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  • Combining soft robotics and telerehabilitation for improving motor function after stroke

  • Tommaso Proietti, Kristin Nuckols, Jesse Grupper, Diogo Schwerz de Lucena, Bianca Inirio, Kelley Porazinski, Diana Wagner, Tazzy Cole, Christina Glover, Sarah Mendelowitz, Maxwell Herman, Joan Breen, David Lin, Conor Walsh
  • Journal:
    Wearable Technologies / Volume 5 / 2024
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    26 January 2024, e1
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  • Telerehabilitation and robotics, either traditional rigid or soft, have been extensively studied and used to improve hand functionality after a stroke. However, a limited number of devices combined these two technologies to such a level of maturity that was possible to use them at the patients’ home, unsupervised. Here we present a novel investigation that demonstrates the feasibility of a system that integrates a soft inflatable robotic glove, a cloud-connected software interface, and a telerehabilitation therapy. Ten chronic moderate-to-severe stroke survivors independently used the system at their home for 4 weeks, following a software-led therapy and being in touch with occupational therapists. Data from the therapy, including automatic assessments by the robot, were available to the occupational therapists in real-time, thanks to the cloud-connected capability of the system. The participants used the system intensively (about five times more movements per session than the standard care) for a total of more than 8 hr of therapy on average. We were able to observe improvements in standard clinical metrics (FMA +3.9 ± 4.0, p < .05, COPM-P + 2.5 ± 1.3, p < .05, COPM-S + 2.6 ± 1.9, p < .05, MAL-AOU +6.6 ± 6.5, p < .05) and range of motion (+88%) at the end of the intervention. Despite being small, these improvements sustained at follow-up, 2 weeks after the end of the therapy. These promising results pave the way toward further investigation for the deployment of combined soft robotic/telerehabilitive systems at-home for autonomous usage for stroke rehabilitation.

  • Chapter 11 - War and Sensation

  • from Part II - Foundational Concepts
  • Edited by Anders Engberg-Pedersen, University of Southern Denmark, Neil Ramsey, University of New South Wales, Sydney
  • Book:
    War and Literary Studies
    Published online:
    15 January 2023
    Print publication:
    05 January 2023, pp 184-200

  • Summary

    Literary and filmic renditions of war are often organized around expressions of heightened sensation and aptitude. Sensation functions as a kind of other or alternative to trauma, a way of figuring the extreme experience of war in terms that, like trauma, separate the soldier from the ordinary citizen. At the same time, civilian texts by writers as diverse as H. G. Wells, Virginia Woolf, Rebecca West, and Kurt Vonnegut have explored the way sensation and other forms of exaltation, including the sublime, might also characterize the civilian experience of war. This chapter explores the close connection between the motifs of sublimity and sensation in war with other related principles that have characterized twentieth-century literature, considering both combatant and civilian texts. The chapter argues that the moral culture of the twentieth century requires that we acknowledge the shared experience of war across combat and non-combatant lines, and second, that the slippage between these two, and the rendering of exaltation as a value that can be abstracted from war, carries its own moral risks.

  • Chapter 37 - Teaching Global Health Ethics

  • from Section 6 - Shaping the Future
  • Edited by Solomon Benatar, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, University of Cape Town, Gillian Brock, Professor of Philosophy, University of Auckland
  • Book:
    Global Health
    Published online:
    04 February 2021
    Print publication:
    18 February 2021, pp 459-469

  • Summary

    It’s not easy to talk about global health during the Anthropocene in a university classroom in the Global North. It’s confusing and upsetting to grapple with the data on rising chronic disease rates, the impact of climate change on infectious disease, the effects of toxic exposures from industry globally, and the connection between health and people’s access to land, water, and clean air to breathe. Many of the challenges have been summarized in several Lancet Commission reports (e.g., Whitmee et al., 2015). In class, discussion goes something like this: “Is it really that bad? If it is, there must be someone doing something about it. Technology will save us anyway. Moreover, how do we make sure that everyone has enough food to eat and can live healthy lives if we make changes to the system? What makes us, here in the Global North, more worthy of this good life than those in the Global South, where so many of our families come from and many remain? If we can waste less food, eat less meat, throw away less, recycle more, and find technological fixes, we shall be all right.”

