Pretend play of children with acquired brain injury : an exploratory study

Objective: This exploratory study aimed to describe the self-initiated pretend play of three children who had sustained an acquired brain injury (ABI). No previous research was found.

Methods: Three children aged 3.0–6.0 years were recruited through purposive sampling. Pretend play ability was assessed using the Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment.

Results: Two of the three children scored below the range expected for children their age and one child scored above the range, indicating a wide range of pretend play ability for the children. None of the children could sustain their engagement in pretend play to complete the time of the assessment.

Conclusion: Complex pretend play ability is a functional assessment of cognitive ability involving sequential planning, problem-solving, language and social understanding. Cognitive fatigue is argued to explain the children's limited ability to engage in play for the time expected for their ages. More research is required.

Rapid onset of renal sympathetic nerve activation in rabbits fed a high-fat diet

Hypertension and elevated sympathetic drive result from consumption of a high-calorie diet and deposition of abdominal fat, but the etiology and temporal characteristics are unknown. Rabbits instrumented for telemetric recording of arterial pressure and renal sympathetic nerve activity (RSNA) were fed a high-fat diet for 3 weeks then control diet for 1 week or control diet for 4 weeks. Baroreflexes and responses to air-jet stress and hypoxia were determined weekly. After 1 week of high-fat diet, caloric intake increased by 62%, accompanied by elevated body weight, blood glucose, plasma insulin, and leptin (8%, 14%, 134%, and 252%, respectively). Mean arterial pressure, heart rate, and RSNA also increased after 1 week (6%, 11%, and 57%, respectively). Whereas mean arterial pressure and body weight continued to rise over 3 weeks of high-fat diet, heart rate and RSNA did not change further. The RSNA baroreflex was attenuated from the first week of the diet. Excitatory responses to air-jet stress diminished over 3 weeks of high-fat diet, but responses to hypoxia were invariant. Resumption of a normal diet returned glucose, insulin, leptin, and heart rate to control levels, but body weight, mean arterial pressure, and RSNA remained elevated. In conclusion, elevated sympathetic drive and impaired baroreflex function, which occur within 1 week of consumption of a high-fat, high-calorie diet, appear integral to the rapid development of obesity-related hypertension. Increased plasma leptin and insulin may contribute to the initiation of hypertension but are not required for maintenance of mean arterial pressure, which likely lies in alterations in the response of neurons in the hypothalamus.

Ensuring implementation success : how should coach injury prevention education be improved if we want coaches to deliver safety programmes during training sessions?

Coaches play a major role in encouraging and ensuring that participants of their teams adopt appropriate safety practices. However, the extent to which the coaches undertake this role will depend upon their attitudes about injury prevention, their perceptions of what the other coaches usually do and their own beliefs about how much control they have in delivering such programmes. Fifty-one junior netball coaches were surveyed about incorporating the teaching of correct (safe) landing technique during their delivery of training sessions to junior players. Overall, >94% of coaches had strongly positive attitudes towards teaching correct landing technique and >80% had strongly positive perceptions of their own control over delivering such programmes. Coaches’ ratings of social norms relating to what others think about teaching safe landing were more positive (>94%) than those relating to what others actually do (63–74%). In conclusion, the junior coaches were generally receptive towards delivering safe landing training programmes in the training sessions they led. Future coach education could include role modelling by prominent coaches so that more community-level coaches are aware that this is a behaviour that many coaches can, and do, engage in.

Modelling skill acquisition in acquired brain injury

Acquired brain injury (ABI) is a debilitating condition often requiring extensive rehabilitation. Although cognitive rehabilitation is concerned with overcoming a skills deficit, the application of skill acquisition research in this context has been non-existent. Examining post-injury learning in terms of the qualitative variables associated with different phases of skill acquisition is likely to be beneficial in assessing patient status and monitoring progress, as well as identifying changing needs over the course of learning. However, current models of skill acquisition overlook the potential impact of variables such as emotion, implicit learning, metacognition, motivation, and strategies that can be leveraged to improve skill acquisition. The current paper attempts to lay the groundwork for modelling and improving skill acquisition in ABI.

IMF®-Therapy (Intention controlled Myo-Feedback) — an innovative method in the treatment of peripheral nerve lesions

Physiotherapy is a well established part of the rehabilitation of peripheral nerve paralysis. The aim of this type of treatment is to re-establish arbitrary functions by improving the patients’ active and passive mobility as well as their strength and stamina. IMF®-Therapy (Intention controlled Myo-Feedback) is an innovative method in the treatment of peripheral nerve lesions that goes beyond the purely neuro-scientific framework and also takes into account methods and concepts of the psychology of learning. The essential assumption is that things learnt in the past are firmly established in the long term motor memory and can be reactivated by the patient. From results achieved in 32 patients treated with this therapy it can be concluded that IMF®-Therapy may be a promising additional rehabilitation tool in peripheral nerve lesion.