Applied Neuropsychology-Adult最新文献

Introduction: Disturbance in naming accuracy and reaction time (RT) is one of the early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Naming performance can be considered a diagnostic key in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD), which has remained diagnostically challenging. Although most of the studies in this field have been conducted on the naming accuracy of common nouns, others have shown that proper nouns are more sensitive for detecting the onset of AD. This study aims to compare the naming of common and proper nouns.

Method: Eighty pictures of common and proper nouns (40 items each) were presented to 18 healthy older adults and 18 people with mild Alzheimer's disease using DMDX software on a laptop computer. The patients' responses were transcribed into a pre-designed form, and their reaction times were captured by DMDX.

Results: Study results indicated a significant difference in the number of errors and RTs between proper and common nouns in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (p-value=), implying that proper nouns may be more sensitive to mild AD. Moreover, patients with mild Alzheimer's had more problems in common and proper nouns than healthy older adults.

Conclusion: This study demonstrated that individuals with mild AD experienced greater difficulty recalling proper nouns, which were found to be more susceptible to the effects of AD.

Recent reports indicate that the Memory Integrated Language Test (MIL) and Making Change Test Abbreviated Index (MCT-AI), two web-based performance validity tests (PVTs), have good sensitivity and specificity when used independently. This study investigated whether using these PVTs together could improve the detection of invalid performance in a mixed neuropsychiatric sample. Participants were 129 adult outpatients who underwent a neuropsychological evaluation and were classified into valid (n = 104) or invalid (n = 25) performance groups based on several commonly used PVTs. Using cut scores of ≤41 on the MIL and ≥1.05 on the MCT-AI together enhanced classification accuracy, yielding an area under the curve of .84 (95% CI: .75, .93). As compared to using the MIL and MCT-AI independently, the combined use increased the sensitivity from .10-.31 to.70 while maintaining ≥.90 specificity. Findings also indicated that failing either the MIL or MCT-AI was associated with somewhat lower cognitive test scores, but failing both was associated with markedly lower scores. Overall, using the MIL and MCT-AI together may be an effective way to identify invalid test performance during a neuropsychological evaluation. Furthermore, pairing these tests is consistent with current practice guidelines to include multiple PVTs in a neuropsychological test battery.

Developmental topographical disorientation (DTD) is more common than expected in healthy populations and can cause psychological disorders, leading to feelings of frustration and failure due to poor navigation. Due to the strict relation and the frequent association between DTD and psychological disorders, it is crucial to understand the impact of spatial anxiety and specific phobias, such as driving-related fear (DRF), on one's ability to autonomously navigate in the environment. Here, we report the case of a girl with DTD and DRF who struggled to learn driving routes due to her phobia. Her score in learning a computerized environment (The short version of the Computerized Ecological Navigational Battery:LBS) was low, and her performance in the other rating scales was below the cutoff, confirming the presence of DTD. However, after receiving psychological treatment for her DRF, she became faster in moving through LBS, but the assessment of navigational skills still indicated the presence of DTD, suggesting the independence of the two disorders. When addressing both DTD and psychological disorders, clinicians must prioritize which issue to tackle first. Here are some suggestions to help decide when to prioritize one aspect over the other to provide the best possible care for the patient.

This study describes an adult male with Down syndrome (DS) and Klinefelter syndrome (KS). Results from a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment are presented that assessed multiple domains, including general mental status, intelligence, language, visual-spatial/visual organization, attention and executive functioning, learning and memory, manual dexterity/fine motor skills, and academic skills. Information was also gathered from a self-report measure assessing current psychosocial functioning, from an informant interview documenting history, and from informant rating scales assessing adaptive skills and psychosocial, behavioral, and executive functioning. Overall, several aspects of the patient's phenotype are consistent with those seen in both DS and KS, although his developmental history, current level of intellectual and adaptive skills, and social demeanor are most consistent with individuals with DS. This study provides important insight into the phenotype, including neuropsychological profile of adults with DS-KS, which is useful for individuals, families, and clinicians living with and/or caring for adults diagnosed with this genetic condition. Future research should examine neuropsychological functioning and aging in this rare genotype.

In this study, we offer a comprehensive assessment of the phenomenological experience of patients with behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) upon retrieval of autobiographical memory. We invited patients with bvFTD and control participants to retrieve autobiographical memories and rate, for each memory, its phenomenological characteristics. We also analyzed the retrieved memories regarding specificity (i.e., whether the memory described a general or a detailed event). Results demonstrated that, compared to control participants, patients with bvFTD attributed lower levels of reliving, back in time (feeling as if going back in time), remembering, realness, visual imagery, auditory imagery, language, emotion, rehearsal, importance, spatial recall and temporal recall to their memories. Lower autobiographical specificity was also observed in patients with bvFTD compared to control participants. Autobiographical specificity in patients with bvFTD was associated with verbal fluency and verbal episodic memory, but not with phenomenological experience. Although autobiographical memories of patients with bvFTD show low ratings of phenomenological experience, the patients may still enjoy some limited subjective experience during autobiographical retrieval.

Motor assessment has emerged as complementary evidence for the detection of late life cognitive disorders. Clinicians lack inexpensive, accurate, and portable tools for this purpose. To fill this void, the current study piloted measures from the Mizzou Point-of-care Assessment System a multimodal sensor platform. We examined the ability of these motor function measures to distinguish neurocognitive status and assessed their associations with cognitive performance. Data came from 42 older adults, including 16 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Participants performed dual task gait, pairing walking with serial subtraction by sevens, along with aa neuropsychological test battery. T-tests revealed that individuals with MCI demonstrated slower stride times (d = .55) and shorter stride lengths (d = .98) compared to healthy older adults. Results from hierarchical regression showed that stride time and stride length predicted cognitive performance across several domains, after controlling for cognitive status and demographics. Cognitive status moderated this relationship for global cognition and attention, wherein gait measures were significantly related to these outcomes for the cognitively normal group, but not the MCI group. Evidence from the current study provided preliminary support that MPASS measures demonstrate expected associations with cognitive performance and can distinguish amongst those with and without cognitive impairment.

