Hasil untuk "Vocational rehabilitation. Employment of people with disabilities"

Mengjie Tang, Xinman Li, Juxiao Zhang et al.

Nature plays a crucial role in human health and well-being, but little is known about how blind people experience and relate to it. We conducted a survey of nature relatedness with blind (N=20) and sighted (N=20) participants, along with in-depth interviews with 16 blind participants, to examine how blind people engage with nature and the factors shaping this engagement. Our survey results revealed lower levels of nature relatedness among blind participants compared to sighted peers. Our interview study further highlighted: 1) current practices and challenges of nature engagement, 2) attitudes and values that shape engagement, and 3) expectations for assistive technologies that support safe and meaningful engagement. We also provide design implications to guide future technologies that support nature engagement for blind people. Overall, our findings illustrate how blind people experience nature beyond vision and lay a foundation for technologies that support inclusive nature engagement.

Davide Torielli, Liana Bertoni, Luca Muratore et al.

Robotics has shown significant potential in assisting people with disabilities to enhance their independence and involvement in daily activities. Indeed, a societal long-term impact is expected in home-care assistance with the deployment of intelligent robotic interfaces. This work presents a human-robot interface developed to help people with upper limbs impairments, such as those affected by stroke injuries, in activities of everyday life. The proposed interface leverages on a visual servoing guidance component, which utilizes an inexpensive but effective laser emitter device. By projecting the laser on a surface within the workspace of the robot, the user is able to guide the robotic manipulator to desired locations, to reach, grasp and manipulate objects. Considering the targeted users, the laser emitter is worn on the head, enabling to intuitively control the robot motions with head movements that point the laser in the environment, which projection is detected with a neural network based perception module. The interface implements two control modalities: the first allows the user to select specific locations directly, commanding the robot to reach those points; the second employs a paper keyboard with buttons that can be virtually pressed by pointing the laser at them. These buttons enable a more direct control of the Cartesian velocity of the end-effector and provides additional functionalities such as commanding the action of the gripper. The proposed interface is evaluated in a series of manipulation tasks involving a 6DOF assistive robot manipulator equipped with 1DOF beak-like gripper. The two interface modalities are combined to successfully accomplish tasks requiring bimanual capacity that is usually affected in people with upper limbs impairments.

Frank Elavsky, Cindy Xiong Bearfield

This paper is a collaborative piece between two worlds of expertise in the field of data visualization: accessibility and bias. In particular, the rise of generative models playing a role in accessibility is a worrying trend for data visualization. These models are increasingly used to help author visualizations as well as generate descriptions of existing visualizations for people who are blind, low vision, or use assistive technologies such as screen readers. Sighted human-to-human bias has already been established as an area of concern for theory, research, and design in data visualization. But what happens when someone is unable to verify the model output or adequately interrogate algorithmic bias, such as a context where a blind person asks a model to describe a chart for them? In such scenarios, trust from the user is not earned, rather reliance is compelled by the model-to-human relationship. In this work, we explored the dangers of AI-generated descriptions for accessibility, playing a game of telephone between models, observing bias production in model interpretation, and re-interpretation of a data visualization. We unpack ways that model failure in visualization is especially problematic for users with visual impairments, and suggest directions forward for three distinct readers of this piece: technologists who build model-assisted interfaces for end users, users with disabilities leveraging models for their own purposes, and researchers concerned with bias, accessibility, or visualization.

Solfrid Raknes, Siv Elin N. Sæbjørnsen, Hege C. Aarlie et al.

Background: Caring for children with disabilities in Tanzania involves significant challenges, including stigma, limited support and mental health risks. A cultural collective for caretakers of children with disabilities enrolled at a primary school was established to address these issues. Objectives: The study aims to explore the experiences of caregivers who started a cultural collective and to assess its impact on their lives in the short term. Method: This study used a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach with a sequential mixed-methods design. Data were collected over a period of 8 weeks, while the participants in this study established a collective in Dar es Salaam. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, and qualitative data were analysed using Braun and Clarke’s method for thematic analysis. Results: As assessed by a validated and normed questionnaire, Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), 63% of the caregivers showed signs of depression before starting work in the collective. Economic needs, education and the desire for support were the primary motivations for joining. Starting the collective improved social support, fostered agency and began to enhance caregivers’ financial conditions. Conclusion: The collective addressed caregivers’ needs for economic improvement, social support and mental support, and the experience was vitalising for the caretakers. Contribution: This study deepens our understanding of holistic interventions for children with disabilities and their families in urban Africa. It offers valuable insights into a crucial stage of developing contextually relevant interventions for vulnerable, poverty-stricken populations. It provides a model that can be adapted for similar interventions in comparable contexts.