  • Chapter 7 - Invisibility’s Arts

  • from II - Horizons
  • Edited by Douglas Mao, The Johns Hopkins University
  • Book:
    The New Modernist Studies
    Published online:
    21 January 2021
    Print publication:
    04 February 2021, pp 152-166

  • Summary

    This essay argues that invisibility is a missing keyword and concept in modernist studies. Taking off from the observation that modernism begins and ends with two novels about invisible men, (The Invisible Man, H. G. Wells, 1897; Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison, 1952), it shows that invisibility offers a new way to think about a swath of key issues. Reading these two texts as bookends to the modernist period opens up not only this singular connection, but a broader web of intertwined forces and topics, and reveals some of the ways that technology, social status, race, science, violence and power were often thought together. Whether as a fantasy or a delusion, a desire or an ironic reality, invisibility mattered to writers in the first half of the century; restoring it to critical view helps to realign and in many cases deepen a range of works and their most pressing preoccupations.

  • 7 - Wells, Orwell, and the Dictator

  • from Part II - Histories
  • Edited by Nathan Waddell, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Companion to <I>Nineteen Eighty-Four</I>
    Published online:
    18 September 2020
    Print publication:
    01 October 2020, pp 109-122

  • Summary

    This chapter puts Nineteen Eighty-Four in conversation with a literary predecessor who energized Orwell at the very root, H. G. Wells. Considering these two figures side by side, ‘Wells, Orwell, and the Dictator’ thinks, first, about how powerfully Wells had influenced Orwell and, equally, how deeply entangled the two writers were in their consideration of issues around freedom, the state, the individual, and the future. Even if they end up on opposite sides of the spectrum – Wells, a utopian who believed that a united world could leave humanity free, peaceful, and prosperous, and Orwell, an anti-utopian who saw in the trends of the twentieth century an image of humans obliterated by the mechanisms of power – the two share a set of preoccupations about power and the future that motivated their fiction and left a mark on the imaginative life of the twentieth century.

  • Whole Person, Whole Journey: Developing a Person-Centred Regional Dementia Strategy

  • Paul Stolee, Jessica Ashbourne, Jacobi Elliott, Sarah Main, Nicole Holland, Cole Edick, Courtney Ropp, Catherine Tong, Sheila Bodemer
  • Journal:
    Canadian Journal on Aging / La Revue canadienne du vieillissement / Volume 40 / Issue 3 / September 2021
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    07 July 2020, pp. 436-450
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  • We present the development of a regional dementia strategy in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. We worked with stakeholders in a regional health authority to develop a dementia strategy. We conducted interviews with persons with dementia and their care partners (n = 26) and health care administrators and policy makers (n = 33); and administered a priority-setting survey (n = 64). Both participant groups identified provider compassion, professionalism, and care in the early stages of dementia as system strengths. Both groups also highlighted a need for more integration and coordination, a need for more person-centred care, support for care partners, and more flexibility in the provision and receipt of services. The highest-ranked priorities were improving care partner support, improving access to care, and improving system-wide quality. We integrate these strengths, needs, and priorities in a strategic framework, “Whole Person, Whole Journey”. Organizations developing a dementia strategy may use this framework as a springboard for their own work.

  • Executive Functioning Correlates With Communication Ability in Youth With Histories of Heavy Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

  • Lauren R. Doyle, Eileen M. Moore, Claire D. Coles, Julie A. Kable, Elizabeth R. Sowell, Jeffrey R. Wozniak, Kenneth L. Jones, Edward P. Riley, Sarah N. Mattson, the CIFASD
  • Journal:
    Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 24 / Issue 10 / November 2018
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    16 October 2018, pp. 1026-1037

