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Biomedical subjects

G Mahoney

Publications and source records attributed to G Mahoney.

14 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

The effects of early motor intervention on children with Down syndrome or cerebral palsy: a field-based study.

This study reports the results of a field-based investigation of the effects of two motor intervention approaches--neurodevelopmental treatment and developmental skills--on children with two different diagnoses. The sample included 50 children, of whom 27 were diagnosed as having Down syndrome and 23 as having cerebral palsy. Children had a mean chronological age of 14 months at the beginning of the study. The severity of their motor impairment was assessed with the Gross Motor Function Classification System for Cerebral Palsy. Children's motor functioning was examined at entry into the study and after they received 1 year of motor intervention services. Dependent measures included children's general development, rate of motor development, and quality of movement. Pre-post comparisons indicated that children made significant changes in their motor development age and quality of movement over the course of intervention. However, there was no evidence that motor intervention accelerated development or improved quality of movement beyond what could be expected on the basis of maturation. Furthermore, no differential intervention effects were associated either with children's diagnosis or treatment model. Regression analyses indicated that the rate of motor development children attained after 1 year of intervention was highly related to their rate of development at the onset of intervention and, to a lesser degree, to the number of sessions of intervention children received. These results are discussed in terms of the need for the field of motor intervention to develop new treatment paradigms.

Cerebral Palsy↗
PubMed2001

Co-administration of drugs and blood products.

The addition of a drug to a blood product intravenous line raises the question of physical and chemical compatibility of the drug with the blood and any preservatives or additives in the blood product. This clinical scenario is encountered frequently, however the practice has not been well studied. Protocols at most institutions prohibit the addition of drugs to blood products. We investigated the addition of analgesic drugs used for patient-controlled analgesia (morphine 1 mg/ml, pethidine 10 mg/ml and ketamine 1 mg/ml) to a standard red cell concentrate, resuspended red blood cells. The red cells were analysed by a Blood Transfusion Service Haematologist and subjected to standard quality control tests. The morphology of the red cells in resuspended red blood cell preparations was unchanged by the addition of these drugs at any stage during storage. The drug concentration in the resuspended red blood cell serum was measured at 0 and at 20 minutes and there was no decrease in concentration which showed that there was no loss of free drug in the resuspended red blood cell serum. This study demonstrates that the concern regarding injury to red cells in standard red cell concentrates by addition of these drugs is unjustified.

Analgesics↗
PubMed1998

Association of spatial distribution of childhood respiratory morbidity with environmental dust pollution.

The objective of this study was to investigate the spatial distribution of respiratory morbidity and asthma in children in relation to high levels of airborne dust pollution. A cross-sectional survey of 2035 children (aged 5-11 yr) by parent-completed questionnaire, with concurrent monitoring of dust deposition rates in the vicinity of children's homes, was performed in 15 primary schools (5 in each of 3 areas of Merseyside). The main outcome measures were (1) doctor-diagnosed asthma, (2) parent-reported respiratory symptoms of recent excess cough, wheeze, and breathlessness, and (3) school absenteeism due to respiratory ill health. Proximity to the source of dust pollution was associated with increased prevalence of excess cough, breathlessness, school absence due to respiratory ill health, and doctor-diagnosed asthma, after adjusting for a range of socioeconomic, environmental, and other confounding factors. The adjusted odds for excess cough and breathlessness for children living within 2 km of the source (dock area) are estimated to be almost twice those for children living more than 2 km away: excess cough 1.9 (95% CI 1.4-2.6); breathlessness 1.9 (1.3-2.7); school absence 1.5 (1.2-1.9); and doctor-diagnosed asthma 1.5 (1.1-2.0). Excess cough was significantly associated with the mean annual dust deposition recorded in the vicinity of the child's home. The adjusted odds ratio for excess cough corresponding to an increase in mean annual dust deposition of 50 mg/m2/d was 3.1 (95% CI 1.1-8.2). These results suggest that airborne dust was associated with respiratory morbidity in these children, which could relate to the high prevalence of childhood doctor-diagnosed asthma in this community.

Absenteeism↗
PubMed1998

Postpartum coronary artery dissection.

A 34-year-old woman presented to the emergency department 12 weeks postpartum with chest pain. An ECG indicated an acute myocardial infarction. The patient underwent cardiac catheterization with findings suggestive of coronary artery dissection later confirmed on intravascular ultrasonography. She underwent emergency coronary artery bypass grafting and has subsequently done well.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Perceptions of pediatricians' helpfulness: a national study of mothers of young disabled children.

A national sample of 503 mothers of young children (up to six years of age) with developmental disabilities was surveyed to determine the extent to which their family pediatricians are helpful in providing information and support. The respondents ranged from lower-middle to upper class, with the mean SES reflective of middle socio-economic status. Their children had a variety of disabilities that qualified them to receive early intervention services. The majority of the mothers found their pediatricians helpful about issues related directly to their child's medical condition. However, few found them helpful with issues relating to the effect of the disability on their child's development, or to their own personal or family needs.