Zoya Mehmood, Iqra Imtiaz, Duaa Farooq Shah et al.

Background: Smartphone have undeniably revolutionized our lives, there is growing concern regarding the addictive nature of these devices and the subsequent negative impacts on individuals and society. Objective: To determine the correlation of smart phone addiction with cervical flexors strength and joint proprioception among adolescents, to determine the frequency of joint position error and to assess the influence of excessive Smartphone usage on the muscles responsible for cervical flexion among adolescents. Methodology: A cross sectional survey was conducted on 377 students from various schools of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Students of both genders with age ranged from 12-18 years having a history of Smartphone addiction for more than 4 hours were included in the study. Whereas exclusion criteria was children with special needs, history of cervical trauma within a year, motor problem in upper extremity and vestibular pathologies and dizziness. Smartphone addiction scale short version was used to determine the addiction among participants. Cervical joint position error (CJPE) was performed to assess the cervical joint proprioception and strength of the cervical flexors muscles was evaluated by manual muscle testing (MMT) procedure. Data was analyzed using SPSS version-23. Results: Total 377 participants were included, out of which 184 (48.8%) were males and 193 (51.2%) were females. Mean value of Smart Phone Addiction Scale-Short version was 40.33 ±7.95. Correlation between Smart phone addiction and Joint position error was weak and non-significant. Correlation between Smart phone addiction and muscles of cervical region demonstrated that Sternocleidomastoid has a weak but significant (P-value 0.018) correlation (R-value 0.121) with smartphone usage, and remaining exhibited non-significant and very weak correlation. Conclusion: This study concluded that majority of the students had smart phone addiction leading to highest cervical joint position error in Right rotation and right-side bending. Whereas, non-significant weak correlations were observed between smartphone usage on cervical muscle strength and joint proprioception. Keywords: Adolescents, addiction, muscle strength, proprioception, smartphone

Cecilia Aragon, Melissa Vosen Callens, Stacy M. Branham et al.

In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, many events and conferences hastily converted to a virtual format, and many commercial ventures promptly developed tools promising seamless transitions to virtual spaces. In particular, efforts to expand and monetize augmented and virtual reality environments increased. While these spaces increased accessibility for some, others were left behind. In 2024, many events returned to on-site venues, yet virtual spaces remain central in academic and research communities, particularly for disabled scholars. As such, in this paper, we advocate for continued virtual access and improved virtual spaces; we also identify some potentially overlooked harms in immersive and embodied virtual spaces.

Huaxi, Zhang, Melanie Fontaine et al.

The ethical issues concerning the AI-based exoskeletons used in healthcare have already been studied literally rather than technically. How the ethical guidelines can be integrated into the development process has not been widely studied. However, this is one of the most important topics which should be studied more in real-life applications. Therefore, in this paper we highlight one ethical concern in the context of an exoskeleton used to train a user to perform a gesture: during the interaction between the exoskeleton, patient and therapist, how is the responsibility for decision making distributed? Based on the outcome of this, we will discuss how to integrate ethical guidelines into the development process of an AI-based exoskeleton. The discussion is based on a case study: AiBle. The different technical factors affecting the rehabilitation results and the human-machine interaction for AI-based exoskeletons are identified and discussed in this paper in order to better apply the ethical guidelines during the development of AI-based exoskeletons.

Amna Liaqat, Fannie Liu, Brian Berengard et al.