  • Objectives: Caregivers of youth with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure report impaired communication, which can significantly impact quality of life. Using data collected as part of the Collaborative Initiative on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (CIFASD), we examined whether cognitive variables predict communication ability of youth with histories of heavy prenatal alcohol exposure. Methods: Subjects (ages 10–16 years) comprised two groups: adolescents with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure (AE) and non-exposed controls (CON). Selected measures of executive function (NEPSY, Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System), working memory (CANTAB), and language were tested in the child, while parents completed communication ratings (Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales – Second Edition). Separate multiple regression analyses determined which cognitive domains predicted communication ability. A final, global model of communication comprised the three cognitive models. Results: Spatial Working Memory and Inhibition significantly contributed to communication ability across groups. Twenty Questions performance related to communication ability in the CON group only while Word Generation performance related to communication ability in the AE group only. Effects remained significant in the global model, with the exception of Spatial Working Memory. Conclusions: Both groups displayed a relation between communication and Spatial Working Memory and Inhibition. Stronger communication ability related to stronger verbal fluency in the AE group and Twenty Questions performance in the CON group. These findings suggest that alcohol-exposed adolescents may rely more heavily on learned verbal storage or fluency for daily communication while non-exposed adolescents may rely more heavily on abstract thinking and verbal efficiency. Interventions aimed at aspects of executive function may be most effective at improving communication ability of these individuals. (JINS, 2018, 24, 1026–1037)

  • 11 Study of Polynucleotide Kinase/Phosphatase (PNKP) Mutations Found in a Patient with Microcephaly, Seizures, and Developmental Delay (MCSZ) and Glioblastoma

  • Bingcheng Jiang, Chibawanye I. Ene, Bonnie Cole, Jeff Ojemann, Sarah Leary, Mesfin Fanta, Sudip Subedi, Michael Weinfeld
  • Journal:
    Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences / Volume 45 / Issue S3 / June 2018
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    27 July 2018, p. S2
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  • The enzyme polynucleotide kinase/phosphatase (PNKP) plays a key role in DNA repair by resolving the chemistry at DNA strand breaks. Mutations in PNKP (chromosome 19q13.4) are known to cause MCSZ, a serious neurodevelopmental disorder, but to date there has been no link to cancer initiation or progression. However, a child with MCSZ recently presented at Seattle Children's Hospital with a 3-cm glioblastoma. The child was shown to have two germline mutations in PNKP. To study the effects of the PNKP mutations found in this patient, we generated mutant PNKP cDNAs carrying either the individual mutations or the double mutation using site directed mutagenesis. These cDNAs were incorporated into bacterial and mammalian expression vectors. The bacterially expressed mutant proteins as well as the wild type have been purified and are undergoing testing for PNKP DNA kinase and phosphatase activity. The PNKP cDNAs, fused to GFP, were expressed in Hela and HCT116 human cancer cell lines. High-content analysis and micro-irradiation techniques are being used to determine PNKP localization within the cells and recruitment to damaged DNA. Our preliminary results indicate that the mutations alter the ratio of nuclear to cytoplasmic PNKP compared to the wild-type protein.

  • Chapter 23 - Building the Capacity of Early Childhood Educators to Promote Children's Mental Health: Learnings from Three New Programs

  • from Part 4 - Leadership and Innovations
    • By Sarah Cavanagh, Clinical Psychologist and Manager at the Australian Psychological Society (APS)., Jo Cole, Clinical Psychologist with 20 years experience in perinatal, infant, child and adolescent mental health, and mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention., Judy Kynaston, General Manager of KidsMatter Early Childhood at Early Childhood Australia (ECA)., Kim-Michelle Gilson, Research Fellow within the Jack Brockhoff Child Health and Wellbeing Program at the University of Melbourne, Australia., Elise Davis, Associate Director, Jack Brockhoff Child Health and Wellbeing Program at the University of Melbourne, Australia., Gavin Hazel, Program Leader at the Hunter Institute of Mental Health, Newcastle, Australia where he focuses on the development, implementation and evaluation of evidence-informed resources, practices, and professional education.
  • Edited by Susanne Garvis, Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden, Donna Pendergast, Griffith University, Queensland
  • Book:
    Health and Wellbeing in Childhood
    Published online:
    21 June 2018
    Print publication:
    01 September 2017, pp 362-379

  • Summary

    Acknowledgement

    The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of Jo Cole, who contributed to the ideas and writing that appeared in a similar chapter in the first edition of this book. While the chapter in this second edition has been updated and revised from the first edition, we acknowledge Jo's earlier contributions that appear here.

