Biomedical subjects

Mika Fjällberg

Publications and source records attributed to Mika Fjällberg.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2002

Actigraph placement and sleep estimation in children.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: To determine whether actigraph placement affects sleep estimation in children. DESIGN: Descriptive study. SETTING: Naturalistic setting. PARTICIPANTS: Twenty children aged 7-12 years from primary schools. INTERVENTIONS: N/A. MEASUREMENTS: Motor activity was measured from the waist and non-dominant wrist with actigraphs for three consecutive days during a school week. RESULTS: The minute-by-minute agreement of sleep-wake states between the two measurement sites was 92.5%. Wrist- and waist-recorded sleep parameters correlated well and the mean values did not differ. CONCLUSIONS: Although the placement of the actigraph slightly affected the measured activity parameters, its influence on 3-night mean sleep estimates in children was not statistically significant.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Day length associates with activity level in children living at 60 degrees north.

The associations between day length and activity, rest-activity rhythm, and psychiatric symptoms were studied. Sixty-six healthy children participated in the study during one year. They were monitored for 72 consecutive hours with belt-worn activity monitors (actigraphs) to obtain objective data on their activity levels during the day and night. In addition, the parents filled out the Child Behavior Checklists. It was found, that the mean total and day and night time activity levels were increased and the relative circadian amplitude blunted with the longer day length. It was concluded that day length was associated with activity level and rest-activity rhythm and this association may reflect the seasonal changes in these parameters.

Child↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Audiospatial and visuospatial working memory in 6-13 year old school children.

The neural processes subserving working memory, and brain structures underlying this system, continue to develop during childhood. We investigated the effects of age and gender on audiospatial and visuospatial working memory in a nonclinical sample of school-aged children using n-back tasks. The results showed that auditory and visual working memory performance improves with age, suggesting functional maturation of underlying cognitive processes and brain areas. The gender differences found in the performance of working memory tasks suggest a larger degree of immaturity in boys than girls at the age period of 6-10 yr. The differences observed between the mastering of auditory and visual working memory tasks may indicate that visual working memory reaches functional maturity earlier than the corresponding auditory system.

Age Factors↗