Accurate assessment of children's physical activity is critical in determining associations between childhood physical activity and health later in life. We have developed a web-based questionnaire, KidActive-Q, to assess physical activity in early childhood. The feasibility and reproducibility of KidActive-Q were assessed in a sample of 20 children aged 2 to 6 years. The questionnaire was dist...

OBJECTIVE To present and discuss the development and measurement properties of the Seating Identification Tool (SIT), a screening tool designed to identify the need for formal seating and wheelchair intervention among institutionalized elderly. Specifically, investigation of the inter-rater and test-retest reliability, sensitivity, specificity, the positive and negative predictive values of the...

BACKGROUND Migraine-specific quality of life (MSQ) is a valid and reliable questionnaire. Linguistic validation of Persian MSQ questionnaire, analysis of psychometric properties between chronic and episodic migraine patients, and capability of MSQ to differentiate between chronic and episodic migraines were the aims of this study. METHOD Participants were selected from four different neurolog...

Galactomannan enzyme immune assay (GM EIA) is a nonculture test for detecting invasive aspergillosis (IA) forming a key part of diagnosis and management. Recent reports have questioned the reproducibility of indices after sample storage. To investigate this, 198 serum samples (72 from cases and 126 from controls) and 61 plasma samples (24 from cases and 37 from controls), initially tested betwe...

BACKGROUND Route environments can be a potentially important factor in influencing people's behaviours in relation to active commuting. To better understand these possible relationships, assessments of route environments are needed. We therefore developed a scale; the Active Commuting Route Environment Scale (ACRES), for the assessment of bicyclists' and pedestrians' perceptions of their commut...

Purpose We have previously shown that sensitivities obtained at severely damaged visual field locations (<15-19 dB) are unreliable and highly variable. This study evaluates a testing algorithm that does not present very high contrast stimuli in damaged locations above approximately 1000% contrast, but instead concentrates on more precise estimation at remaining locations. Methods A trained op...

BACKGROUND Clinical examinations are subjective and often show a low validity and reliability. Objective and highly reliable quantitative assessments are available in laboratory settings using 3D motion analysis, but these systems are too expensive to use for simple clinical examinations. Qinematic™ is an interactive movement analyses system based on the Kinect camera and is an easy-to-use clin...

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study was to validate an automated, objective and standardized algorithm for quantifying and displaying patient-ventilator interaction. METHODS Using a new method to detect patient-ventilator synchrony, the present study re-analyzed previously acquired and published data from 24 mechanically ventilated adult patients (Colombo et al., Crit Care Med. 2011 Nov;39(11)...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Semiautomated and automated methods are used to measure whole-brain atrophy in multiple sclerosis (MS), but their comparative reliability, sensitivity, and validity are unknown. METHODS Brain parenchymal fraction (BPF) was measured in patients with MS (n = 52) and healthy control subjects (n = 17) by four methods: semiautomated or automated segmentation and 2D or 3D pul...