    Introduction

    Early childhood is a critical time for children's brain development. The experiences children are exposed to shape brain development and the skills and capacities developed during this time provide the foundation for lifelong learning and mental health and wellbeing. While children's primary caregivers and the family environment have the most significant impact on children's early development, children learn within the context of all their relationships and, increasingly, children experience significant relationships with early childhood educators. The number of children attending an early childhood education and care (ECEC) service is growing in Australia, as is the amount of time each child spends in the service. This provides an opportunity to influence ECEC services and educator knowledge and skills to support positive social and emotional development and good mental health. Educators can build the ‘social and emotional capacities of infants and children by supporting predictably available, adequately sensitive and responsive care giving’ (Australian Association for Infant Mental Health and Australian Research Alliance for Children & Youth, 2013, p. 3). Educators who are consistently engaged with children and families, can also assist in preventing or mitigating the consequences of mental health problems by buffering young children from serious threats to their wellbeing (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2007).

    ECEC sector reform in Australia has led to a National Quality Framework (NQF), which is the result of an agreement between state and Commonwealth governments, to improve the quality of early childhood education and care. This Framework comprises the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) (Council of Australian Government (COAG), 2009) and National Quality Standard (NQS) (Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA), 2013), and applies to most long day care, family day care, and preschools/ kindergartens in Australia. Quality in early childhood education has been shown to lead to better outcomes in learning, health and wellbeing for children.

  • 19 - Quality and quality governance

  • from Part II - Changes and conflicts
    • By Sarah Cornick, Specialist Registrar, General Adult Psychiatry, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, Eleanor Cole, Consultant Psychiatrist and Associate Medical Director, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, Rosalind Ramsay, Consultant Psychiatrist and Associate Clinical Director, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
  • Edited by Dinesh Bhugra, Stuart Bell, Alistair Burns
  • Book:
    Management for Psychiatrists
    Published online:
    02 January 2018
    Print publication:
    23 September 2016, pp 277-295

  • Summary

    ‘Quality improvement is everyday business and work.’ (Juran, 1951)

    Quality of care in mental health services is important. Not only does it impact directly on health outcomes, safety and patient experience, but it also impacts on the cost of care and the reputation of each local organisation and the NHS as a whole.

    The Oxford English Dictionary defines quality as:

    ‘the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something.’

    Within healthcare, it has been less easy to define the concept of quality. The current definition of quality (see also Chapters 1 and 18) as applied in the NHS and enshrined in law through the Health and Social Care Act 2012 considers three dimensions:

  • • safety

  • • patient experience

  • • clinical effectiveness.

    • This definition fits with the US Institute of Medicine concept of quality which is often used in healthcare settings:

    ‘[quality is] the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge.’ (Lohr, 1990)

    The US Institute of Medicine also identified six dimensions of healthcare quality (Committee on Quality of Health Care in America & Institute of Medicine, 2001), stating that healthcare must be:

  • • safe – avoiding injuries to patients from the care that is intended to help them

  • • effective – providing services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit and refraining from providing services to those not likely to benefit (avoiding underuse and overuse)

  • • patient-centred – providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs and values, and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions

  • • timely – reducing waits and sometimes harmful delays for both those who receive and those who give care

  • • efficient – avoiding waste, in particular waste of equipment, supplies, ideas and energy

  • • equitable – providing care that does not vary in quality because of personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, geographical allocation and socioeconomic status.

    • History of quality initiatives in the National Health Service

    Our current understanding of quality has, however, developed over many years of quality initiatives within the NHS and it is worth thinking about the development of the quality agenda over the longer term.

  • Roundtable: Woolf and Violence

  • from WAR AND PEACE
  • Edited by Pamela L. Caughie, Diana L. Swanson
  • Book:
    Virginia Woolf: Writing the World
    Published by:
    Liverpool University Press
    Published online:
    27 May 2017
    Print publication:
    12 June 2015, pp 2-22

  • Summary

    The reason why it is easy to kill another person must be that one's imagination is too sluggish to conceive what his life means to him—the infinite possibilities of a succession of days which are furled in him, & have already been spent.

