Biomedical subjects

Bouwien C M Smits-Engelsman

Publications and source records attributed to Bouwien C M Smits-Engelsman.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Developmental trends in speed accuracy trade-off in 6-10-year-old children performing rapid reciprocal and discrete aiming movements.

Cyclic tasks are performed better than discrete tasks in adults but it is unknown whether this advantage is present in children as well. Three age groups of participants (6, 8, and 10 years old) executed cyclic and discrete aiming movements to two differently sized target using a Fitts task to examine the developmental effects on speed/accuracy trade-off. Children showed the same advantage of cyclic over discrete movements as previously demonstrated for adults but at a slower speed. The slope of the speed accuracy trade-off was similar in the three age groups in the cyclic as compared to the discrete control mode, suggesting that children learn both tasks equally well in this age range. The index of performance (IP) increased with age but not differently for the two control modes. Children showed clear differences between the kinematics of discrete and cyclic movements and these differences were similar to those seen in adults. Cyclic movements were faster, had higher IP, showed fewer changes in velocity and were more ballistic. Thus movement execution was different between the two tasks, consistent with the hypothesis that cyclic tasks make use of neural oscillators. The slower movement speed in young children is consistent with their limited ability to use open loop control.

Child↗

PubMed2006

A five-week exercise program can reduce falls and improve obstacle avoidance in the elderly.

BACKGROUND: Falls in the elderly are a major health problem. Although exercise programs have been shown to reduce the risk of falls, the optimal exercise components, as well as the working mechanisms that underlie the effectiveness of these programs, have not yet been established. OBJECTIVE: To test whether the Nijmegen Falls Prevention Program was effective in reducing falls and improving standing balance, balance confidence, and obstacle avoidance performance in community-dwelling elderly people. METHODS: A total of 113 elderly with a history of falls participated in this study (exercise group, n = 79; control group, n = 28; dropouts before randomization, n = 6). Exercise sessions were held twice weekly for 5 weeks. Pre- and post-intervention fall monitoring and quantitative motor control assessments were performed. The outcome measures were the number of falls, standing balance and obstacle avoidance performance, and balance confidence scores. RESULTS: The number of falls in the exercise group decreased by 46% (incidence rate ratio (IRR) 0.54, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.36-0.79) compared to the number of falls during the baseline period and by 46% (IRR 0.54, 95% CI 0.34-0.86) compared to the control group. Obstacle avoidance success rates improved significantly more in the exercise group (on average 12%) compared to the control group (on average 6%). Quiet stance and weight-shifting measures did not show significant effects of exercise. The exercise group also had a 6% increase of balance confidence scores. CONCLUSION: The Nijmegen Falls Prevention Program was effective in reducing the incidence of falls in otherwise healthy elderly. There was no evidence of improved control of posture as a mechanism underlying this result. In contrast, an obstacle avoidance task indicated that subjects improved their performance. Laboratory obstacle avoidance tests may therefore be better instruments to evaluate future fall prevention studies than posturographic balance assessments.

Accidental Falls↗

PubMed2006

Are teaching principles associated with improved motor performance in children with developmental coordination disorder? A pilot study.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Physical therapists' teaching skills often are disregarded in research studies. We examined whether the use of different teaching principles during neuromotor task training was associated with treatment effects. SUBJECTS: Nineteen children (mean age=7 years 5 months, range=5-10 years) who had developmental coordination disorder and who performed below the 15th percentile on the age-related Movement Assessment Battery for Children (M-ABC) and 11 physical therapists participated in the study. METHODS: One intervention session for each child was videotaped. The frequency of the use of principles included in the motor teaching principles taxonomy (Niemeijer et al, 2003) was correlated with changes in motor performance on the M-ABC and the second edition of the Test of Gross Motor Development. RESULTS: Providing clues on how to perform a task, asking children about a task, and explaining why a movement should be executed in a certain way were related to better movement performance. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Teaching principles may be associated with success in therapeutic situations.

Child↗

PubMed2005

Children with spastic hemiplegia are equally able as controls in maintaining a precise percentage of maximum force without visually monitoring their performance.

