5 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
This cluster randomized controlled trial will evaluate a community-based bicycle safety education program with and without an in-person parent training component. The investigators will recruit 180 early adolescent bicyclists (ages 9 to 12) and a parent/guardian from local neighborhood centers after school and summer programs, where the investigators have conducted preliminary studies. Randomization into the three study groups will occur at the site-level. Adolescent bicycles in all study group sites will be equipped with Pedal Portal, an innovative bicycle-mounted GPS/video system developed by the research team to objectively observe bicycling risk exposure and behaviors while bicycling. System data will be coded to measure bicycling exposure (hours, miles traveled, routes) and the types and rates of safety-relevant events (near crashes, crashes), and safety-relevant behaviors (e.g., following traffic rules, scanning for traffic at intersections). This will be the first randomized trial to use GPS and video technology to evaluate the effectiveness of a youth bicycle safety intervention in changing behavior. The control group will not receive any bicycle safety education programming. Participants in the first intervention group (Bike Club) will receive a 12-hour bicycle safety education program. Participants in the second intervention group (Bike Club Plus) will receive an enhanced version of the 12-hour bicycle safety education program which will include a parent training session on bicycling safety best practices, child development as it relates to bicycling, strategies for practice at home, and feedback on their adolescent's bicycling performance. The investigators' main hypotheses are that adolescents who receive the bicycle safety intervention will have increased safety behaviors (e.g., helmet use, hazard recognition), reduced errors (e.g., riding against traffic, swerving/wobbling), and increased knowledge, perceptions, and self-efficacy compared to the control group; and adolescents whose parent receives the parent training will have even greater improvements in study outcomes than those whose parents do not receive the training. If successful, approaches from this study could be widely implemented to improve adolescent bicycling safety.
This study has four objectives about healthy younger and older adults during immersive virtual reality bicycling: Determine the effect of visual feedback and competition for younger healthy adults during virtual bicycling on user experience, motivation, enjoyment, perception of effort, and neuromuscular and cardiovascular intensity Determine the effect of visual feedback and competition for older healthy adults during virtual bicycling on user experience, motivation, enjoyment, perception of effort, and neuromuscular and cardiovascular intensity Compare younger and older during visual feedback and competition bicycling in terms of: user experience, motivation, enjoyment, perception of effort, neuromuscular and cardiovascular intensity Determine if attention differs in visual feedback bicycling compared to competition bicycling for younger and older healthy adults
This study has three objectives about persons with Parkinson's Disease during bicycling: 1. Determine the effect of visual feedback and competition during virtual bicycling on neuromuscular and cardiovascular intensity 2. Determine the effect of visual-feedback and competition during virtual bicycling on the user experience of motivation, enjoyment \& perception of exercise intensity 3. Determine if attention differs during visual feedback compared to competition virtual bicycling
Although exercise is known to delay cognitive decline and decrease our risk of Alzheimer's Disease, there is a lack of understanding of how exercise protects the aging brain. The proposed research takes a novel approach to this problem by testing the concept that there are acute, direct effects of exercise in the same brain regions that are affected by chronic exercise training. If the investigators are successful, the acute paradigm will allow us to determine the critical exercise parameters that modulate brain function in humans using only a single exercise dose.
US children's active commuting to school (ACS; walking or cycling to school), previously common (48% in 1969) is now uncommon (13% in 2009). This decline coincided with the obesity epidemic, which disproportionately affects low-income and ethnic minority children. Programs to increase children's moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and lower obesity and related chronic disease risk are necessary. The Bicycle Train is an innovative program in which children cycle to and from school led by adults. Bicycle Trains provide another option for ACS, especially for children who live too far to walk to school. No randomized controlled trials (RCT) have evaluated Bicycle Trains and children's ACS or MVPA. Increasing the percent of children who cycle to school is sub-objective PA-14 of US Healthy People 2020. The Primary Goals are to (a) conduct a pilot cluster RCT of a Bicycle Train program among low-income, ethnic minority 4th and 5th grade children and (b) collect concurrent accelerometer and GPS data and validate algorithms to identify and measure physical activity intensity and duration for children's cycling compared to heart rate monitors. Our Specific Aims will be to: SA1) evaluate among 80 4th and 5th grade ethnic minority children the feasibility of a pilot cluster RCT of a Bicycle Train program for (a) recruiting participants for a planned full-scale cluster RCT (b) promoting their participation, and (c) identifying barriers/facilitators to their participation; and SA2) validate algorithms examining concurrent accelerometry and global positioning system (GPS) data to identify and measure children's physical activity intensity and duration while cycling compared to the criterion standards of heart rate monitoring and direct observation Feasibility Criteria (FC): As recommended for pilot studies, in which the main goal is to test feasibility of a research protocol, a fully powered R01-funded cluster RCT will be determined to be feasible if: FC 1) We successfully recruit 80 low-income 4th and 5th grade children for the pilot Bicycle Train cluster RCT FC 2) The intervention children participate in the Bicycle Train program on average twice/week or more FC 3) Algorithms analyzing concurrent GPS and accelerometer data have high agreement, i.e. \>90% agreement, with heart rate data/direct observation in distinguishing children's cycling-related physical activity duration and intensity from other physical activities and riding in a motor vehicle