Practice

Question 1

How much practice do patients get in the typical rehabilitation setting?

Answer 1

only 36 minutes per day with either a physical therapist or occupational therapist

Question 2

How can we increase the amount of practice our patients get in a day?

Answer 2

• Give pts HEP for more reps
• Every TV commercial, do some sort of activity
• Use more active rest periods (do Edu then, or switch from gross -> fine motor skills, etc)
• Personalizing the exercise

Question 3

Blocked Practice

Answer 3

same conditions for a block of trials, then switch to new block/conditions-better for cognitive learning

Question 4

Random Practice

Answer 4

all conditions are practiced in random order-better for retention

Question 5

Blocked Practice improves…

Answer 5

Training Effects (temporary effects) 
good during cognitive phase and helps pt establish the task

Question 6

Random Practice improves…

Answer 6

Retention (learning effects)

better for later phases of learning

Question 7

So, is random practice better than blocked practice?

Answer 7

Depends on the situation and what stage of learning the pt is at
Get more retention

Question 8

For which tasks or situations is blocked practice appropriate?

Answer 8

During the cognitive phase of learning

Question 9

For which tasks or situations is random practice appropriate?

Answer 9

During the later phases of learning-helps make task concrete

Question 10

Why do patients also need a combination of blocked and random practice?

Answer 10

• blocked practice to truly acquire the skill
• random practice to be able to generalize the skill to several situations
• especially for cognitively involved patients

Question 11

Why do pts do well with random practice?

Answer 11

Patient will need a range of experiences to drawn upon so it is more likely that in a new situation, they have a usable motor memory

Question 12

Structuring Practice-

Elaborative and Distinctive Processing Theory

Answer 12

• Random practicing forces the learner into more elaborate and distinctive processing of the tasks to be learned
• Random practice promotes comparing and contrasting of consecutive trials
• Blocked practice does not allow for these comparisons due to the repetitive nature of the blocked schedule

Question 13

Structuring Practice- Forgetting and Reconstruction Theory

Answer 13

• during random practice, performers “forget” the solution for the upcoming action and are required to generate a new solution for each practice trial
• during blocked practice, the previous motor program is still available in working memory to be utilized, whereas in random practice, a motor program must be reconstructed

Question 14

What is learned with mental practice?

Answer 14

• learn the cognitive elements of the task
• motor programs are actually being “run off” but the “gain” is turned down
• -possibility that very small forces are being produced (not enough) to cause movement
• -the performer receives GTO feedback from the muscles due to the extreme sensitivity of the GTOs

Question 15

Mental Practice: Conclusion

Answer 15

• Physical practice is preferable whenever possible, but when physical practice is not possible, mental rehearsal is an effective method for augmenting a person’s learning.
• Useful when a patient has poor motor control of a body part

Question 16

Open task

Answer 16

practice in a variety of environments with varying equipment, objects, circumstances, etc

Question 17

Closed task

Answer 17

practice under constant conditions

Question 18

Variable practice

Answer 18

• variable practice seems to generate a general capacity to perform a novel version of the task
• variable practice increases generalizability of the skill

Question 19

Specificity of Practice

Answer 19

simulate “real” conditions:

• same or similar environment
• same or similar task
• same or similar objects
• Speed and/or accuracy constraints

Question 20

TASK Specificity

Answer 20

• Specificity effects when training and performance comparisons involve the same types of exercise
• Examples
• -Isometric, concentric versus eccentric exercise
• -same ranges of motion
• -same movement velocity

Question 21

Part-practice

Answer 21

• practice parts of the task
• practice the more difficult elements
• caution: practicing elements in isolation may change whole task

Question 22

Whole-practice

Answer 22

Practice entire task as a whole

Question 23

Continuous Tasks

Answer 23

• must be practiced as a whole
• parts occur simultaneously
• how one part effects other is important
• momentum or inter-joint forces or tightly synchronized elements

Question 24

Part and Whole practice is Task Dependent

Answer 24

• when practicing continuous tasks in which the coordination (or timing or momentum) are linked, whole-practice is more effective
• when practicing tasks that have simultaneous demands or when one body part must coordinated with another body part, whole-practice is necessary (example: two hands in piano playing or gait and carrying something)
• serial tasks that contain distinct information processing components may benefit more from part-practice

Question 25

Part and Whole Practice example-STS

Answer 25

• Zero-momentum strategy - there is a break in the velocity profiles between phase 2 & 3, each of the parts can be practiced separately
• Momentum strategy - there is no break in the velocity profile between phases 2 & 3 so should practiced as a whole

Question 26

Videotaping Performance

Answer 26

four groups:

• Knowledge of Performance (KP) only
• videotape only
• videotape + attention cues
• videotape + correcting cues

Specific verbal cues identifying critical aspects of the various movements should be provided simultaneously with the videotape replay