Young professional dancers find themselves in a demanding environment. GJH within dancers is often seen as aesthetically beneficial and a sign of talent but was found to be potentially disabling. Moreover, high-performing adolescents and young adults (HPAA), in this specific lifespan, might be even more vulnerable to anxiety-related disability. Therefore, we examined the development of the association between the presence of Generalized Joint Hypermobility (GJH) and anxiety within HPAA with a one-year follow-up. In 52.3% of the HPAA, anxiety did not change significantly over time, whereas GJH was present in 28.7%. Fatigue increased significantly in all HPAA at one year follow-up (respectively, females MD (SD) 18(19), p < 0.001 and males MD (SD) 9(19), p < 0.05). A significantly lower odds ratio (ß (95% CI) 0.4 (0.2–0.9); p-value 0.039) for participating in the second assessment was present in HPAA with GJH and anxiety with a 55% dropout rate after one year. This confirms the segregation between GJH combined with anxiety and GJH alone. The fatigue levels of all HPAA increased significantly over time to a serious risk for sick leave and work disability. This study confirms the association between GJH and anxiety but especially emphasizes the disabling role of anxiety. Screening for anxiety is relevant in HPAA with GJH and might influence tailored interventions.
When the pressure is on and anxiety levels increase it is not easy to perform well. In search of mechanisms explaining the anxiety-performance relationship, we revisit the integrated model of anxiety and perceptual-motor performance (Nieuwenhuys and Oudejans, 2012) and provide a critical review of contemporary literature. While there is increasing evidence that changes in attentional control affect the execution of goal-directed action, based on our model and emerging evidence from different scientific disciplines, we argue for a more integrated, process-based approach. That is, anxiety can affect performance on different levels of operational control (i.e., attentional, interpretational, physical) and - moving beyond the execution of action - have implications for different aspects of perceptual-motor behavior, including situational awareness and decision making.
Young pediatric patients who undergo venipuncture or capillary blood sampling often experience high levels of pain and anxiety. This often results in distressed young patients and their parents, increased treatment times, and a higher workload for healthcare professionals. Social robots are a new and promising tool to mitigate children’s pain and anxiety. This study aims to purposefully design and test a social robot for mitigating stress and anxiety during blood draw of children. We first programmed a social robot based on the requirements expressed by experienced healthcare professionals during focus group sessions. Next, we designed a randomized controlled experiment in which the social robot was applied as a distraction method to measure its capacity to mitigate pain and anxiety in children during blood draw in a children’s hospital setting. Children who interacted with the robot showed significantly lower levels of anxiety before actual blood collection, compared to children who received regular medical treatment. Children in the middle classes of primary school (aged 6–9) seemed especially sensitive to the robot’s ability to mitigate pain and anxiety before blood draw. Children’s parents overall expressed strong positive attitudes toward the use and effectiveness of the social robot for mitigating pain and anxiety. The results of this study demonstrate that social robots can be considered a new and effective tool for lowering children’s anxiety prior to the distressing medical procedure of blood collection.
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-Chatbots are being used at an increasing rate, for instance, for simple Q&A conversations, flight reservations, online shopping and news aggregation. However, users expect to be served as effective and reliable as they were with human-based systems and are unforgiving once the system fails to understand them, engage them or show them human empathy. This problem is more prominent when the technology is used in domains such as health care, where empathy and the ability to give emotional support are most essential during interaction with the person. Empathy, however, is a unique human skill, and conversational agents such as chatbots cannot yet express empathy in nuanced ways to account for its complex nature and quality. This project focuses on designing emotionally supportive conversational agents within the mental health domain. We take a user-centered co-creation approach to focus on the mental health problems of sexual assault victims. This group is chosen specifically, because of the high rate of the sexual assault incidents and its lifetime destructive effects on the victim and the fact that although early intervention and treatment is necessary to prevent future mental health problems, these incidents largely go unreported due to the stigma attached to sexual assault. On the other hand, research shows that people feel more comfortable talking to chatbots about intimate topics since they feel no fear of judgment. We think an emotionally supportive and empathic chatbot specifically designed to encourage self-disclosure among sexual assault victims could help those who remain silent in fear of negative evaluation and empower them to process their experience better and take the necessary steps towards treatment early on.