Young people are major consumers of Augmented Reality (AR) tools like Pokémon GO, but they rarely engage in creating these experiences. Creating with technology gives young people a platform for expressing themselves and making social connections. However, we do not know what young people want to create with AR, as existing AR authoring tools are largely designed for adults. To investigate the requirements for an AR authoring tool, we ran eight design workshops with 17 young people in Argentina and the United States that centered on young people's perspectives and experiences. We identified four ways in which young people want to create with} AR, and contribute the following design implications for designers of AR authoring tools for young people: (1) Blending imagination into AR scenarios to preserve narratives, (2) Making traces of actions visible to foster social presence, (3) Exploring how AR artifacts can serve as invitations to connect with others, and (4) Leveraging information asymmetry to encourage learning about the physical world.

Maria C. Bas, Vicente J. Bolos, Alvaro E. Prieto et al.

This study examines the impact of lifelong learning on the professional lives of employed and unemployed individuals. Lifelong learning is a crucial factor in securing employment or enhancing one's existing career prospects. To achieve this objective, this study proposes the implementation of a multi-criteria decision support system for the evaluation of training courses in accordance with their capacity to enhance the employability of the students. The methodology is delineated in four stages. Firstly, a `working life curve' was defined to provide a quantitative description of an individual's working life. Secondly, an analysis based on K-medoids clustering defined a control group for each individual for comparison. Thirdly, the performance of a course according to each of the four predefined criteria was calculated using a t-test to determine the mean performance value of those who took the course. Ultimately, the unweighted TOPSIS method was used to evaluate the efficacy of the various training courses in relation to the four criteria. This approach effectively addresses the challenge of using extensive datasets within a system while facilitating the application of a multi-criteria unweighted TOPSIS method. The results of the multi-criteria TOPSIS method indicated that training courses related to the professional fields of administration and management, hostel and tourism and community and sociocultural services have positive impact on employability and improving the working conditions of citizens. However, courses that demonstrate the greatest effectiveness in ranking are the least demanded by citizens. The results will help policymakers evaluate the effectiveness of each training course offered by the regional government.

M. Ponzio, J. Podda, Elena Pignattelli et al.

This study identifies potential predictors of unemployment and describes specific work difficulties and their determinants in a subgroup of employed people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS). The specific work difficulties were evaluated using a validated tool that measures the impact of respondents’ symptoms and of workplace features. A cross-sectional study was carried out in Italy during 2021–2022. The subjects included were adults (18–65 years) with a diagnosis of MS, currently employed or unemployed. Logistic regression models were used to determine the association between each potential determinant and employment status, while linear regression models were used to determine the association between determinants and specific work difficulties. The main risk factors associated with a higher risk of being unemployed were being older, living in the South of Italy/islands, and having a higher disability level, while protective factors against unemployment were having a high level of education and ‘stable’ employment (an open-ended contract). Fatigue was found to be associated with all work difficulties analyzed; mood disorders emerged as the main predictors of mental health-related work difficulties; level of disability and comorbidity significantly impacted physical health-related ones, and a good quality of life was found to improve both workplace-related and mental health-related difficulties at work. Identifying the most significant difficulties is a crucial step in the development of vocational rehabilitation interventions tailored to maximize the ability of PwMS to handle their job-related duties and demands.

Lea Remus, Marei Grope, Stella Lemke et al.

Abstract Purpose Our process evaluation (trial registration: DRKS00022468) monitored the implementation of a multi-component strategy including case management aiming to improve rehabilitation coverage and work participation of people with a high risk of permanent work disability. Methods A risk score using administrative data, particularly on employment and welfare benefits, was employed to identify individuals with higher probability of receiving disability pension and therefore potentially needing support. These individuals were contacted by post and encouraged to phone their regional case manager if they needed assistance. Content for the intervention components was developed collaboratively with the case managers. We examined the sample reached, dose delivered, fidelity, dose received and satisfaction with the intervention. Results Out of 1074 individuals with high-risk scores were contacted, there were 57 case managements. The participants reached were in poor health, and 42.1% reported at least four diagnosed conditions, mostly musculoskeletal and mental disorders. About two-thirds (63.0%) reported poor work ability at baseline. On average, 72.5% of the content of the initial telephone contacts, 88.7% of the content of the face-to-face interviews and 45.2% of the content of the case management were delivered. The participants were highly satisfied with the various components and content of the intervention. Knowledge about rehabilitation improved significantly, with 43 of the 57 participants (75.4%) applying for rehabilitation, mainly medical rehabilitation. At the end of the case management intervention, most participants (91.7%) were still employed. Conclusion The risk score offers an opportunity to screen for people with a high risk of permanent work disability. Case management participants found participation worthwhile and were significantly better informed about participation services after completing case management. More than every second participant received medical or vocational rehabilitation.

