Bibliometric Analysis on Equine-Assisted Interventions.

Equine Assisted Interventions (EAIs) integrate the active participation of horses in therapeutic or educational interventions. A bibliometric analysis was carried out on this topic, using traditional bibliometric laws and recommendations. For this purpose, a search on the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection database was carried out, obtaining 333 documents. Annual publications followed an exponentially increasing trend (R2 = 86%), pointing out that this topic is a growing interest among researchers, publishers, and journals. The USA was the most productive country worldwide and Jeong-yi Kwon and Ji Lee were the prolific co-authors. The WoS category with the highest number of papers was Rehabilitation (84 papers). The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, and Pediatric Physical Therapy were the journals with the highest number of publications. The most cited paper was "State of the Evidence Traffic Lights 2019: Systematic Review of Interventions for Preventing and Treating Children with Cerebral Palsy". The most used author keywords were rehabilitation, balance, and those related to specific populations such as Cerebral Palsy and Autism Spectrum Disorder. These results suggest that EAIs is a topic of increasing interest for researchers, editors, and professionals.

Effects of Square-Stepping Exercise on Motor and Cognitive Skills in Autism Spectrum Disorder Children and Adolescents: A Study Protocol.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnoses present not only cognitive, emotional, communicative, and social challenges but also movement issues that affect their everyday activities, learning, and leisure. The use of the square-stepping exercise (SSE), a motor program initially created to strengthen the lower limbs of older adults, is spreading because of its advantages (e.g., balance and lower limb strength improvements). A study protocol to assess the SSE effects on motor, sensory, and cognitive skills in Spanish children and adolescents between 6 and 12 years old with ASD diagnoses is presented. A randomised clinical will be performed, recruiting 52 children and adolescents with ASD who will be distributed into two groups: an experimental (n = 26) and a control (n = 26) group. The SSE sessions will be held for 9 weeks (two times per week). The main variable will be balance, which will be measured with the Movement Assessment Battery for Children 2 (MABC2), and secondary outcomes will include sensory processing, attention, and executive functions. Assessments will be carried out before and at the end of the program implementation, including an additional follow up one month later. If this program obtains positive results, it should be implemented in different settings (schools, clinics, associations, etc.) to improve the quality of movement and development in children and adolescents with ASD, as it is an easy-to-use and structured tool.

Impact of Equine-Assisted Interventions on Heart Rate Variability in Two Participants with 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome: A Pilot Study.

People with disabilities due to genetic origin often present high levels of stress: non-pharmacological interventions such as Equine-Assisted Interventions (EAI) may be a useful strategy. The objective of this pilot study was to evaluate stress levels in two participants with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome diagnosis, immediately after carrying out the EAI. A single case experimental design methodology was chosen due to the small sample size. Two participants with 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome, a rare disease, with different comorbidities were included. The present study considered the EAI as the independent variable while the Heart Rate Variability (HRV) represented the dependent one, as HRV is considered an indicator of stress level. Measurements were performed before and after carrying out the interventions. The results showed an HRV increase in one of the participants and an increase in the arousal level evidenced by a decrease in his HRV. After having carried out the program, EAI seems to cause an impact on the activation level of the participants depending on the typology and nature of the intervention. However, these results should be treated with caution due to the small sample size. This study is a pilot to test the feasibility of the proposed interventions on the variable under study.

A Short Version of the EFECO Online Questionnaire for the Assessment of Executive Functions in School-Age Children.

Executive function (EF) is a group of processes that allow individuals to be goal-oriented and to have adaptive functioning, so that adequate performance is essential for success in activities of daily living, at school and in other activities. The present study aims to create a short version of the Executive Functioning Questionnaire (EFECO) since there is a gap in the Spanish literature due to the lack of behavioural observation questionnaires at school age. A total of 3926 participants completed the online questionnaire. Subsequently, the validity and reliability of the data are analysed. The results show that the short version of the questionnaire, the EFECO-S, has a structure with five dimensions (emotional self-control, initiation, working memory, inhibition, and spatial organisation), as well as a second-order factor (global executive skill) and high reliability (ordinal Alpha = 0.68-0.88). The EFECO is composed of 67 items, while the EFECO-S has 20 items, four per factor, which turns it into a quick and easy to apply test. Therefore, it becomes an interesting alternative to be applied in screening processes with children who may be experiencing executive difficulties.

A Novel Tool to Assess Basic Activities of Daily Living in Spanish Preschoolers.

