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Background/aim Engagement in desired occupations can promote health and wellbeing in older adults. Assessments of engagement often measure frequency, amount or importance of specific activities. This study aimed to develop a scale to measure older adults' evaluation of the extent to which their everyday activities are contributing to their health and wellness. Methods Eighteen items, each scored with a seven-point rating scale, were initially developed by content experts, covering perceptions of how daily activities contribute to physical and mental health, as well as satisfaction and activity participation in the last six months. Rasch analysis methods were used to refine the scale using the pencil and paper responses of 460 community-living older adults. Results Initial Rasch analysis indicated three unlabelled rating scale categories were seldom used, reducing measurement precision. Five items were conceptually different by misfit statistics and principal component analysis. Subsequently, those items were removed and the number of rating scale steps reduced to 4. The remaining 13-item, 4-step scale, termed the Activity Significance Personal Evaluation ( ASPEn), formed a unidimensional hierarchy with good fit statistics and targeting. Person separation reliability (2.7) and internal consistency (.91) indicated the tool is appropriate for individual person measurement. Relative validity indicated equivalence between Rasch measures and total raw scores. Conclusions ASPEn is a brief, easily administered assessment of older adults' perception of the contribution of everyday activities to personal health and wellness. ASPEn may facilitate occupational therapy practice by enabling clinicians to assess change in meaning of an older adult's activity over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/aim: Australian accreditation standards for occupational therapy courses require consumer participation in the design, delivery and evaluation of programs. This study investigated whether a mental health consumer – as one of two assessors for an oral assessment in a mental health unit – impacted engagement, anxiety states and academic performance of undergraduate occupational therapy students. Methods: Students (n = 131 eligible) self‐selected into two groups but were blinded to the group differences (assessor panel composition) until shortly prior to the oral assessment. Control group assessors were two occupational therapy educators, while consumer group assessors included an occupational therapy educator and a mental health consumer. Results: Pre‐ and post‐assessment data were successfully matched for 79 students (overall response rate = 73.1%). No evidence was found of significant differences between the two groups for engagement, anxiety or academic performance (all P values >0.05). Conclusion: Including mental health consumers as assessors did not negatively impact student engagement and academic performance, nor increase student anxiety beyond that typically observed in oral assessment tasks. The findings provide support for expanding the role of mental health consumers in the education and assessment of occupational therapy students. Development of methods to determine the efficacy of consumer involvement remains an area for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/aim Numerous tools have been developed to evaluate handwriting performances by analysing written products. However, few studies have directly investigated kinetic performances of digits when holding a pen. This study thus attempts to investigate pen-grip kinetics during writing tasks of school-age children and explore the relationship between the kinetic factors and fine motor skills. Methods This study recruited 181 children aged from 5 to 12 years old and investigated the effects of age on handwriting kinetics and the relationship between these and fine motor skills. The forces applied from the digits and pen-tip were measured during writing tasks via a force acquisition pen, and the children's fine motor performances were also evaluated. Results The results indicate that peak force and average force might not be direct indicators of handwriting performance for normally developing children at this age. Younger children showed larger force variation and lower adjustment frequency during writing, which might indicate they had poorer force control than the older children. Force control when handling a pen is significantly correlated with fine motor performance, especially in relation to the manual dexterity. Conclusions/significance of the study A novel system is proposed for analysing school-age children's force control while handwriting. We observed the development of force control in relation to pen grip among the children with different ages in this study. The findings suggested that manipulation skill may be crucial when children are establishing their handwriting capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/aim: Driving cessation has been recognised as affecting the health and wellbeing of older people. Further exploration of the impact of driving status on time use, role participation and life satisfaction was required. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 234 older people (current drivers, retired drivers and people who have never driven) was employed. Time use in the previous week, role participation and life satisfaction were measured and compared between the groups, while controlling for sociodemographic variables (health status, activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living status, gender, age and living situation). Results: When compared to current drivers, retired drivers had significantly lower life satisfaction (P = 0.01), fewer present roles (P < 0.0001) and were less likely to participate in volunteer (P = 0.005) and family member roles (P = 0.009). Retired drivers spent less time on social leisure (P = 0.002) and away from home (P = 0.0001), and more time in solitary leisure (P = 0.0001). Comparing the participation of retired drivers with those who had never driven indicated that retired drivers spent significantly less time in volunteer work ( P = 0.009). Conclusions: The findings indicate that older non-drivers may require support for participation and wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]