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Atul Dhingra, Adeboye A. Adejare, Adam Fendler et al.

About 15% of the world population is affected by a disability in some form, amongst whom only 31% perform the recommended exercises without intervention. We are working on developing a motivating and effective way to encourage people. In our work, we leverage the fact that repetitive exercises can help people with motor disabilities due to the robust plasticity of the pre-frontal cognitive control system in the brain. We investigate the role of repetitive activities for neurorehabilitation with the help of a brain computer interface, formulated using immersive game design with Kinect v2.0 and Unity 3D. We also introduce a game design paradigm for adaptive learning for the patients.

Leyla Benhamida, Khadidja Delloul, Slimane Larabi

Computer vision was long a tool used for aiding visually impaired people to move around their environment and avoid obstacles and falls. Solutions are limited to either indoor or outdoor scenes, which limits the kind of places and scenes visually disabled people can be in, including entertainment places such as theatres. Furthermore, most of the proposed computer-vision-based methods rely on RGB benchmarks to train their models resulting in a limited performance due to the absence of the depth modality. In this paper, we propose a novel RGB-D dataset containing theatre scenes with ground truth human actions and dense captions annotations for image captioning and human action recognition: TS-RGBD dataset. It includes three types of data: RGB, depth, and skeleton sequences, captured by Microsoft Kinect. We test image captioning models on our dataset as well as some skeleton-based human action recognition models in order to extend the range of environment types where a visually disabled person can be, by detecting human actions and textually describing appearances of regions of interest in theatre scenes.

Maxime Brunet, Marine Pétriaux, Florent Di Meglio et al.

This paper exposes a control architecture enabling rehabilitation of walking impaired patients with the lower-limb exoskeleton Atalante. Atalante's control system is modified to allow the patient to contribute to the walking motion through their efforts. Only the swing leg degree of freedom along the nominal path is relaxed. An online trajectory optimization checks that the muscle forces do not jeopardize stability. The optimization generates reference trajectories that satisfy several key constraints from the current point to the end of the step. One of the constraints requires that the center or pressure remains inside the support polygon, which ensures that the support leg subsystem successfully tracks the reference trajectory. As a result of the presented works, the robot provides a non-zero force in the direction of motion only when required, helping the patient go fast enough to maintain balance (or preventing him from going too fast). Experimental results are reported. They illustrate that variations of $\pm$50% of the duration of the step can be achieved in response to the patient's efforts and that many steps are achieved without falling. A video of the experiments can be viewed at https://youtu.be/_1A-2nLy5ZE

Celestine Ugwu, Modesta Ezema, Uchenna Ome et al.

The COVID19 pandemic has helped amplify the importance of Cyber Hygiene. As the reliance on the Internet and IT services increased during the pandemic. This in turn has introduced a new wave of criminal activities such as cybercrimes. With the emergent of COVID19 which lead to increase in cyberattacks incidents, the pattern and sophistication, there is an urgent need to carry out an exploratory study to find out users level of cyber-hygiene knowledge and culture based on gender, employment status and academic discipline. Above this, with many organisations providing for dual mode work pattern or remote and in-person as the pandemic subsides, this study remains very relevant and hence the aim to investigate the cyber hygiene knowledge and compliance of university students and employees of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN). In addition, it attempts to verify the relationship between demographics such as gender, employment status and academic discipline on cyber hygiene culture among students and employees. The sample population is made of employees and students of UNN, where the employees are either academic staff or non-academic staff. The sample size consisted of three hundred and sixteen (316) participants, one hundred and eight-seven (187) of whom were females and one hundred and twenty-nine (129) were males. The results offer some useful insight on cyber hygiene practices at the university.