BACKGROUND: Basic activities of daily living (BADLs) are those related to self-care. Their performance depends on the development of sensorimotor and cognitive skills, as well as social and environmental aspects. A good performance in BADLs is required for independence and social participation, so they play an important role in early education and early care. We aim to create a tool for BADLs assessment for Spanish preschoolers. METHODS: The tool was administered to 303 participants (48.5% boys and 51.5% girls) between three and six years of age. Analyses to find out the factorial structure and internal consistency was carried out. RESULTS: The instrument was composed of 84 items in four scales (eating, personal hygiene, dressing, and daily functioning) with nine factors (oral sensitivity, good manners, manual dexterity, brushing teeth, toilet management, hygiene and grooming, dressing, higher-order and core executive function). Reliability values were from acceptable to preferred (0.74-0.94). CONCLUSIONS: The instrument could be useful and shows preliminary good indicators in construct validity and reliability.

Effects of a home-based exercise program on mental health for caregivers of relatives with dementia: a randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: This study was aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a home-based physical exercise program on participants' mental health: psychological symptoms, depression, and burden of female informal caregivers. DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS: In a randomized controlled trial, a sample of 48 female informal primary caregivers completed the entire study, 25 were randomly allocated to the intervention group (IG), and 23 participants to the control group (CG). INTERVENTION: Participants in the IG performed two 60-minute-long physical exercise sessions per week (36 weeks) that were supervised by a personal trainer at caregivers' home during 9 months. The CG continued their habitual leisure-time activities. MEASUREMENTS: Subjective burden was assessed by the Zarit Burden Interview. The risk of depression was measured by the Geriatric Depression Scale Short Form 15-item version, and psychological symptoms were evaluated by the Symptom Check List-90-Revised (SCL-90-R). All participants were evaluated at baseline and at the end of the intervention. RESULTS: A promising positive impact of the intervention on caregivers' subjective burden and risk of depression was found in the IG. In addition, no significant between-group differences were found in any of nine subscales scores of the SCL-90-R. Finally, care recipients' level of functional independence and area of residence were found to be predictors of the promising positive impact on caregivers' subjective burden and risk of depression. CONCLUSIONS: The present home-based physical exercise intervention that was individually implemented has shown promising results to reduce subjective burden and risk of depression in female caregivers of relatives with dementia. However, future research efforts should elucidate both the particular dose of physical exercise and the particular duration of the intervention that are required to obtain the expected significant positive impact. Finally, future inclusion of psychological approaches, besides physical exercise, might help reduce female caregivers' psychological symptoms.

A Complementary Sensory Tool for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

BACKGROUND: Sensory integration (SI) issues are widely described in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), impacting in their daily life and occupations. To improve their quality of life and occupational performance, we need to improve clinical and educational evaluation and intervention processes. We aim to develop a tool for measuring SI issues for Spanish children and adolescents with ASD diagnosis, to be used as a complementary tool to complete the Rivière's Autism Spectrum Inventory, a widely used instrument in Spanish speaking places to describe the severity of ASD symptoms, recently updated with a new sensory scale with three dimensions. METHODS: 458 Spanish participants complemented the new questionnaire, initially formed by 73 items with a 1-5 Likert scale. RESULTS: The instrument finally was composed of 41 items grouped in three factors: modulation disorders (13 items), discrimination disorders (13 items), and sensory-based motor disorders (15 items). The goodness-of-fit indices from factor analyses, reliability, and the analysis of the questionnaire's classification capability offered good values. CONCLUSIONS: The new questionnaire shows good psychometric properties and seems to be a good complementary tool to complete new the sensory scale in the Rivière's Autism Spectrum Inventory.

A New Assessment for Activities of Daily Living in Spanish Schoolchildren: A Preliminary Study of its Psychometric Properties.

