A multidimensional evaluation of a four-wheeled walker.

Walkers provide technologically simple help for people affected by diseases that disturb balance and/or support. However, very little research has been conducted on walkers in terms of their efficacy and efficiency. This is unfortunate given the fact that walkers offer a partial solution to problems involving falling among the elderly population. An experimental four-wheeled walker was evaluated using objective, observational, and self-report methods and contrasted with the individual's own walker. This part of the project represented an initial-impressions phase. Results from this first phase indicate that the experimental walker increased users' speed, and that it enhanced performance when used on ramps. Conversely, observational data indicated that some problems controlling the walker may occur when attempting to perform tasks that compete with stabilizing the walker such as opening and closing household appliances. Although positive findings were achieved, a longitudinal experimental design that incorporates an evaluation in the individual's home environment must take place to ascertain whether the results can be generalized to functional use over time.

Job stress and task interest: two factors in work life quality.

A study of how stressful job events and task interest are associated with quality of work life was conducted through interviews and questionnaire assessment of 56 members of the nursing staff at a psychiatric hospital. Factor analyses of work life satisfactions revealed two separable factors, one that accounted for satisfaction with the work itself and another that identified level of satisfaction with the work context. As predicted by a two-factor model, the number of stressful work events correlated with dissatisfactions with the work context but not with satisfaction with the work itself. Level of task interest was associated with higher ratings of satisfaction with the work itself and was uncorrelated with level of work context satisfaction. Turnover was predicted by both the number of stressors on the job and a lack of interest in tasks. An interaction was found between these two variables predicting turnover; employees tended to stay at work even if the job was stressful when the tasks were interesting.

An assessment of tardive dyskinesia in schizophrenic outpatients.

An examination of tardive dyskinesia in 213 schizophrenic outpatients using the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS) indicates that increasing age is significantly associated with the presence of this disorder while sex is not. Both sexes showed significant linear increases with increasing age. Although males did not evidence the statistically significant curvilinear trend previously reported in an inpatient study using the same methodology, they displayed an attenuated effect at the older age levels. A comparison of prevalence values between the outpatient sample and the inpatient sample previously studied indicated no greater prevalence in the outpatients. However, an examination of differences in AIMS total scores between these samples suggested the presence of many more marginal and mild movements in the outpatients. Reasons for the differences between the inpatient and outpatient studies are discussed.