Mohammad Reza Mohammadi, Seyyed Salman Alavi, Hossein Gharaati Sotoudeh et al.

Objectives: Our objective is to measure the prevalence of bipolar mood disorder (BMD) in Iranian children and adolescents and its comorbidity with psychiatric disorders. Also, the main purpose of this study is to characterize the main risk factors for BMD in children and adolescents. Methods: This is an analytical cross-sectional study. In a community-based study, we sampled 1000 children and adolescents from the age of 6 to 18 years in each province via the multistage cluster sampling method. The total valid sample size reached 29 812 cases. The instructed clinical psychologists completed the Persian version of the kiddie schedule for affective disorders and schizophrenia present and lifetime version (K-SADS-PL). Furthermore, the demographic data were obtained. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics, multinomial, and multiple logistic regressions were utilized to evaluate the relationships. Results: The total prevalence rates for BMD were 0.29%; it was 0.26% in males and 0.29% in females. BMD rates were larger in children and adolescents whose mothers had an occupation. Also, after controlling the effective variables (sex and age), location (rural or urban), the father’s education, and the psychiatric hospitalization of the mother or the father, none predicted BMD significantly. Moreover, patients with comorbidities showed a superior prevalence compared to those without comorbidities, ranging from 1.96% for posttraumatic stress disorder to 39.22% for the oppositional defiant disorder. Conclusion: BMD was more prevalent among women. The gender or the father’s education level was not the risk factor for BMD symptoms. Several factors, such as maternal education and maternal job were also important for the prevalence of BMD symptoms.

Sidra Zia, Salwa Atta, Mir Shakeel Ahmad et al.

Objective: To determine the effect of Mulligan’s Mobilization on unilateral tibiofemoral osteoarthritis. The objective of the study was to evaluate co-relation between fall risk, kinesiophobia, and physical- activity level among elderly females after one year of TKA. Methodology: This study was a cross-sectional survey conducted on females who had their Total Knee arthroplasty from Ghurki Trust & Teaching Hospital and Punjab Medical Centre, Lahore. Data was collected from 200 (n) elderly females who had undergone their Total Knee Arthroplasty at least one year before the study was conducted. Fall risk (Berg Balance Scale), fear of movement (Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia), and physical activity (IPAQ) were the key outcome measures. Results: Pearson correlation determined higher levels of association between fall risk, fear of movement and physical activity. Higher the berg balance score, lower the score of Kinesiophobia i.e. negatively significant correlation; r (198) = -.54, p=0.00. Higher berg balance scores were also found to be positively related to higher minutes of low, moderate and vigorous exercise per week. Kinesiophobia was found to be negatively significant for physical activity of low, moderate and vigorous intensity i.e. r (198) = -.11, p= .01, r (198) = -.03, p=.00 and r (198) = -.07, p= .02 respectively.   Conclusion: A significant negative correlation was observed between fall risk and Kinesiophobia. Moreover, a significant positive correlation was observed between fall risk and physical activity in elderly females who have had TKA. Key words: Berg balance scale, fall risk, kinesiophobia, Total Knee Arthroplasty

Joseph Madaus, Emily J. Tarconish, Shannon Langdon et al.

Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder are accessing college in increasing numbers, and within this group, there is a cohort of academically talented students who can be considered twice-exceptional, or 2e-ASD. While research about college students with ASD is increasing, there is a relative dearth of literature about 2e-ASD college students, and their secondary transition and college experiences. The current study presents the results of individual interviews that were conducted with 10 parents of 2e-ASD college students to explore their perceptions of their children’s experiences, including what things went well and what were problematic areas. Parents described clear and early expectations that the student would attend college and that college provided the student with independence and the chance to be with people who shared similar interests. They described factors that were considered during the college search including the size of the campus and distance from home, and the importance of letting the student take increased responsibility, and if necessary, make and learn from mistakes. The need to focus on executive functioning and social skills was also noted. Implications for families, secondary transition personnel, and vocational rehabilitation counselors are presented.

Laura García Domínguez