Physical Therapists’ Perceptions of Knowledge and Clinical Behavior Regarding Cardiovascular Disease Prevention

Purpose

The study purpose was to assess perceptions of physical therapists (PTs) regarding the role of physical therapy in cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention.

Methods

A 25-item survey, validated by expert cardiovascular/pulmonary (CVP) PTs, was sent electronically to 2,673 PTs. Each item represented an element of clinical practice behavior: education of CVD/risk factors (EDCVD), administration of primary CVD prevention (PRECVD), identifying underlying CVD/risk factors (IDCVD), monitoring CV status in patients with CVD (MONCVD). Responses were assigned numeric values (strongly agree = 5 to strongly disagree = 1), and mean element scores were analyzed.

Results

Most of the 516 respondents were APTA Section members (34% CVP Section, 42% other Section membership) and worked in academia (53%). Items showing a high (> 95%) level of agreement included patient education of smoking (97%) and monitoring exercise intensity (99%), assessing exercise benefits (99%), clinically identifying obesity (97%) and hypertension (97%), and monitoring CV response to exercise (99%). Items failing to reach 80% overall agreement were patient education of CVD medications (79%) and blood chemistry (72%), and assessing CVD family history (75%), patient BMI (60%), and body composition (33%). Identifying underlying CVD (77.2%) was the only practice behavior failing to reach 80% agreement. Outpatient PTs agreed significantly less to all elements vs. academics, and to IDCVD vs. all PTs except home health.

Conclusions

Physical therapists support most CVD prevention behaviors, but not given elements of patient education and identifying underlying CVD/risk factors.Key Words: cardiovascular disease, primary disease prevention, secondary disease prevention     

Effect of combined carbohydrate-protein ingestion on markers of recovery after simulated rugby union match-play

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the effect of ingesting carbohydrate alone or carbohydrate with protein on functional and metabolic markers of recovery from a rugby union-specific shuttle running protocol. On three occasions, at least one week apart in a counterbalanced order, nine experienced male rugby union forwards ingested placebo, carbohydrate (1.2 g · kg body mass^?1 · h^?1) or carbohydrate with protein (0.4 g · kg body mass^?1 · h^?1) before, during, and after a rugby union-specific protocol. Markers of muscle damage (creatine kinase: before, 258 ± 171 U · L^?1 vs. 24 h after, 574 ± 285 U · L^?1; myoglobin: pre, 50 ± 18 vs. immediately after, 210 ± 84 nmol · L^?1; P < 0.05) and muscle soreness (1, 2, and 3 [maximum soreness = 8] for before, immediately after, and 24 h after exercise, respectively) increased. Leg strength and repeated 6-s cycle sprint mean power were slightly reduced after exercise (93% and 95% of pre-exercise values, respectively; P < 0.05), but were almost fully recovered after 24 h (97% and 99% of pre-exercise values, respectively). There were no differences between trials for any measure. These results indicate that in experienced rugby players, the small degree of muscle damage and reduction in function induced by the exercise protocol were not attenuated by the ingestion of carbohydrate and protein.     

Crossing the Line: Sport and the Limits of Civil Rights Protest

Scholars have ably considered the extent to which sport has been, and continues to be, a force for racial progress. What has been less comprehensively explored, however, are the unique difficulties encountered by athletes who have attempted to use sport to promote civil rights activism. Black athletes, and sympathetic white teammates, have faced considerable obstacles as sportsmen who supported the civil rights struggle. Sport has restricted the ability of sportsmen to successfully engage in civil rights activism. In the belief that it has provided an example of racial progress for the rest of society, in fact, sport has resisted the civil rights movement. This article explores the difficulties faced by athletes who attempted to be part of that movement.     

