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Browsing by Author "Gutierrez, Alyssa"
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Item EFFECTIVENESS OF AN AT-HOME BASED PHYSICAL ACTIVITY INTERVENTIONS FOR FAMILIES WHO HAVE CHILDREN WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2012-04-13) Gutierrez, Alyssa; Stanton-Nichols, Kathleen A.This study was conducted to determine whether an at-home based activity intervention for families who have a child with an intellectual disability was an effective mean to increase motor skill ability and activity adherence. Purpose: Specifically, investigators were interested in 1) determining whether weekly home-based visits improves motor skills (intervention group) more than those whose families received only weekly phone calls (attention group) and 2) determining factors that affected a family’s adherence to the program. Physical activity literature involving children with intellectual disabilities suggests that behavior management, directed activity programming, and family intervention enhance adherence as well as sustainability of a new program. The authors anticipated that the intervention group would have greater adherence to an exercise program and exhibit improved scores on the gross motor quotient (GMQ), which is a numeric representation of the participant’s overall score on the assessment. Methods: The study was conducted with 16 families, eight in the intervention group and eight in attention group. Measures of efficacy include activity adherence (self-report) and pre/post motor skill performance on an assessment examining motor skills. Results: An independent t-test was conducted comparing scores from the pre- to the post- assessments between the attention and intervention groups. There were no significant differences between the scores for the attention group (M=11.25 SD=9.177) and the intervention group M=20.25, SD=21.737; t (14) =-1.079, p=.3 (two-tailed). However, the magnitude of the differences in the means (mean difference=-9.0, 95% Cl: 26.892 to 8.892) showed that there was a moderate effect. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that there were no statistical significances between the improvements in the scores between both groups. However, although not statistically significant the intervention did have a moderate effect on the groups. The investigators were encouraged by the moderate effect of the intervention.Item What Are the Correlations Between Muscle Strength, Motor Coordination, and Daily Function of the Upper Extremities in Older Adults?(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2014-04-11) Roby, Keishona; Liu, Chiung-ju; Gutierrez, AlyssaMuscle strength is a basic body function needed to perform everyday activities. Therefore, age-related decline in muscle strength may impair older adults’ independence at home. Age-related decline in muscle strength occurs in the lower and upper extremities. The literature has shown a strong correlation between the loss of muscle strength in the lower extremities and mobility disability. However, little is known about the loss of muscle strength in the upper extremities and daily function. The purpose of this study is to estimate how muscle strength relates to motor coordination and daily function in the upper extremities of older adults. We plan to recruit 50 community dwelling older adults without major neurological disorders in a cross-sectional study. We have tested 18 participants (36% of our expected total) with an average age of 69 (SD = 4.5). Participants tested so far include 6 males and 12 females, in which 7 were African American and 11 were Caucasian. The average grip strength was 23.6 kg (SD = 10.1). The average number of arm curls done in 30 seconds were 12.7 (SD = 4.4). The average score from the Purdue Pegboard was 9.7 (SD = 1.9). The average score of the upper extremity function measure by the Late Life Function & Disability was 74.1 (SD = 13.8). The correlations among variables will be calculated when we reach the recruitment goal of 50 participants.