The role of illness beliefs in adaptation to diabetes mellitus : the characteristics and review of the research

Adaptacja do cukrzycy to proces złożony. Jest to bowiem przystosowanie do choroby, która wymaga od pacjenta samodyscypliny. Z praktyki klinicznej wiadomo, że chorzy na cukrzycę istotnie różnią się między sobą pod względem stopnia samokontroli i przestrzegania zaleceń lekarskich. Coraz częściej klinicyści i badacze poszukują częściowego wyjaśnienia tych różnic w indywidualnych, psychologicznych cechach pacjenta, wymieniając rolę takich zmiennych, jak osobowość, radzenie sobie ze stresem czy wreszcie poznawczy obraz choroby; w niniejszym artykule skoncentrowano się na roli ostatniego czynnika. Zaprezentowano teorie na temat genezy tego konstruktu poznawczego, wchodzących w jego skład przekonań zdrowotnych i ich roli w kształtowaniu procesu adaptacji do cukrzycy. Czołowe miejsce w prezentowanej pracy zajmuje przegląd badań na temat roli takich przekonań, jak: spostrzegana powaga cukrzycy, ocena własnej podatności na komplikacje wynikające z tej choroby, poczucie umiejscowienia kontroli zdrowia, spostrzeganie dostępności społecznego wsparcia w aktywności prozdrowotnej związanej z przestrzeganiem zaleceń lekarskich i samokontrolą stężenia glukozy, a także w wyborze strategii radzenia sobie ze stresem towarzyszącym cukrzycyThe process of adaptation to diabetes mellitus is very complex. This disease requires from patients a great dose of selfdiscipline. The clinical practice brings the observation that patients with diabetes mellitus strongly differ between each other in the level of self control and fallowing doctor’s orders. The researchers more often try to explain this fact by analysing the individual, personal defferences between patients. They concentrate on such charakteristics as personality, coping with stress and personal illness beliefs. This article concentrate on the last factor- illness representation. It presents the genesis of this construct as well as its role in adaptation to diabetes mellitus. The main gole of this article is to present the research which concentrate on the role of such beliefs as: perceived severity of the illness, perceived vulnerability to diabetes complications, health locus of control and perceived social support in self care behaviors, glucose control and coping with stress

Cognitive disorders in children's hydrocephalus

Background and objective Hydrocephalus is defined as an increase of volume of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricular system of the brain. It develops as a result of cerebrospinal fluid flow disorder due to dysfunctions of absorption or, less frequently, as a result of the increase of its production. Hydrocephalus may lead to various cognitive dysfunctions in children. Materials and methods In order to determine cognitive functioning in children with hydrocephalus, the authors reviewed available literature while investigating this subject. Results The profile of cognitive disorders in children with hydrocephalus may include a wide spectrum of dysfunctions and the process of neuropsychological assessment may be very demanding. The most frequently described cognitive disorders within children's hydrocephalus include attention, executive, memory, visual, spatial or linguistic dysfunctions, as well as behavioral problems

Signal detection in pathological skin picking : findings from non - clinical sample

Aim of the study. The present study investigated the role of general impulsivity in pathological skin picking (PSP). Material and methods. Three groups of participants: university students who pick their skin and experience distress and/or functional impairment caused by picking (n = 27), students who pick their skin but do not experience distress and/or functional impairment caused by picking (n = 19), and students without history of skin picking (n = 43) were administered the task based on the search for the emotionally neutral signal hidden among distractors. It was predicted that individuals suffering from PSP should present an impulsive reaction style, i.e. they should search for the signal faster than individuals without history of PSP and should react to irrelevant stimuli rather than missing the correct reaction. Results. Participants with severe picking performed as quickly and correctly as controls, thus not revealing an impulsive reaction pattern. Students with milder forms of picking reacted more slowly than the others gradually diminishing their performance as the task was extended. Discussion. Individuals with severe PSP symptoms are not characterized by general impulsiveness defined as a tendency to react quickly and carelessly. Skin picking behaviors of different severity may be associated with different signal detection patterns. Conclusions. The results of the current study indicate that skin picking is not a homogeneous condition. They also provide that skin picking behavior in ‘severe’ pickers and non – ‘severe’ ones may have different underlying psychological mechanism

Cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome CCAS : a case report

The aim of the study was to describe a case of the patient with cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome CCAS, characterize the role of cerebellum in the regulation of cognitive functions and present the procedure of neuropsychological diagnosis useful in indicating the specific cognitive and emotional problems in patients with cerebellar damage. Case report. A 41- year old man with an ischemic cerebellar stroke of its right hemisphere manifested the neuropsychological symptoms typical for the frontal damage: euphoric mood, disorganized behavior, lack of criticism and mental plasticity, tendency to shorten the personal distance, problems with mistake correction. In neuropsychological diagnosis we used following methods: Raven Progressive Matrices Test, Mini Mental Stage Examination (MMSE), Trail Making Test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Stroop Interference Test, Word Fluency Test, Auditory Verbal Learning Test by Łuria, Benton Visual Retention Test, Digit Span. Results. Analyzing the obtained results we observed the significant decrease of all executive functions: planning, abstract thinking, cognitive flexibility, adaptation to new situations as well as memory impairments and changes in emotional and behavioral state similar to frontal syndrome. The whole of impairments including the typical cerebellar symptoms (ataxia, dysarthria, dysmetria,hypotonia) create the cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome CCAS with leading role of dysexecutive syndrome. Conclusions. The cerebellum takes part in the regulation of cognitive functions. The cerebellar damages can imitate the emotional- cognitive problems of patients after frontal damages what additionally stress the functional link between these two brain structures. Patient’s with cerebellar damages should have neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric diagnosis and care

PSDRS, BDI, MoCA and MMSE as screening tools for the evaluation of mood and cognitive functions in patients at the early stage of cerebral stroke

Aims. To evaluate the suitability of the Post-Stroke Depression Scale (PSDRS) for detecting affective disorders, to examine the correlation of depressed mood states with cognitive disorders in patients at an early stage of cerebral stroke, and to attempt a comparison of the effectiveness of detecting depressive and cognitive disorders with the selected clinical scales. Material and methods. The examination involved 43 patients within the first week after cerebral stroke. It was carried out with the application of two screening scales, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and two scales for the evaluation of the degree of depressiveness: PSDRS and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Results. A significant negative correlation of the results of the PSDRS and MoCA scales was shown. Depressed mood in patients post-cerebral stroke was statistically significantly correlated with the disorders in selected cognitive skills: visual and spatial functions, memory, attention functions and abstracting ability. Conclusions. The PSDRS and MoCA scales proved to be more effective tools for the evaluation of depressive and cognitive disorders in patients at an early stage after cerebral stroke than the conventionally applied MMSE and BDI scales. The examination results additionally show a significant dependence between mood and the cognitive impairment in this group of patients. With the weakening of cognitive functioning, the patients’ mood also became depressed