The purpose of this study was to characterize postural sway in quiet standing under eyes-open and eyes-closed conditions, and to obtain a measure of postural stiffness during quiet standing in adults with Down syndrome (DS) versus control subjects. We obtained descriptive measures from centre-of-pressure (COP) data and analysed and compared COP trajectories and postural stiffness estimates from two stochastic models, the "pinned polymer" (PP) and "inverted pendulum" (IP) models. These estimates were correlated with clinical measures of muscle tone. Our results showed that overall, estimated values for postural stiffness from both models were larger for the DS group than for normal controls. In addition, average stiffness measures were greater under the eyes-closed condition than under the eyes-open condition for the DS group. The IP model detected significant trends over trials whereas the PP model did not. Clinical assessment of muscle tone for the DS group ranged from low to high-normal and there was no significant correlation with the postural stiffness measures obtained from either model. These results suggest that individuals with DS have the ability to modulate their underlying "stiffness" under conditions of quiet standing. Furthermore, there appears to be no strong relationship between clinical measures of muscle tone and postural stiffness measures under dynamic conditions.
Objective Our previous research indicated that athletes scoring high in competitiveness were less likely to report sports-related concussion symptoms and withdraw from the game. The present study examined whether athletes’ desire to succeed (competitiveness motive), win (win orientation), and achieve personal goals (goal orientation) were related to the age of players. Method Participants included 161 athletes, ages 14–32 (M = 17.6 years; 33.2% female), recruited from a mid-sized Canadian city participating in low (rowing), moderate (soccer) and high (hockey, rugby, football) contact sports. Confirmatory factor analysis was first used to evaluate the structure of the Sports Orientation Questionnaire. Then, using SEM, athletes’ competitiveness, goal orientation, and win orientation were predicted by age. Results High internal consistency was obtained within each factor (.84–.93). The model demonstrated suboptimal fit for this sample (CFI = .84; χ2f/df ratio = 2.02; RMSEA = .087; 90% CI: .077–.097). All factors were significantly related to age, indicating that athletes’ desire to succeed (competitiveness motive; β = .18, p = .009), achieve personal goals (goal orientation; β = .26, p = .007), and win (win orientation; β = .30, p = .000) increases with age. Conclusion The small positive association between age and competitiveness, win, and goal orientation indicates that older athletes are more competitive than younger athletes. Given that competitiveness predicts athletes’ intention to report a concussion, clinicians and coaches should pay particular attention to senior athletes who demonstrate high levels of general competitiveness and who are driven by the desire to win and achieve personal goals. Therefore, interventions targeting the barriers to reporting concussions should evaluate subco.
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