scholarly journals Stay Out of the Blast Radius: Influence of Surgical Masks on Virtual Pedestrian Interactions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco A. Bühler ◽  
Sean D. Lynch ◽  
Trineta Bhojwani ◽  
Ahlam Zidan ◽  
Félix Fiset ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Psychological Status ◽  
Community Settings ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Obstacle Circumvention ◽  
Obstacle Clearance ◽  
Surgical Masks ◽  
Community Ambulation ◽  
Community Environments

Abstract To combat the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, a series of mitigation strategies have been proposed by governments around the world. While responses varied across different governing bodies, recommendations such as social distancing and the use of facial masks were nearly universal. Considering that even with restrictions in place, walking in community environments remained an important component of everyday life, these public health recommendations, as well as the anxiety generated by the pandemic, are likely to have influenced pedestrian interactions. In this study, we have examined the effect of facial masks and anxiety related to community ambulation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using virtual reality, obstacle circumvention strategies in response to approaching pedestrians with and without facial masks were measured in a sample of 11 healthy young individuals. Additionally, a questionnaire was developed and used to gain insights into the participant's behaviours during and after a strict period of restrictions that were in effect before the summer of 2020. Results showed that participants maintained a larger obstacle clearance when virtual pedestrians wore a facial mask. The extent of obstacle clearance was also positively associated with anxiety towards community ambulation in the context of the pandemic. Our findings provide evidence that mask-wearing results in an increase in physical distancing during pedestrian interactions, which may help to reduce the risk of infection. Furthermore, results demonstrate the effects of social context and psychological status on pedestrian interactions and highlight the potential of virtual reality simulations to study locomotion in natural community settings.

scholarly journals Rapid implementation of virtual neurology in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Neurology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (24) ◽  
pp. 1077-1087 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott N. Grossman ◽  
Steve C. Han ◽  
Laura J. Balcer ◽  
Arielle Kurzweil ◽  
Harold Weinberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Care Delivery ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Urgent Care ◽  
Technology Infrastructure ◽  
Information Technology Infrastructure ◽  
Care Services ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Specific Practice ◽  
Government Rules ◽  
Rapid Deployment

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing world-wide social dislocation, operational and economic dysfunction, and high rates of morbidity and mortality. Medical practices are responding by developing, disseminating, and implementing unprecedented changes in health care delivery. Telemedicine has rapidly moved to the frontline of clinical practice due to the need for prevention and mitigation strategies; these have been encouraged, facilitated, and enabled by changes in government rules and regulations and payer-driven reimbursement policies. We describe our neurology department's situational transformation from in-person outpatient visits to a largely virtual neurology practice in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Two key factors enabled our rapid deployment of virtual encounters in neurology and its subspecialties. The first was a well-established robust information technology infrastructure supporting virtual urgent care services at our institution; this connected physicians directly to patients using both the physician's and the patient's own mobile devices. The second is the concept of one patient, one chart, facilitated by a suite of interconnected electronic medical record (EMR) applications on several different device types. We present our experience with conducting general teleneurology encounters using secure synchronous audio and video connections integrated with an EMR. This report also details how we perform virtual neurologic examinations that are clinically meaningful and how we document, code, and bill for these virtual services. Many of these processes can be used by other neurology providers, regardless of their specific practice model. We then discuss potential roles for teleneurology after the COVID-19 global pandemic has been contained.

Virtual reality in Education. Broken promises or new hope?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. L. McGee ◽  
Lisa Jacka
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Research Needs ◽  
Business Environments ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Technology Changes ◽  
Software And Hardware ◽  
High Level ◽  
K 12

Virtual reality in one form or another has been around for over 50 years, most notably in entertainment and business environments. Technology-focused teachers have been leading the way with attempts at utilising and integrating virtual reality into K-12 and Higher Education. However, as quickly as technology changes so does the enthusiasm for the use in educational contexts. Much of this is due to the high-level cost (time and money) with no evidence-based educational return. In 2020 the global pandemic forced the education sector to innovate to provide authentic learning environments for students. The time is right for virtual reality to take centre stage. Over 171 million people worldwide currently use virtual reality, and the market in education is expected to grow by 42% over the next five years. This paper focuses on a range of virtual reality literature encompassing work across the spectrum of software and hardware, identifying where more educational implementation and research needs to be done and providing a perspective on future possibilities focusing on current affordances.

scholarly journals Association Between Physical Exercise and Mental Health During the COVID-19 Outbreak in China: A Nationwide Cross-Sectional Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingjun Nie ◽  
Yuanyan Ma ◽  
Yankong Wu ◽  
Jiahui Li ◽  
Ting Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Physical Exercise ◽  
Exercise Intervention ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Psychological Status ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Moderate Intensity ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
Health Burden