In this study the hypothesis was tested that children with spastic hemiplegia rely more on externally guided visual feedback when trying to keep force constant with their affected hand (AH) as compared to their non-affected hand (NAH) and as compared to controls. An isometric force task in which a cursor had to be moved to a visually specified target that disappeared half way the task, was performed by 19 children with cerebral palsy (CP), spastic hemiplegia, aged between 5 and 16 years and an aged matched control group. It was found that the absolute deterioration of performance after withdrawal of target visualization did differ between AH, NAH and controls. The absolute error was smaller and the variability was larger in the hemiplegic hand. However, the normalized force error and co-efficient of variation increased similarly between groups. Furthermore, power spectrum density analysis of the force signal showed that both hands in both groups had a similar loss in the energy in the 2-3 Hz range when target visualization was removed. These results suggest that CP children are equally able to produce stable force without visually monitoring their performance than children without CP, provided they are allowed to operate within their own force range.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Association between visual perceptual deficits and motor deficits in children with developmental coordination disorder.

This study explored the relation between a motor-free visual perceptual deficit, different visual-motor integration deficits, and different motor skills in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Thirty-six children (22 males), aged 9 or 10 years, with DCD and a control group (n=36), matched for age and sex, were assessed with the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC), a ball-catching test, a jumping test, a timed response task to a visual moving stimulus, and the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration, incorporating copying, visual discrimination, and tracing tasks. Children with DCD performed significantly worse than the control group on all measures. The visual discrimination task did not correlate significantly with any of the motor tasks. The visual timing task correlated significantly with the ball-catching test in the DCD group. The copying test was significantly correlated with the MABC in the DCD group. The association between visual-perceptual deficits and motor tasks was shown to be task specific.

Child↗

PubMed2004

Force levels in uni- and bimanual isometric tasks affect variability measures differently throughout lifespan.

Ninety-four participants (age 5-93 years) performed isometric force production tasks at five different levels of their maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) with either one or two index fingers. Research questions were whether variability measures in the bimanual task condition were different compared to the unimanual condition and whether this difference showed a developmental trend. Results showed that force regulation was more demanding during bimanual tasks (33% increase in error) During development signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) increased threefold from 5-12 years of age and again 60% from 12 years to adulthood. SNR for the elderly was comparable to values of 9 to 10-year-olds. SNR decreased in the bimanual task, particularly for the older persons. For adults and elderly, optimal SNR levels were observed around 36% of their MVC. In younger children, however, the inverted U-shape in the SNR over the full range of forces was not yet present.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Are graphomotor tasks affected by working in the contralateral hemispace in 6- to 10-year-old children?

It has been shown that crossing the midline affects the performance of fine motor skills but the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. This issue is particularly important with respect to the development of motor activities such as writing or pointing in children. Forty-eight right-handed children performed goal-directed movements toward targets positioned either at the midline, or in the left (contralateral side), or right (ipsilateral) hemispace. Findings revealed that movements were more accurate in ipsilateral than in contralateral space and their overall accuracy increased by 42% between 6 and 10 years of age. Differences in movement time among hemispaces depended on the joints predominantly involved in producing the movements (wrist versus fingers). Lower accuracy of movements in contralateral workspace is also present when participants do not have to cross the midline but only move within this workspace. In motor proficient children, no developmental trends were found for these hemispace effects.

Brain↗

PubMed2003

Use of a task-oriented self-instruction method to support children in primary school with poor handwriting quality and speed.

Two studies were conducted to investigate the effect of a task-specific self-instruction intervention to improve handwriting ability of children with poor handwriting quality in schools for regular education (Study 1) and children with poor handwriting quality in schools for special education (Study 2). Study 1 showed that children with poor handwriting quality who received handwriting intervention on an individual basis for three months improved on average more on quality of writing than control children without handwriting problems who did not receive intervention. In contrast, the control group improved more in speed of writing after the intervention period. At an individual level, three out of the seven children with poor handwriting quality before intervention were not classified as such anymore after the intervention period. Study 2 showed that after six months of intervention in a group setting children with poor handwriting quality improved their quality of writing more so than children with poor handwriting quality who had not received intervention. On speed of handwriting no significant group differences emerged. We conclude that the task-oriented self-instruction method applied in this study seems to improve especially the quality of handwriting, not speed, of children initially identified as having poor handwriting quality.