    Virginia Woolf, Diary, August 27, 1918

    When Diana Swanson and Pamela Caughie first invited me to organize this roundtable, we discussed bringing together some of the contributors to Virginia Woolf and War, the 1991 essay collection published in the Syracuse UP series, Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution. But in the more than two decades since I claimed in that volume that “all Woolf's work is deeply concerned with war; that it helps redefine our understanding of the nature of war; and that from her earliest to her final work she sought to explore and make clear the connections between private and public violence, between the domestic and the civic eff ects of patriarchal society, between male supremacy and the absence of peace, and between ethics and aesthetics” (3), there has been such an abundance of sophisticated work done on violence in its many forms, both in the context of modernist studies and of Woolf scholarship generally, extending and complicating our understanding of violence, conflict, force and aesthetics, that a retrospective look seemed likely to be less valuable than more current reflections. It is a long time since it has been possible to think of Woolf in isolation from her contemporaries or as a voice disconnected from the political currents of her time. Virginia Woolf and War played its part in that transformation of Woolf's reception.

    The four scholars on this roundtable each have thought deeply about issues of violence, war, peace, conflict, force, and form in the work of Virginia Woolf. In At The Violet Hour: Modernism and Violence in England and Ireland, Sarah Cole describes Woolf as “one of the great formalists of violence in the twentieth century” (37), a description that brought home to me the vast change in Woolf's cultural presence eff ected by the past few decades of scholarship. Ashley Foster's work examines the interrelationships among pacifism, modernism, and war and tries to recuperate the lost threads of modernism's pacifist history.

  • Modulatory effects of brain-derived neurotrophic factor Val66Met polymorphism on prefrontal regions in major depressive disorder

  • Rebecca MacGregor Legge, Shahbaz Sendi, James H. Cole, Sarah Cohen-Woods, Sergi G. Costafreda, Andrew Simmons, Anne E. Farmer, Katherine J. Aitchison, Peter McGuffin, Cynthia H. Y. Fu
  • Journal:
    The British Journal of Psychiatry / Volume 206 / Issue 5 / May 2015
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 January 2018, pp. 379-384
    Print publication:
    May 2015
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  • Background

    Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) Val66Met polymorphism contributes to the development of depression (major depressive disorder, MDD), but it is unclear whether neural effects observed in healthy individuals are sustained in MDD.

    Aims

    To investigate BDNF Val66Met effects on key regions in MDD neurocircuitry: amygdala, anterior cingulate, middle frontal and orbitofrontal regions.

    Method

    Magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired in 79 persons with MDD (mean age 49 years) and 74 healthy volunteers (mean age 50 years). Effects on surface area and cortical thickness were examined with multiple comparison correction.

    Results

    People who were Met allele carriers showed reduced caudal middle frontal thickness in both study groups. Significant interaction effects were found in the anterior cingulate and rostral middle frontal regions, in which participants in the MDD group who were Met carriers showed the greatest reduction in surface area.

    Conclusions

    Modulatory effects of the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism on distinct subregions in the prefrontal cortex in MDD support the neurotrophin model of depression.

  • The Clinical Utility and Specificity of Parent Report of Executive Function among Children with Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

  • Tanya T. Nguyen, Leila Glass, Claire D. Coles, Julie A. Kable, Philip A. May, Wendy O. Kalberg, Elizabeth R. Sowell, Kenneth L. Jones, Edward P. Riley, Sarah N. Mattson, the CIFASD
  • Journal:
    Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 20 / Issue 7 / August 2014
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    17 July 2014, pp. 704-716

