Browsing by Author "Burger, M."

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    Physiotherapy students' perceptions of an innovative approach to clinical practice orientation
    (AOSIS, 2002) Faure, M. R.; Unger, M.; Burger, M.
    The transition from the classroom to clinical practice is stressful for many students. In the current situation in South Africa with the shortages of clinicians’ posts in hospitals, this transition is even more difficult given the reduced time that clinicians have for supervising undergraduate students. The University of Stellenbosch initiated structured peer-led introduction to clinical education (SPLICE), during which senior physiotherapy students orientate second year students to clinical practice. The aim of this study was to investigate the perceptions of all of the second, third and fourth year students who took part in these SPLICE sessions. This information was captured using a questionnaire with open and closed questions. The response of all of the students was extremely positive. Common to all cohorts of students was the opinion of the motivational benefits of the sessions as well as the opinion that their confidence increased. Students in the various years of study differed in the ways in which they felt more confident. Closely linked were those comments referring to a sense of increased preparedness for clinical practice and a positive learning environment. A positive change in attitude towards clinical practice was also noted in many second year students. Further research is needed into the effect that SPLICE might have had on the second year students when they enter clinical practice as third year students. The role and opinions of patients during these sessions, and indeed during any clinical education sessions, including clinical examinations, needs further investigation.
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    Validation of the Canadian norms for the Alberta infant motor scale for infants in a South African region aged four to twelve months : a pilot study
    (AOSIS Publishing, 2012-12-11) Manuel, A. E.; Burger, M.; Louw, Q. A.
    The Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) is a norm referenced,performance based, observational tool that assesses motor developmentin infants from birth up to the age of eighteen months. The AIMS has beenwidely used by researchers and clinicians around the world, but only afew attempts were made to validate the Canadian norms for infants residingoutside Canada.The purpose of the study was to validate the Canadian norms of the AIMSfor infants within the Cape Metropolitan region, South Africa.A longitudinal study was conducted using the AIMS to assess the gross motordevelopment of 67 healthy full term infants at 4, 8 and 12 months respectively.At 4 months the mean percentile ranking was significantly higher than the Canadian norm (p=0.01), while no statisticalsignificant differences were found at 8 and 12 months of age.The AIMS is a valid assessment tool for healthy infants aged 8 and 12 months within the Cape Metropole, SouthAfrica. The infants at four months of age scored higher than the Canadian norm. Further validation which incorporatelarger, random samples are required to enable generalisation of the findings for the South African infant population.
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    Water-wise hand preparation – the true impact of our practice : a controlled before-and-after study
    (Health & Medical Publishing Group, 2020) Potgieter, M. S. W.; Faisal, A.; Ikram, A.; Burger, M.
    Background. South Africa (SA) and other countries worldwide are experiencing extreme drought conditions. Since the start of the drought in SA, many ways of saving water have been proposed and innovative water-saving mechanisms have become part of the lives of communities. We investigated water use during surgical scrubbing procedures and possible interventions to reduce water consumption. Objectives. To compare water use during surgical hand preparation before and after the implementation of specific water-saving interventions. Methods. This was a non-randomised controlled study, following a before-and-after design, of orthopaedic theatre personnel scrubbing for surgical cases at Tygerberg Hospital, Cape Town. A control (CON) group (n=32) was established to observe standard practice for baseline measurements including total amount of water used, wash time and water flow rate during surgical hand preparation. After this, three interventions were randomly assigned to a single theatre each, where the same variables were measured. Intervention AS entailed using an alcohol scrub (n=18), intervention SN (n=12) had a dedicated assistant to open and close taps during scrubbing, and intervention SW (n=12) made use of adjusted tap levers to allow the surgeon to open and close taps more easily. Analysis of variance was used to detect global differences between groups, and Tukey’s post hoc test was performed to detect differences between groups. Results. Significant differences in water use (p<0.001), wash time (p<0.001) and water flow rate (p<0.001) were observed between the four groups. On average, the AS group used the least water per scrub (mean (standard deviation) 0.82 (1.43) L), which was significantly less than the CON (5.56 (1.79) L; p<0.001) and SN (2.29 (0.37) L; p=0.002) groups. The amount of time spent per scrub was significantly less in the AS group than all the other groups (p<0.05 for all comparisons), with no significant differences observed between the CON, SN and SW groups independently. The SW group had the lowest mean water flow rate (0.73 (0.22) L/min), which was significantly lower than the CON group (2.19 (0.84) L/min; p<0.001). The flow rate of the SN group (1.36 (0.66) L/min) was also significantly lower than that of the CON group (p=0.005). Conclusions. Water use during surgical hand preparation can easily be reduced by implementing easy and effective interventions. The practicality of interventions may differ between institutions, and their acceptance by surgical staff is important to ensure compliance. However, ensuring that alternative scrubbing options are available to surgical staff would equate to substantial savings over time.