Agraphia↗

PubMed2003

Verbal actions of physiotherapists to enhance motor learning in children with DCD.

In this study, the motor teaching principles taxonomy (MTPT) was developed to investigate which teaching principles physiotherapists use to treat children with developmental coordination disorder during Neuromotor Task Training (NTT). In NTT, special attention is paid to the best ways to instruct and provide feedback. Based on motor learning theory and video observations of NTT treatments, teaching principles aimed at improving motor learning were categorised into three categories: giving instruction, providing or asking feedback, and sharing knowledge. The MTPT's reliability and validity were satisfactory. Therapists gave instructions very frequently. In addition, the principle frequency showed hardly any correlation with the children's initial motor performance level, indicating that the principles used are not related to the child's entry level.

Child↗

PubMed2003

Psychometric properties of the movement assessment battery for children-checklist as a screening instrument for children with a developmental co-ordination disorder.

BACKGROUND: The Checklist of the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (M-ABC) was developed to screen children for movement difficulties in the school situation. However, the psychometric properties of the Checklist have not been investigated in detail. AIM: The psychometric properties of the M-ABC Checklist were investigated including its usefulness as a screening instrument. SAMPLES: A group of 120 children, 6 to 11 years old, randomly selected from mainstream schools and a group of 64 children, 6 to 9 years old, referred for assessment of their motor functioning. METHODS: A reliability analysis was performed to investigate whether the 48 items of the Checklist measure the same construct. Construct validity was investigated by means of a factor analysis. And lastly, the sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive value of the Checklist were investigated by comparing the performance of children on both the Test and Checklist of the M-ABC. RESULTS: The items of the Checklist measure the same construct. Seven factors were obtained after factor analysis, revealing that the Checklist measures a broad range of motor skills. The Checklist met the standards for sensitivity in all age groups, except in the 8-year-old group, where too many children with motor problems were not detected. With the exception of the 6-year-old children, specificity was poor. The positive predictive value was acceptable, except for the 7-year-old children. CONCLUSION: The Checklist proved to meet standards for reliability and most aspects of validity. Its use by teachers for screening children with movement difficulties can be recommended.

Child↗

PubMed2002

Low elementary movement speed is associated with poor motor skill in Turner's syndrome.

The article aims to discriminate between 2 features that in principle both may be characteristic of the frequently observed poor motor performance in girls with Turner's syndrome (TS). On the one hand, a reduced movement speed that is independent of variations in spatial accuracy demands and therefore suggests a problem in motor execution. On the other hand, a disproportional slowing down of movement speed under spatial-accuracy demands, indicating a more central problem in motor programming. To assess their motor performance problems, 15 girls with TS (age 9.6-13.0 years) and 14 female controls (age 9.1-13.0 years) were tested using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC). In additionally, an experimental procedure using a variant of Fitts' graphic aiming task was used to try and disentangle the role of spatial-accuracy demands in different motor task conditions. The results of the MABC reestablish that overall motor performance in girls with TS is poor. The data from the Fitts' task reveal that TS girls move with the same accuracy as their normal peers but show a significantly lower speed independent of task difficulty. We conclude that a problem in motor execution is the main factor determining performance differences between girls with TS and controls.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Consequences of comorbidity of developmental coordination disorders and learning disabilities for severity and pattern of perceptual-motor dysfunction.

Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) have difficulty learning and performing age-appropriate perceptual-motor skills in the absence of diagnosable neurological disorders. Descriptive studies have shown that comorbidity of DCD exists with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities (LD). This study examined the consequences of the comorbidity of DCD and LD for the severity and pattern of perceptual-motor dysfunction. Compared to children with DCD without LD, children with comorbid DCD and LD performed lower on a standardized assessment of perceptual-motor ability. Furthermore, it appeared that children with combined DCD and LD have particular difficulty performing manual dexterity and balance tasks but not ball-skill tasks. Implications for understanding the relationship between LD and perceptual-motor problems are discussed. We conclude that the comorbidity of DCD and LD not only affects the severity of perceptual-motor dysfunction but also is associated with a distinctive pattern of perceptual-motor dysfunction.

Adolescent↗