— Alzheimer’sdisease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease affecting cognitive and functional abilities. However, many patients presume lower cognitive or functional abilities because of aging and do not undergo clinical assessments until the symptoms become too advanced. Developing a low-cost and easy-to-use AD detection tool, which can be used in any clinical or non-clinical setting, can enable widespread AD assessments and diagnosis. This paper investigated the feasibility of developing such a tool to detect AD vs. healthy control (HC) from a simple balance and walking assessment called the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test. We collected joint position data of 47 HC and 38 AD subjects as they performed TUG in front of a Kinect V.2 camera. Our signal processing and statistical analyses provided a comprehensive analysis of balance and gait with 12 significant features for discriminating AD from HC after adjusting for age and the Geriatric Depression Scale. Using these features and a support vector machine classifier, our model classified the two groups with an average accuracy of 97.75% and an F-score of 97.67% for five-fold cross-validationand 98.68% and 98.67% for leave-one-subject out cross-validation. These results demonstrate the potential of our approach as a new quantitative complementary tool for detecting AD among older adults. Our work is novel as it presents the first application of Kinect V.2 camera and machine learning to provide a comprehensive and quantitative analysis of the TUG test to detect AD patients from HC. This study supports the feasibility of developing a low-cost and convenient AD assessment tool that can be used during routine checkups or even at home; however, future investigations could confirm its clinical diagnostic value in a larger cohort.

Objective The participation of children in occupations, such as self-care, home environment, play, leisure, and educational and social environments, is significantly correlated with their health and wellbeing. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare the children with cerebral palsy (CP) and their normallydeveloping counterparts in terms of their participation in each area of occupations. Materials & Methods This case-control study was conducted in 2015 with 50 children (aged 4-6 years) having CP and 50 normally-developing children (aged 4-6 years) in the Tehran city. The participants were chosen by a convenience sampling strategy and examined using the Persian version of Children Participation Questionnaire. The questionnaire was completed by the parents after the necessary explanations. SPSS (version 18) was used for statistical analysis, and independent t-test was used for the comparison. Results The mean ages of children with CP and normally-developing children were 5 years and 5.1 years, respectively. Significant differences (P<0.001) were found in diversity, intensity, enjoyment, assistance, and parent satisfaction with participation in the areas of self-care, home environment, play, leisure, education of children with CP and their peers. However, there was no significant difference in the area of social participation between the two groups (P>0.05). Conclusion The results showed that the children with CP have a lower level of participation in occupations compared to their normally-developing counterparts. One of the reasons for the low participation level of children with CP could be the lack of goal-oriented and occupation-oriented interventions. Thus, this finding will help the healthcare providers to create and develop appropriate therapeutic and rehabilitation interventions so as to meet the needs of these children and promote their participation level and wellbeing.

Background: School function assessment (SFA) is a criterion-referenced assessment that uses functional tasks to determine the level of participation and performance of students. The purpose of this study is to assess the face and the content validity of the Persian version of SFA for normal Iranian 6 -12-year-old children. Methods: This study has a methodological and psychometric design. We used a standard protocol, international quality of life assessment (IQOLA), for translating the SFA test. This protocol includes translation to Persian and backward-translation to English as well; both of these translation qualities are estimated. In order to ensure content validity, 20 occupational therapists, who are experts in the field of pediatrics, completed the content validity index (CVI) and the content validity ratio (CVR) forms through 11 sessions using the IQOLA scale. Twenty elementary school teachers completed these forms as well. Results:The results of face validity showed that all the terms were clear and simple, and all the terms except one were higher than 1.5 in the impact score. The content validity results showed that five item's score was lower than the acceptable score (< 0.7). Finally, in the expert panel, all the CVI and the CVR items achieved an acceptable score. In this panel, the experts negotiated about the clarity, the simplicity, and the necessity of all the items. Therefore, the Persian version of SFA can evaluate the school function of Iranian children. Conclusions:The Persian version of the SFA achieved a good match in terms of cultural and face validity. Agreements above 80% in the results of face validity confirm that the Persian version of SFA is clear, simple, and understandable for its target population. The content validity results indicate different cultural perceptions for certain items. To determine and construct the validity and the reliability of the Persian version of SFA, other studies are required.

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Background Health promotion of children and adolescents through participation in purposeful and meaningful activities is one of the focuses of occupational therapy. In this study, in line with the Iranian culture, a tool for assessment of Iranian adolescents’ participation in daily occupations/activities was developed and validated. Method An exploratory sequential mixed method was used to develop and validate the tool. Content and structural validity and reliability of the initial version were estimated. Results During the validation process, the items were reduced to 54. Data were collected from 481 adolescents to investigate factor analysis. According to principal component analysis, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin index was 0.88, and the analysis yielded seven factors explaining 47.2% of the total variance. The tool showed excellent internal consistency and test–retest reliability. Conclusion This newly developed Participation Assessment Tool for Iranian adolescents is a valid and reliable measure for assessing the participation of this group in daily activities.