BACKGROUND: Activities of daily living (ADL), which are divided into basic (BADL) and instrumental (IADL), allows us to survive and to live in the society. Cognitive skills are a key aspect in BADL outcomes. After reviewing existing BADL tools for Spanish schoolchildren, issues such as not covering the full age range or not having a BADL-centred vision were found. We aim to develop a new tool for BADL assessment in Spanish schoolchildren. METHODS: The new tool was administered to 375 participants (47.2% boys and 52.8% girls) from 6 to 12 years of age. Analyses were carried out to find out the structure (semiconfirmatory factor analysis) and internal consistency (ordinal alpha) of BADL. RESULTS: Four scales formed the instrument (Eating, Personal Hygiene, Getting Dressed, and General Functioning) with an interpretable solution of 12 factors (Manual Dexterity, Proprioception, Oral Sensitivity, Good Manners, Hygiene and Grooming, Toileting Needs Communication, Bladder and Bowel Control, Showering, Independent Dressing Tasks, Full Dressing, Executive Functions, and Self-Regulation) with 84 items + 6 qualitative items for girls. The reliability values obtained were acceptable (.70-.88). CONCLUSIONS: The tool seems to be a practical and reliable instrument to assess BADL and cognitive skills during BADL in Spanish schoolchildren.

Psychological Symptomatology in Informal Caregivers of Persons with Dementia: Influences on Health-Related Quality of Life.

Informal caregivers of persons with dementia often report high levels of anxiety, depression and burden. Nonetheless, other less evaluated psychological symptoms might also influence their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The aim of this study was to comprehensively analyse other psychological symptoms and their influence on the health-related quality of life of informal caregivers. Fifty-four informal women caregivers and fifty-six women non-caregivers were recruited to participate in the study. Psychological symptoms were assessed using the Symptom Check-List-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) questionnaire and the HRQoL with the EuroQoL-Five Dimensions and Three Levels (EurQoL-5D-3L) questionnaire. Significant between-group differences were found in the majority of scales in the SCL-90-R questionnaire (p < 0.01) and caregivers also reported a worse HRQoL than non-caregivers (p < 0.05). Several psychological symptoms such as obsession-compulsive (ß = 0.47), hostility (ß = 0.59), and somatization (ß = -0.49) had a significant impact on caregivers' HRQoL (R2 explained between 0.17 and 0.30 of the variance). Caregivers are at a higher risk of suffering other psychological symptoms and show a moderate-high level of psychiatric morbidity, which therefore explains the poorer HRQoL outcomes. Supporting interventions should be provided to mitigate these psychological symptoms in order to improve their general distress and HRQoL.

Reconocimiento falso y ansiedad estado/rasgo / False recognition and state/trait anxiety

En este estudio se analiza la relación entre la ansiedad estado/rasgo (STAI, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) y el reconocimiento falso empleando el paradigma Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM). En este paradigma, los participantes estudian palabras altamente asociadas a una palabra crítica no presentada; posteriormente, en el test de reconocimiento la palabra crítica se reconoce falsamente. Se presentaron 10 listas de palabras a 161 participantes para estudiar las ilusiones asociativas de memoria. Los resultados mostraron que no existía correlación entre la ansiedad, ni en su modalidad estado ni en su modalidad rasgo, y el reconocimiento falso. Solamente encontramos la esperada correlación positiva entre ansiedad estado y ansiedad rasgo. Posteriormente, los datos obtenidos se analizaron teniendo en cuenta las puntuaciones extremas en ansiedad según el STAI. Así, se comparó el reconocimiento falso de los individuos con alta y baja ansiedad estado, por un lado, y con alta y baja ansiedad rasgo, por otro. De nuevo, los análisis indicaron que no existían diferencia en el nivel de reconocimiento falso ni entre los grupos de alta/baja ansiedad estado ni entre los grupos de alta/baja ansiedad rasgo. En conclusión, estos resultados sugieren que los individuos con alta ansiedad no son más susceptibles a producir ilusiones asociativas de memoria que los individuos con baja ansiedad(AU)

The present study analyzed the relationship between state/trait anxiety and false recognition using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. In this paradigm, participants study words that are highly associated with a non-presented critical lure; subsequently, when a memory test is administered, the critical lure is consistently recognized falsely. Ten 10-word DRM lists were presented to 161 participants to study associative memory illusions. The results showed no correlation between anxiety (either state or trait assessed using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory; STAI) and false recognition. Only the expected positive correlation between state anxiety and trait anxiety was found. Thereafter, the results were analyzed according to extreme scores on the STAI. So, high state anxiety individuals were compared with low state anxiety individuals in false recognition, and the same was done with individuals with high versus low trait anxiety. Again, these detailed analyses revealed no differences on the level of false recognition, neither between high/low state anxiety nor between high/low trait anxiety. In conclusion, these findings suggest that individuals with high state anxiety and individuals with high trait anxiety were no more prone to produce associative illusions of memory than individuals with low state and trait anxiet(AU)