Objectives: One of the most frequently applied paradigms in the clinical and experimental fields for assessing working memory is the simple span task, composed of forward and backward recall conditions. However, the utility of the simple span measures and their relation to working memory modalities has yet to be elucidated. The current study aimed to address which of the span measures is more sensitive to the differentiation between forward and backward recall in the tactile, verbal, and visuo-spatial modalities, and to test if working memory modalities differ in the disparity between the two conditions.

Methods: 134 healthy young adults performed the Tactual, Digit, and Visuo-spatial Span tasks, producing Total Correct scores and Longest Sequence score measures.

Results: There was an interaction effect for condition and modality type, showing better performance for the forward compared to the backward recall in both measures. However, the effect size of the Longest Sequence score was significantly higher than the Total Correct score in all tasks. Furthermore, the Visuo-spatial Span exhibited a larger difference between forward and backward recall compared to the Digit and Tactual Span, whereas no difference was found between the latter two.

Conclusions: Forward and backward recall are distinguished in all three modalities, and the Longest Sequence score is more sensitive to differentiate between storage and manipulation components of working memory than the Total Correct score. Additionally, the cognitive demand imposed by manipulation compared to storage is the greatest in the visuo-spatial modality.

Objectives: Cognitive and affective factors have been implicated in verbal fluency (VF) performance in Parkinson's disease (PD). This exploratory study aimed to investigate the relationships between cognitive and affective variables on traditional ("core") and "process" (error and interval) scores of VF and elucidate unique information these scores may provide regarding mechanisms underlying VF.

Methods: Sixty-two PD patients without dementia completed clinical neuropsychological examinations consisting of attention, processing speed, language, executive functioning, visuospatial, memory, and mood measures. Hierarchical regression and negative binomial regression analyses were used to evaluate relationships between outcome and predictor variables.

Results: Generativity results revealed that processing speed and working memory explained up to 34% of the variance of total letter fluency responses (p = <.001) and processing speed explained 24% of the variance for total semantic fluency (p = .003). For category switching generativity, only age predicted 20% of the variance (p = .01). Two executive functioning measures were negatively associated with error production over the duration (b = -.055, p = .028; b = -.062, p = .004) and final 45-second interval (b = -.072, p = .003; b = -.044, p = .033) of the category switching task. In the initial 15-second task interval, a positive predictive relationship between error production and indifference apathy (b = .616, p = .044) was demonstrated.

Conclusions: Findings demonstrate the potential utility of "process" scores in detecting subtle cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease patients without dementia and tentatively evidence the role of indifference apathy in task initiation.

Introduction: There is still a requirement for concise, practical scales that can be readily incorporated into everyday schedules and predict the likelihood of dementia onset in individuals without dementia. This study aimed to assess the reliability of the ANU-ADRI (Australian National University Alzheimer's Disease Risk Index)-Short Form in Turkish geriatric patients.

Methods: This methodological study involved 339 elderly patients attending the geriatric outpatient clinic for various reasons. The known-group validity and divergent validity were assessed. The ANU-ADRI was administered during the baseline test and again within one week for retest purposes. Alongside the ANU-ADRI, all participants underwent a comprehensive geriatric assessment, including Activities of Daily Living (ADL), mobility assessment (Performance-Oriented Mobility Assessment (POMA) and Timed Up and Go Test), nutritional assessment (Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA)), and global cognition evaluation (Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE)).

Results: The scale demonstrated satisfactory linguistic validity. A correlation was observed between the mean scores of the ANU-ADRI test and retest (r = 0.997, p < 0.001). Additionally, there existed a moderate negative linear association between the ANU-ADRI and MMSE scores (r = -0.310, p < 0.001), POMA (r = -0.406, p < 0.001), Basic ADL (r = -0.359, p < 0.001), and Instrumental ADL (r = -0.294, p < 0.001). Moreover, a moderate positive linear association was found between the ANU-ADRI and the Timed Up and Go Test duration (r = 0.538, p < 0.001).

Conclusion: The ANU-ADRI-Short Form was proved as a valuable tool for clinical practice, facilitating the assessment of Alzheimer's disease risk within the Turkish geriatric population.

Objectives: This study examined the role of caregivers' perception of cognitive impairment in burden of family caregivers in Alzheimer's disease (AD). We hypothesized that the evaluation of cognitive impairment by family caregivers plays a pivotal role in burden.

Methods: The study included 110 dyads (person with AD and their caregiver) recruited from a Memory Unit in France. The cognitive impairment and depressive symptoms of person with AD were evaluated by a geriatrician using the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15). Caregivers provided self-reports on the perception of cognitive impairment (IQCODE) of the care recipient, the caregiving burden (ZBI), depressive symptoms (GDS-15), and self-esteem (RSE). Descriptive analyses, comparison of different caregiver burden groups, and multinomial logistic regression analyses to understand correlates of caregiver burden were conducted with SPSS^®, version 20.

Results: The findings show that the caregivers are on average 60 years old and the majority are women. They care for persons with AD, who are on average 82 years old and most of whom are women. Our results show that the duration of caregiving, depression of the caregiver, and caregivers' perception of cognitive impairment contribute significantly to burden of caregiver.

Discussion: This study shows that it is necessary to adopt the caregiver-centered approach to support the dyad. The role of the caregivers' perception of cognitive impairment in AD should be developed when supporting caregivers in suffering.