  • Prenatal alcohol exposure and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) result in behavioral issues related to poor executive function (EF). This overlap may hinder clinical identification of alcohol-exposed children. This study examined the relation between parent and neuropsychological measures of EF and whether parent ratings aid in differential diagnosis. Neuropsychological measures of EF, including the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS), were administered to four groups of children (8–16 years): alcohol-exposed with ADHD (AE+, n=80), alcohol-exposed without ADHD (AE−, n=36), non-exposed with ADHD (ADHD, n=93), and controls (CON, n=167). Primary caregivers completed the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF). For parent ratings, multivariate analyses of variance revealed main effects of Exposure and ADHD and an interaction between these factors, with significant differences between all groups on nearly all BRIEF scales. For neuropsychological measures, results indicated main effects of Exposure and ADHD, but no interaction. Discriminant function analysis indicated the BRIEF accurately classifies groups. These findings confirm compounded behavioral, but not neuropsychological, effects in the AE+ group over the other clinical groups. Parent-report was not correlated with neuropsychological performance in the clinical groups and may provide unique information about neurobehavior. Parent-report measures are clinically useful in predicting alcohol exposure regardless of ADHD. Results contribute to a neurobehavioral profile of prenatal alcohol exposure. (JINS, 2014, 20, 1–13)

  • The Better Angels of their Nature: Declining Violence through Time Among Prehispanic Farmers of the Pueblo Southwest

  • Timothy A. Kohler, Scott G. Ortman, Katie E. Grundtisch, Carly M. Fitzpatrick, Sarah M. Cole
  • Journal:
    American Antiquity / Volume 79 / Issue 3 / July 2014
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    20 January 2017, pp. 444-464
    Print publication:
    July 2014

  • The central Mesa Verde and the northern Rio Grande regions housed two of the densest populations of prehispanic Pueblo peoples in the North American Southwest. We plot incidence of violent trauma on human bone through time in each region. Such violence peaked in the mid-A.D. 1100s in the central Mesa Verde, and in general was higher through time there than in the northern Rio Grande region. In the central Mesa Verde, but not in the northern Rio Grande, there is a tendency for violence to be greater in periods of low potential maize produccción per capita and high variance in maize produccción, though these structural tendencies were on occasion overridden by historical factors such as the expansion and demise of the Chacoan polity and the regional depopulation. Violence generally declined through time in the northern Rio Grande until the arrival of the Spanish, even as populations increased. We propose that this decline was due to the combination of increased social span of polities, the importance of inter-Pueblo sodalities, the nature of religious practice, “gentle commerce,“ and increased adherence to a set of nonviolent norms.

  • Associations among blood pressure, salt consumption and body weight status of students from south-western Ontario

  • Sarah J Woodruff, Katherine Fryer, Ty Campbell, Mary Cole
  • Journal:
    Public Health Nutrition / Volume 17 / Issue 5 / May 2014
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    04 March 2013, pp. 1114-1119
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  • Objective

    The purpose was to examine the associations among body weight status, blood pressure and daily Na intake among grade 7 students from south-western Ontario, Canada.

    Design

    Cross-sectional. Data were collected using the Food Behaviour Questionnaire, including a 24 h diet recall. Measured height and weight were used to determine BMI. Blood pressure was taken manually using mercury sphygmomanometers.

    Setting

    Twenty-six schools in south-western Ontario, Canada.

    Subjects

    Grade 7 students (n 1068).

    Results

    Body weight status indicated 1 % were underweight, 56 % normal weight, 23 % overweight and 20 % were obese. Mean systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were 108·3 (sd 10·3) mmHg and 66·0 (sd 7·5) mmHg, respectively, and mean Na intake was 2799 (sd 1539) mg/d. Bivariate analyses suggested that SBP (P < 0·001) and DBP (P < 0·001) were significantly different by body weight status, yet no associations were observed for Na. Adjusted for gender, ethnicity and under-reporting, participants were more likely to be overweight/obese if they had higher SBP (v. lower: OR = 1·06, 95 % CI 1·05, 1·08, P < 0·001), higher DBP (v. lower: OR = 1·02, 95 % CI 1·00, 1·04, P = 0·043) and higher intakes of Na (3rd v. 1st quartile: OR = 1·72, 95 % CI 1·14, 2·59, P = 0·009; 4th v. 1st quartile: OR = 2·88, 95 % CI, 1·76, 4·73, P < 0·001).

    Conclusions

    High intakes of Na, coupled with high SBP and DBP, were associated with overweight and obesity status among the grade 7 sample from south-western Ontario, Canada.

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