The COVID-19 has undergone several mutations, and caused deleterious effects on physical and mental health of people worldwide. Whilst physical exercise is known for its positive effect on enhancing immunity and reducing the negative consequences of unhealthy emotional states caused by the pandemic; there is a severe lack of psychological exercise intervention measures and mitigation strategies to advance the knowledge and role of physical exercise to improve mental health in most countries. This study surveyed the association between physical exercise and mental health burden during the COVID-19 outbreak in China to better understand the influence of different physical exercise types on reducing mental health burden during the pandemic. ANOVA, binary logistic regression, the chi-square test, and Spearman's correlation analysis were used for statistical analysis. 14,715 participants were included. The results showed that Chinese residents had several poor mental health conditions during the COVID-19 outbreak. And there was a significant positive correlation between the extent of adverse effects on mental health and provincial proportions of confirmed COVID-19 cases (r = 0.365, p < 0.05). Some main factors caused an unhealthy psychological status, including epidemic severity (62.77%, 95% CI 58.62-65.64%), prolonged home quarantine (60.84%, 95% CI 58.15-63.25%), spread of large amounts of negative information about COVID-19 in the media (50.78%, 95% CI 47.46-53.15%), limitations in daily life and social interaction (45.93%, 95%CI 42.46-47.55%), concerns about students' learning (43.13%, 95% CI 40.26-45.48%), and worries about being infected (41.13%, 95% CI 39.16-45.23%). There was a significant association between physical exercise and mental health. The largest associations were seen for home-based group entertainment exercise (i.e., family games, rope skipping, and badminton), Chinese traditional sports (i.e., Chinese martial arts, Taijiquan and Qigong), and popular sports (i.e., yoga, video dancing, sensory-motor games, and whole-body vibration), as well as durations of 30-60 min per session, frequencies of three to five times per week and a total of 120-270 min of moderate-intensity exercise weekly during the COVID-19 outbreak (p < 0.05).

scholarly journals Comparison of Learning Effects of Virtual Reality Simulation on Nursing Students Caring for Children with Asthma

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (22) ◽  
pp. 8417
Author(s):  
Kyung-Ah Kang ◽  
Shin-Jeong Kim ◽  
Myung-Nam Lee ◽  
Mikang Kim ◽  
Sunghee Kim
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Nursing Students ◽  
High Fidelity Simulation ◽  
Learning Effects ◽  
Virtual Reality Simulation ◽  
Educational Method ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Children With Asthma ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
And Performance

With the global pandemic of the coronavirus disease, virtual reality simulation (vSim) has emerged as a simulation educational method. The purpose of this study is to examine the learning effects of vSim by comparing three different educational modalities of nursing care for children with asthma. A quasi-experimental design with three different teaching methods, vSim, high-fidelity simulation (HFS), and vSim with HFS, were used in the study. The group using vSim with HFS showed the highest scores in knowledge, confidence in practice, and performance compared to groups using vSim or HFS alone. Simulation practice using vSim combined with HFS could be an effective educational method for nursing students.

Navigating a Middle Ground - Exploring Health Professionals’ Experiences and Perceptions of Providing Rehabilitation in Outdoor Community Settings

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-53
Author(s):  
Louise S. Madsen ◽  
Claus V. Nielsen ◽  
John L. Oliffe ◽  
Charlotte Handberg
Keyword(s):  
Health Professionals ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Community Settings ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Social Practice Theory ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Rehabilitation Outcomes ◽  
Community Based Rehabilitation ◽  
Community Environments

Contemporary practice has started to rethink use of outdoor and community environments for advancing comprehensive rehabilitation outcomes. The aim is to examine health professionals’ experiences and perceptions of providing rehabilitation in outdoor community settings. The purpose is to use these experiences to generate practice-based knowledge in using the outdoors as a means to guide community-based rehabilitation. The Interpretive Description methodology was accompanied by social practice theory. Fieldwork was conducted utilizing participant observation, photovoice, and focus-group interviews. Included were 27 health professionals. The analysis revealed how “naturalistic learning opportunities” offered health professionals strategies to empower activity and participation levels and yet invoked “rehabilitation setting tensions.” A continuum was engaged in the theme “navigating a middle ground,” representing an integrated environment approach; rehabilitation in conventional indoor and outdoor community settings. Development of a sustainable concept for outdoor community-based rehabilitation involves strengthening health professionals’ competencies and skills for providing outdoor and community work.

scholarly journals Topological and Thermodynamic Entropy Measures for COVID-19 Pandemic through Graph Theory

