 3 min a revolving fan above the VB descended and stopped at the position of the VB neck. A questionnaire assessed referral of touch to the VB, body ownership, the illusion of drifting forwards toward the VB, and the VB drifting backwards. Heart rate deceleration (HRD) and the amount of head movement during the threat period were used to assess the response to the threat from the fan. Results showed that although referral of touch was significantly greater in the synchronous condition than the asynchronous, there were no other differences between the conditions. However, a further multivariate analysis revealed that in the visuotactile synchronous condition HRD and head movement increased with the illusion of forward drift and decreased with backwards drift. Body ownership contributed positively to these drift sensations. Our conclusion is that the setup results in a contradiction-somatic feelings associated with a distant body-that the brain attempts to resolve by generating drift illusions that would make the two bodies coincide.

Exploring the use of mobile communications in a retirement home in Toronto: Preliminary results

This paper describes preliminary results of a qualitative case study on mobile communication conducted in an elders¿ retirement home in Toronto (Ontario, Canada) in May 2012. This is part of an international research project on the relationship between mobile communications and older people.Secondary data at a Canadian level contextualizes the case study. We focus ondemographic characteristics and on adoption and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) broken by age.Participants in the study (21 individuals) are between 75 and 98 years of age, thereforewe can consider that the gathered evidence refers to the ¿old¿ older. Mobile phoneusers in the sample describe very specific uses of the mobile phone, while non-usersreport not facing external pressures for adopting that technology. The main channel formediated communication is the landline; in consequences mobile phones ¿when used¿ constitute an extra layer of communication. Finally, when members of the personal network of the individuals live abroad they are more prone to use Internet and Skype. We are also able to find ex-users of both mobile telephony and computers/internet who stopped using these technologies because they did not find any use for them.

Monitoring of noninvasive ventilation by built-in software of home bilevel ventilators: a bench study.

BACKGROUND: Current bilevel positive-pressure ventilators for home noninvasive ventilation (NIV) provide physicians with software that records items important for patient monitoring, such as compliance, tidal volume (Vt), and leaks. However, to our knowledge, the validity of this information has not yet been independently assessed. METHODS: Testing was done for seven home ventilators on a bench model adapted to simulate NIV and generate unintentional leaks (ie, other than of the mask exhalation valve). Five levels of leaks were simulated using a computer-driven solenoid valve (0-60 L/min) at different levels of inspiratory pressure (15 and 25 cm H(2)O) and at a fixed expiratory pressure (5 cm H(2)O), for a total of 10 conditions. Bench data were compared with results retrieved from ventilator software for leaks and Vt. RESULTS: For assessing leaks, three of the devices tested were highly reliable, with a small bias (0.3-0.9 L/min), narrow limits of agreement (LA), and high correlations (R(2), 0.993-0.997) when comparing ventilator software and bench results; conversely, for four ventilators, bias ranged from -6.0 L/min to -25.9 L/min, exceeding -10 L/min for two devices, with wide LA and lower correlations (R(2), 0.70-0.98). Bias for leaks increased markedly with the importance of leaks in three devices. Vt was underestimated by all devices, and bias (range, 66-236 mL) increased with higher insufflation pressures. Only two devices had a bias < 100 mL, with all testing conditions considered. CONCLUSIONS: Physicians monitoring patients who use home ventilation must be aware of differences in the estimation of leaks and Vt by ventilator software. Also, leaks are reported in different ways according to the device used.

Directives pratiques de la Société européenne d'hypertension sur la mesure de la pression artérielle à domicile [Practice guidelines of the European Society of Hypertension for home blood pressure measurement].

Self-measurement of blood pressure at home is increasingly used in the diagnostic and therapeutic approach of hypertension. This technique allows multiple measurements of blood pressure away from the clinical setting, making it possible to improve the evaluation of cardiovascular risk. Recently new guidelines on the use of self-measured blood pressure have been made available by the European Society of Hypertension, as summarized in the present paper.

Drift and ownership toward a distant virtual body.

In body ownership illusions participants feel that a mannequin or virtual body (VB) is their own. Earlier results suggest that body ownership over a body seen from behind in extra personal space is possible when the surrogate body is visually stroked and tapped on its back, while spatially and temporal synchronous tactile stimulation is applied to the participant's back. This result has been disputed with the claim that the results can be explained by self-recognition rather than somatic body ownership. We carried out an experiment with 30 participants in a between-groups design. They all saw the back of a VB 1.2 m in front, that moved in real-time determined by upper body motion capture. All felt tactile stimulation on their back, and for 15 of them this was spatially and temporally synchronous with stimulation that they saw on the back of the VB, but asynchronous for the other 15. After 3 min a revolving fan above the VB descended and stopped at the position of the VB neck. A questionnaire assessed referral of touch to the VB, body ownership, the illusion of drifting forwards toward the VB, and the VB drifting backwards. Heart rate deceleration (HRD) and the amount of head movement during the threat period were used to assess the response to the threat from the fan. Results showed that although referral of touch was significantly greater in the synchronous condition than the asynchronous, there were no other differences between the conditions. However, a further multivariate analysis revealed that in the visuotactile synchronous condition HRD and head movement increased with the illusion of forward drift and decreased with backwards drift. Body ownership contributed positively to these drift sensations. Our conclusion is that the setup results in a contradiction-somatic feelings associated with a distant body-that the brain attempts to resolve by generating drift illusions that would make the two bodies coincide.