Predictors of perceived functional ability in early-stage dementia: self-ratings, informant ratings and discrepancy scores

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (8) ◽  
pp. 852-862 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Martyr ◽  
Sharon M. Nelis ◽  
Linda Clare
2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 180-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgina Stewart ◽  
William J. McGeown ◽  
Michael F. Shanks ◽  
Annalena Venneri

Stewart G, McGeown WJ, Shanks MF, Venneri A. Anosognosia for memory impairment in Alzheimer's disease.ObjectiveTo investigate whether patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) were able to alter their awareness of memory deficits after exposure to a memory task.Methods:Thirty normal older adults and 23 mild AD patients participated in the study. Anosognosia was assessed using discrepancies between self- and informant-evaluations of cognitive and functional performance. Participants estimated their performance on the Verbal Paired Associates task at different points in time (before, immediately after the task and after a 1-h delay).Results:AD patients were generally less able to judge their memory abilities than healthy older adults, and tended to overestimate their task performance beforehand. Their prediction accuracy increased immediately after the task, but after a 1-h delay, they again misjudged their abilities at pretesting accuracy levels. Self-carer discrepancy scores of awareness of deficits in memory and other areas correlated significantly with memory tests but not with other neuropsychological tasks in the assessment, and larger discrepancy scores were associated with poorer performance.Conclusion:AD patients can monitor their task performance online, but are unable to maintain awareness of their deficits over time. Loss of awareness of memory deficits (or of any other deficits) in early stage AD may indicate damage to a system which updates a personal knowledge base with recent information. Failure to retain this information impedes abstraction from episodic to semantic memory.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 596-606
Author(s):  
Janet M. Duchek ◽  
Andrew J. Aschenbrenner ◽  
Anne M. Fagan ◽  
Tammie L.S. Benzinger ◽  
John C. Morris ◽  
...  

AbstractObjectives:The present study explored relationships among personality, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) biomarkers, and dementia by addressing the following questions: (1) Does personality discriminate healthy aging and earliest detectable stage of AD? (2) Does personality predict conversion from healthy aging to early-stage AD? (3) Do AD biomarkers mediate any observed relationships between personality and dementia status/conversion?Methods:Both self- and informant ratings of personality were obtained in a large well-characterized longitudinal sample of cognitively normal older adults (N = 436) and individuals with early-stage dementia (N = 74). Biomarkers included amyloid imaging, hippocampal volume, cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) Aβ42, and CSF tau.Results:Higher neuroticism, lower conscientiousness, along with all four biomarkers strongly discriminated cognitively normal controls from early-stage AD individuals. The direct effects of neuroticism and conscientiousness were only mediated by hippocampal volume. Conscientiousness along with all biomarkers predicted conversion from healthy aging to early-stage AD; however, none of the biomarkers mediated the relationship between conscientiousness and conversion. Conscientiousness predicted conversion as strongly as the biomarkers, with the exception of hippocampal volume.Conclusions:Conscientiousness and to a lesser extent neuroticism serve as important independent behavioral markers for AD risk.


Author(s):  
L. Vacca-Galloway ◽  
Y.Q. Zhang ◽  
P. Bose ◽  
S.H. Zhang

The Wobbler mouse (wr) has been studied as a model for inherited human motoneuron diseases (MNDs). Using behavioral tests for forelimb power, walking, climbing, and the “clasp-like reflex” response, the progress of the MND can be categorized into early (Stage 1, age 21 days) and late (Stage 4, age 3 months) stages. Age-and sex-matched normal phenotype littermates (NFR/wr) were used as controls (Stage 0), as well as mice from two related wild-type mouse strains: NFR/N and a C57BI/6N. Using behavioral tests, we also detected pre-symptomatic Wobblers at postnatal ages 7 and 14 days. The mice were anesthetized and perfusion-fixed for immunocytochemical (ICC) of CGRP and ChAT in the spinal cord (C3 to C5).Using computerized morphomety (Vidas, Zeiss), the numbers of IR-CGRP labelled motoneurons were significantly lower in 14 day old Wobbler specimens compared with the controls (Fig. 1). The same trend was observed at 21 days (Stage 1) and 3 months (Stage 4). The IR-CGRP-containing motoneurons in the Wobbler specimens declined progressively with age.


Author(s):  
W. O. Saxton

Recent commercial microscopes with internal microprocessor control of all major functions have already demonstrated some of the benefits anticipated from such systems, such as continuous magnification, rotation-free diffraction and magnification, automatic recording of mutually registered focal series, and fewer control knobs. Complete automation of the focusing, stigmating and alignment of a high resolution microscope, allowing focal series to be recorded at preselected focus values as well, is still imminent rather than accomplished, however; some kind of image pick-up and analysis system, fed with the electron image via a TV camera, is clearly essential for this, but several alternative systems and algorithms are still being explored. This paper reviews the options critically in turn, and stresses the need to consider alignment and focusing at an early stage, and not merely as an optional extension to a basic proposal.


Author(s):  
C. S. Lin ◽  
W. A. Chiou ◽  
M. Meshii

The galvannealed steel sheets have received ever increased attention because of their excellent post-painting corrosion resistance and good weldability. However, its powdering and flaking tendency during press forming processes strongly impairs its performance. In order to optimize the properties of galvanneal coatings, it is critical to control the reaction rate between solid iron and molten zinc.In commercial galvannealing line, aluminum is added to zinc bath to retard the diffusion rate between iron and zinc by the formation of a thin layer of Al intermetallic compound on the surface of steel at initial hot-dip galvanizing. However, the form of this compound and its transformation are still speculated. In this paper, we report the direct observations of this compound and its transformation.The specimens were prepared in a hot-dip simulator in which the steel was galvanized in the zinc bath containing 0.14 wt% of Al at a temperature of 480 °C for 5 seconds and was quenched by liquid nitrogen.


Author(s):  
C. Vannuffel ◽  
C. Schiller ◽  
J. P. Chevalier

Recently, interest has focused on the epitaxy of GaAs on Si as a promising material for electronic applications, potentially for integration of optoelectronic devices on silicon wafers. The essential problem concerns the 4% misfit between the two materials, and this must be accommodated by a network of interfacial dislocations with the lowest number of threading dislocations. It is thus important to understand the detailed mechanism of the formation of this network, in order to eventually reduce the dislocation density at the top of the layers.MOVPE growth is carried out on slightly misoriented, (3.5°) from (001) towards , Si substrates. Here we report on the effect of this misorientation on the interfacial defects, at a very early stage of growth. Only the first stage, of the well-known two step growth process, is thus considered. Previously, we showed that full substrate coverage occured for GaAs thicknesses of 5 nm in contrast to MBE growth, where substantially greater thicknesses are required.


2006 ◽  
Vol 175 (4S) ◽  
pp. 514-514
Author(s):  
David G. McLeod ◽  
Oliver Sartor ◽  
Paul F. Schellhammer ◽  
Anthony V. D'Amico ◽  
Susan Halabi ◽  
...  

2005 ◽  
Vol 173 (4S) ◽  
pp. 175-175
Author(s):  
Axel S. Merseburger ◽  
Joerg Hennenlotter ◽  
Perikles Simon ◽  
Marcus Horstmann ◽  
Arnulf Stenzl ◽  
...  

2004 ◽  
Vol 171 (4S) ◽  
pp. 282-282
Author(s):  
Markus D. Sachs ◽  
Horst Schlechte ◽  
Katrin Schiemenz ◽  
Severin V. Lenk ◽  
Dietmar Schnorr ◽  
...  

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