Symmetry ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1992
Author(s):  
G. Kirithiga Nandini ◽  
R. Sundara Rajan ◽  
A. Arul Shantrinal ◽  
T. M. Rajalaxmi ◽  
Indra Rajasingh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Genetic Network ◽  
Topological Indices ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Topological Characterization ◽  
Christmas Trees ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Mathematical Techniques ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused the global pandemic, coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) which has resulted in 60.4 million infections and 1.42 million deaths worldwide. Mathematical models as an integral part of artificial intelligence are designed for contact tracing, genetic network analysis for uncovering the biological evolution of the virus, understanding the underlying mechanisms of the observed disease dynamics, evaluating mitigation strategies, and predicting the COVID-19 pandemic dynamics. This paper describes mathematical techniques to exploit and understand the progression of the pandemic through a topological characterization of underlying graphs. We have obtained several topological indices for various graphs of biological interest such as pandemic trees, Cayley trees, Christmas trees, and the corona product of Christmas trees and paths. We have also obtained an analytical expression for the thermodynamic entropies of pandemic trees as a function of R0, the reproduction number, and the level of spread, using the nested wreath product groups. Our plots of entropy and logarithms of topological indices of pandemic trees accentuate the underlying severity of COVID-19 over the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

scholarly journals Active Video Games and Low-Cost Virtual Reality: An Ideal Therapeutic Modality for Children With Physical Disabilities During a Global Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marika Demers ◽  
Ophélie Martinie ◽  
Carolee Winstein ◽  
Maxime T. Robert
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Physical Disabilities ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Therapeutic Modality ◽  
Rehabilitation Services ◽  
Active Video Games ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Active Video ◽  
At Home

Current guidelines against spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) interrupt non-essential rehabilitation services. Thus, individuals with physical disabilities such as children with cerebral palsy can no longer benefit from physical rehabilitation during this undetermined period. Using either a synchronous or asynchronous format, in collaboration with a therapist via telerehabilitation, we suggest that active video games and low-cost virtual reality are a promising delivery mode for at-home rehabilitation in the context of a global pandemic. This therapeutic modality, incorporated into an at-home individualized treatment plan, provides a means to lessen the impact of an interruption in rehabilitation services while not loosing the pre-pandemic, in-person physical activity gains. Growing evidence supports active video games and low-cost virtual reality as viable therapeutic interventions for children with physical disabilities. These technologies are especially well-accepted by pediatric populations for the ludic and motivating features that lend themselves to nearly seamless incorporation into telerehabilitation. Advantages for rehabilitation of active video games and low-cost virtual reality include a rich, challenging, multi-modal training environment in which high numbers of movement repetitions can be accomplished, and a unique opportunity to foster engaged practice actions that go beyond household activities. We offer suggestions for the clinician about how to adopt active video games and low-cost virtual reality into your practice during a global pandemic.

scholarly journals Surgical mask designed for endoscopic procedures to prevent the diffusion of droplets

2021 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 517-519
Author(s):  
K Furukawa ◽  
K Sato ◽  
S Okachi ◽  
H Kawashima ◽  
M Fujishiro
Keyword(s):  
Infection Prevention ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Physical Distance ◽  
Narrow Slit ◽  
Endoscopic Procedures ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Surgical Masks ◽  
Endoscopic Insertion ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Close Fit

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV- 2) has become a global pandemic. The human-tohuman transmission of SARS-CoV-2 occurs primarily through droplets, aerosols, and direct contact. Endoscopy is performed at a short physical distance between an endoscopist and patient, which increases the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission to the endoscopist through contact with body fluids and exposure to droplets due to vomiting, retching, and coughing during endoscopic procedures (1). Gastrointestinal endoscopic procedures generate aerosols, which mandates the use of appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) (1,2). To further reduce the risk of viral infection during endoscopy, additional infection protection is needed to assist PPE from not only the side of endoscopists but also the side of patients (3). Various infection prevention devices, such as a reusable plastic cube barrier, have been reported (3); however, we focused on a surgical mask as a simple and inexpensive method (4). Previous studies proposed modified surgical masks with an endoscopic insertion port, which were handmade with an incision for endoscope insertion into commercially available surgical masks (2,4). Although these “handmade” masks may be easily modified, their preparation is burdensome and not sterile. We developed a novel disposal surgical mask with a mask manufacturer that is specifically designed as a droplet prevention device for endoscopic procedures that may be massproduced with uniform quality and easily introduced into endoscopy units. This novel surgical mask has a 10-mm slit in the center for the insertion of an endoscope and two small 6-mm slits for suction on the left and right. The width of the pleats in the center have been widened to easily cut the slits, which allows for cost-effective mass production. Despite its close fit, the narrow slit allows for the easy passage of an endoscope and smooth endoscopic manipulation. Furthermore, the leakage of droplets and aerosols through the slit in the surgical mask is minimized (Fig. 1A-D).

Trauma-Informed Leadership in the 21st Century

2021 ◽  
pp. 335-355
Author(s):  
Kyna Elliott
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Learning Environment ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Relational Leadership ◽  
Physiological Effects ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Trauma Informed ◽  
The Impact

The 21st century has been marked by war, migration, racial and political tensions, and the COVID-19 global pandemic. The impact of these events on communities is evident in research findings on trauma and education in the 21st century. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the impact of trauma on the learning environment and the ways which trauma-informed leadership may mitigate its effects in the classroom. A literature review will present existing research on trauma, learning in the classroom, educator performance, and trauma-informed relational leadership. A description of the physiological effects of trauma, examples of manifestations in the classroom, and leadership and educator mitigation strategies are provided. The chapter ends with recommendations of leadership's role in modeling trauma-informed practices and mitigation strategies.

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