Influence of visual cues on gait in Parkinson's disease during treadmill walking at multiple velocities.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the interaction of different treadmill-induced gait velocities and visual cues on the gait performance in Parkinson's disease (PD). BACKGROUND: External cuing has been reported to facilitate hypokinetic gait patterns in PD. METHODS: 19 PD-patients and 17 controls volunteered for the study. Gait analyses were conducted using dynamic pressure sensors integrated in a treadmill at a given velocity of 1, 2, 3 or 4 km/h. For each velocity, measurements were performed under three conditions. The first condition was without visual cuing, the remaining two consisted of visual cuing e.g. white stripes put on the treadmill belt 25 or 50 cm apart. RESULTS: Visual cuing lowered the cadence and increased stride length and stride time while maintaining gait velocity in both PD-patients and controls. A significant interaction between this effect of visual cuing and gait velocity was observed. Visual cuing demonstrated a clear velocity-dependency with less influence on cadence, stride length, stride time and coefficient of variation in stride time at higher velocities. At lower velocities visual cuing was more effective in reducing gait variability as assessed by the coefficient of variation in stride time in PD-patients than in controls. CONCLUSION: The current experiment shows that the gait patterns of PD-patients are not rigidly coupled to gait velocity and can be manipulated with visual cuing techniques. Our results suggest that visual cuing can improve the efficacy of treadmill training. Due to an interaction between the effect of visual cuing and gait velocity, the application of visual cues could enhance the efficacy of treadmill training particularly at lower velocities.

Description of knowledge structures within a concept-based curriculum framework.

The development of declarative knowledge was examined within the parameters of movement-based curricula. Declarative knowledge represents factual or foundational knowledge frequently articulated as curriculum content. A semantic ordered tree technique was used to investigate the knowledge structures of three groups of teacher preparation subjects (novice, coursework, student teacher) and one group of elementary physical education teachers (experts). Structures were examined based on frequency and coherence criteria. ANOVA was used to examine differences between groups. Results suggested that declarative knowledge appeared to develop in complexity from novice to expert within the parameters of concept-based movement curricula. The Active Structural Networks Theory was used to interpret structural development through the accretion, tuning, and restructuring phases. Knowledge structures of the novice and coursework groups seemed to represent accretion, whereas those of student teachers and experts represented tuning and restructuring.

The influence of teacher value orientations on curriculum planning within the parameters of a theoretical framework.

The study examined the extent to which teachers' value orientations mediate their responses to inservice training in a particular framework as measured by changes in their lesson planning skills. Twenty-five elementary physical educators' value orientations were classified using the Values Orientation Inventory (VOI). Teachers completed seven inservice sessions based on the Logsdon theoretical approach to children's physical education. Data were analyzed using three univariate ANOVAs. The .05 alpha level was adjusted using an experiment-wise error rate of less than .017. Results indicated that weak disciplinary mastery and strong social reconstruction teachers included more opportunities for shared decision making than did other teachers. Most teachers changed their planning to include more opportunities for cognitive involvement. Thus, while some concepts appeared to be acceptable to most value orientations, others were value sensitive.

Beneficial and detrimental modeling effects on creative response production.

Enhancement of creativity through various educational "training" methods or external factors fostering creative production has long been demonstrated. The assumption has been that creativity exists as a given quantity in trait form, or that progressive learning takes place. Social observational modeling is investigated here as a technique that can both increase and decrease level of creative production in the individual despite every opportunity presented to respond freely and without (a) resort to any direct education or reinforcement methods or (b) the presence of environmental constraints. One hundred and twenty female university students were assessed for creativity on one figural and one verbal task of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking and the components of fluence, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. Ss then observed either high, low, or no figural creative model performance based on normative responses of past Ss and were reassessed on alternate test forms. Reassessment showed both predicted increases and decreases in component verbal creativity scores.