Child↗
PubMed1990

Maternal directive behavior revisited.

A comparative analysis of the directives produced by mothers while interacting with young children with Down syndrome and normally developing children was conducted. The results not only replicated previous findings of increased rates of directives by mothers of children with down syndrome but also identified several qualitative differences in the types of directives produced. Mothers of mentally retarded children produced a high number of requests for their children to perform actions, requested actions that were relatively difficult, and asked their children to attend to information that was not directly related to children's current focus of attention. Results suggest that group differences in maternal directive behavior cannot be explained on the basis of children's behavior but appear to reflect differences in maternal interactive intentions.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Early intervention practices with families of children with handicaps.

A survey to examine the degree to which early intervention activities currently focus on the family was distributed to service providers for birth to 6-year-old children with handicaps from six randomly selected states. Most goals selected by providers were child-focused clinical goals, although family intervention goals were cited frequently. Forty-percent of the sample reported spending no time with families during a typical week. Published programs or curricula were rarely used as a basis for working with families. Service providers reported that they successfully achieved goals set for many of their families, yet they also encountered several problems, including insufficient time for family services. Comparisons were made between providers working with 0- to 3-year-old children and those working with 3- to 6-year-old children. Suggestions concerning the implementation of the family-focused agenda of P.L. 99-457 were made.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1988

Maternal communication style with mentally retarded children.

Mothers' style of communicating with 1- to 3-year-old mentally retarded children was related to children's communication. Mother--child communication was coded to characterize maternal communicative functions, the relationship of mother and child communication to the topic of conversation, the modality and meaningfulness of children's communication, and the manner that mothers and children reciprocate to each others' communication. Six maternal style factors were identified: attentiveness, responsiveness, persistent requesting, child-orientation, quality of requests, and quality of information. The regression of communication style factors on children's communication indicated that children were more verbal and communicatively responsive when their mothers were responsive to children's communication and focused on child-oriented topics.

Attention↗
PubMed1986

Task persistence among organically impaired mentally retarded children.

Goal-directed persistence of mentally retarded children on tasks that have been used to assess mastery motivation among nonretarded infants was examined to determine whether retarded children were motivated to solve or work on tasks that were slightly challenging to them. The sample included 44 organically impaired retarded children (39 of them with Down syndrome) who were between 12 and 36 months of age. Results indicated significant age-related increases in children's goal-directed persistence and ability to perform tasks. Children's persistence was associated significantly with their relative ability to perform tasks. There were also highly significant differences between persistence on tasks that children could solve quickly and easily and persistence on tasks that were slightly difficult. These results are inconsistent with the interpretation that persistence is a good index of the mastery motivation of young retarded children.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1985

Relationship of maternal behavioral style to the development of organically impaired mentally retarded infants.

The relationship of maternal behavioral style to the cognitive developmental status of 60, 1-, 2-, and 3-year-old organically impaired, mentally retarded children was investigated. Eighteen global maternal behaviors and four child behaviors were rated on a 10-minute video tape of mother-child play. A factor analysis of the maternal behavioral items revealed three major parameters of behavior. Child-Oriented/Maternal Pleasure was related positively, whereas Quantity of Stimulation and Control were related negatively to Children's Bayley Mental Development scores. Maternal behavioral style was not related to either the ratings of the children's behavior or to the children's current health status and family SES, but was related to the amount of time children had been in intervention programs. Findings were discussed in terms of their implications for intervention with mothers and their retarded infants.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1983

Effects of attribution training on the assembly task performance of mentally retarded adults.

A training program was designed to teach mentally retarded adults working in sheltered workshops to attribute their success on various assembly tasks to high effort and ability and their failure to lack of effort. These subjects were judged as having motivational problems and also demonstrated decreased levels of performance on assembly tasks following failure experience. They received either individual attribution training, group filmstrip attribution training, or were placed in a control condition. Only the attribution-trained subjects subsequently exhibited more positive reactions to failure, increasing their performance speed in the face of failure. Both training conditions were effective, although filmstrip training was somewhat more beneficial than was individual training.

Achievement↗
PubMed1981

Relationship between language and sensorimotor development of Down syndrome and nonretarded children.

The relationship between sensorimotor and language development of Down syndrome and nonretarded children was investigated. The Ordinal Scales of Psychological Development (Uzgiris & Hunt, 1975) and the Receptive and Expressive Emergent Language (REEL) scale (Bzoch & League, 1970) were administered to 18 Down syndrome and 18 nonretarded children who had matched developmental ages of approximately 17 months. Comparison of the resulting scores indicated that although there were no differences between the groups on four subscales of the Uzgiris-Hunt, there were significant differences in favor of the nonretarded children on the Vocal Imitation subscale of the Uzgiris-Hunt and on Receptive and Expressive measures of the REEL. These results indicate that Down's syndrome children are delayed in their language development compared to nonretarded children of the same developmental age. This language delay appears to be related to deficiencies in vocal imitation skills but is not related to general sensorimotor functioning.

Child, Preschool↗