Purpose and preference in educational podcasting

The application of podcasting for educational purposes is growing fast in universities. There are several benefits of this asynchronous, direct communication and interaction between teacher and student. Nonetheless, the benefits, the pedagogical value of podcasting the traditional lecture format, have come into question. Furthermore, issues have been raised regarding lengthy and costly download times, and the fact that students need to make time to listen to them. For these reasons, using short 3–5‐minute podcasts that summarise the lecture have been suggested. This paper explores how students interact with different types of podcasts. The study compares download and course evaluation data of a series of short‐summary podcasts with full‐lecture podcasts produced for the same university course. The findings show that students value full‐lecture podcasts as highly as the short‐summary podcasts, despite the fact that full‐lecture podcasts are downloaded to a markedly lesser degree. The cause of this anomaly appears to lie in the different purposes that dictate podcast use. The paper concludes by noting that both full‐lecture and short‐summary podcasts serve as useful tools for student learning in university contexts.     

Including the other: regulation of the human rights of mobile students in a nation-bound world

The world’s three million cross-border international students are located in a ‘gray zone’ of regulation with incomplete human rights, security and capabilities. Like other mobile persons such as short-term business and labour entrants, and refugees, students located on foreign soil do not enjoy the same protections and entitlements as do citizens. International students are affected by two different national regulatory regimes, in the nations of citizenship and of education. But they are fully covered by neither. Their position is vulnerable and uncertain, mediated by non-citizen status and the related facts of cultural difference, information asymmetry and communication difficulties. Referring to research on international education in Australia, which has the world’s fifth largest international student population, the article focuses on the manner in which the subordinated outsider status of international students magnifies the problems they face. It considers what might be done to enable them to access comprehensive protections, empowerment and human rights as defined in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.     

Changing the Library Brand: A Case Study

ABSTRACT

This article outlines some of the opportunities and challenges of changing what the library “brand” means to academic and professional services staff in the rapidly changing environment of UK higher education, taking the University of Leicester as a case study. It makes a practitioner contribution to the growing body of evidence of how libraries are extending their role and how their customers are responding. It begins by considering the drivers for change in the higher education and scholarly information environments and how these are influencing the development of library services at the University of Leicester. The topics considered include researcher development, Digital Humanities, Open Access, independent learning, and curating the university's own information assets. The impact of these developments is outlined and how an evolving approach to strategic marketing is beginning to change perceptions as the boundaries of the library's role extend.     

Body Donation,Teaching, and Research in Dissection Rooms in Spain in Times of Covid-19

The state of alarm due to Covid-19 pandemic in Spain stopped all educational and most university research activities. The Spanish Anatomical Society (SAE) Consensus Expert Group on Body Donations piloted a study based on a questionnaire to know the status of body donations and dissection activities during the lockdown, as well as the future implications of Covid-19 pandemic for body donation programs and anatomy teaching. The questionnaire results show that Spanish Universities refused body donations and stopped all dissection research and teaching. The Covid-19 expected influence on anatomy teaching was referred to the increase in teaching workforce and resources required to apply the new safety measures to future practical activities, as well as to prepare and adapt teaching material for online-only programs. The application of reinforced safety measures was expected to be perceived by the respondent's students as a gain in teaching quality, while the transformation of the anatomy courses in online-only programs will be perceived as a quality decrease. The respondent's concerns about future institutional implications of the pandemic were related to increased costs of the adaptation of the facilities and the reinforced preventive measures, as well as the eventual decrease in donations. The complete lockdown applied to dissection rooms was not justified by scientific evidence and represented a break of the confidence deposed in the institutions by the donors. A consensus is required for the adoption of a renewed, comprehensive protocol for present and future body donations including the evidence Covid-19 pandemic has contributed to create.     

Pontificating the relationship between parenting styles and academic performance of senior high school students in the Kumasi Metropolis,Ghana

Educational Research for Policy and Practice - The study analysed the relationship between parenting styles and academic performance of senior high school students in the Kumasi Metropolis....     

Critical stance within a community of inquiry in an advanced mathematics course for pre-service teachers

Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education - This paper reports a study of university students’ experiences of learning mathematics in an introductory differential equations course that takes...