Language and Psychosocial Outcomes for Stroke Survivors with Aphasia Following an Intensive Comprehensive Aphasia Program

Purpose: Intensive comprehensive aphasia programs (ICAPs) are community-based rehabilitation programs designed to improve the speech, language, cognition, and psychosocial well-being of stroke survivors. ICAPs integrate individual and group therapy, current technologies, and client/family wellness and education. Although many aphasia treatment programs exist, traditional therapy models lack the therapeutic intensity and holistic intervention approach that ICAPs provide. The intensity of ICAPs allows the patients with aphasia (PWA) to engage in 72 hours of therapy in four weeks compared to traditional aphasia therapy which offers 30 hours in 10 weeks. The purpose of this retrospective study is to examine language impairment and psychosocial outcomes of PWA following participation in an ICAP at the University of Montana. Methods: Approximately 40 PWA participated in at least one of six ICAP sessions that occurred between 2014 and 2017. Treatment delivery included: individual evidence-based language impairment treatment, conversation groups, a weekly large group with focus on psychosocial well-being, and weekly community outings to facilitate social communication. The treatment intensity was 4-4.5 hours of therapy per day, 4 days per week, for 4 weeks. Both pre- and post-treatment assessments of language and psychosocial well-being were administered including: the Western Aphasia Battery- Revised, the Boston Naming Test-second edition, the Assessment for Living with Aphasia, and the Geriatric Depression Scale. Outcome data from the six ICAPs is currently being organized for analysis. Preliminary analyses will be presented. Significance: Evidence suggests that the therapeutic intensity and the holistic intervention approach offered by ICAPs are beneficial to improving quality of life and communicative rehabilitation for stroke survivors with aphasia. Future service delivery models should consider this multifaceted approach as well as ways to better support autonomy and sense of respect and dignity throughout therapy

Modification and preservation of environmental signals in speleothems

Speleothems are primarily studied in order to generate archives of climatic change and results have led to significant advances in identifying and dating major shifts in the climate system. However, the climatological meaning of many speleothem records cannot be interpreted unequivocally; this is particularly so for more subtle shifts and shorter time periods, but the use of multiple proxies and improving understanding of formation mechanisms offers a clear way forward. An explicit description of speleothem records as time series draws attention to the nature and importance of the signal filtering processes by which the weather, the seasons and longer-term climatic and other environmental fluctuations become encoded in speleothems. We distinguish five sources of variation that influence speleothem geochemistry: atmospheric, vegetation/soil, karstic aquifer, primary speleothem crystal growth and secondary alteration and give specific examples of their influence. The direct role of climate diminishes progressively through these five factors. \ud \ud We identify and review a number of processes identified in recent and current work that bear significantly on the conventional interpretation of speleothem records, for example: \ud \ud 1) speleothem geochemistry can vary seasonally and hence a research need is to establish the proportion of growth attributable to different seasons and whether this varies over time. \ud \ud 2) whereas there has traditionally been a focus on monthly mean Ã�´18O data of atmospheric moisture, current work emphasizes the importance of understanding the synoptic processes that lead to characteristic isotope signals, since changing relative abundance of different weather types might 1Corresponding author, fax +44(0)1214145528, E-mail: [email protected] control their variation on the longer-term. \ud \ud 3) the ecosystem and soil zone overlying the cave fundamentally imprint the carbon and trace element signals and can show characteristic variations with time. \ud \ud 4) new modelling on aquifer plumbing allows quantification of the effects of aquifer mixing. \ud \ud 5) recent work has emphasized the importance and seasonal variability of CO2-degassing leading to calcite precipitation upflow of a depositional site on carbon isotope and trace element composition of speleothems. \ud \ud 6) Although much is known about the chemical partitioning between water and stalagmites, variability in relation to crystal growth mechanisms and kinetics is a research frontier. \ud \ud 7) Aragonite is susceptible to conversion to calcite with major loss of chemical information, but the controls on the rate of this process are obscure. \ud \ud Analytical factors are critical to generate high-resolution speleothem records. A variety of methods of trace element analysis are available, but standardization is a common problem with the most rapid methods. New stable isotope data on Irish stalagmite CC3 compares rapid laser-ablation techniques with the conventional analysis of micromilled powders and ion microprobe methods. A high degree of comparability between techniques for Ã�´18O is found on the mm-cm scale, but a previously described high-amplitude oxygen isotope excursion around 8.3 ka is identified as an analytical artefact related to fractionation of the laser-analysis associated with sample cracking. High-frequency variability of not less than 0.5o/oo may be an inherent feature of speleothem Ã�´18O records

First measurement of the left-right charge asymmetry in hadronic Z boson decays and a new determination of sin**2 theta(W)(eff)

We present the first measurement of the left-right charge asymmetry A_Q^{obs} in hadronic Z boson decays. This was performed at E_cm = 91.27 GeV with the SLD at the SLAC Linear Collider with a polarized electron beam. Using 89838 events, we obtain A_Q^{obs}=0.225+-0.056+-0.019 which leads to a measurement of the electron left-right asymmetry parameter, A_e=0.162+-0.041+-0.014, and sin^2(theta_eff)=0.2297+-0.0052 +-0.0018. Also, the A_Q^{obs} measurement combined with the left-right cross section asymmetry determines A_e independently of the value of the electron-beam polarization.Comment: 14 pages, RevTeX document with 1 eps (included) figure. Also available in gzip-compressed postscript form (64 Kb) at ftp://ftp.slac.stanford.edu/users/morris/qlr_preprint.ps.gz and /afs/slac.stanford.edu/public/users/morris/qlr_preprint.ps.gz. Uncompressed postscript file (244 Kb) available to DECNET users as SLC: :USER_DISK_SLC1:[MORRIS]qlr_preprint.p