Comparing methods for assessment of facial dynamics in patients with major neurocognitive disorders

International audienceAssessing facial dynamics in patients with major neurocogni-tive disorders and specifically with Alzheimers disease (AD) has shown to be highly challenging. Classically such assessment is performed by clinical staff, evaluating verbal and non-verbal language of AD-patients, since they have lost a substantial amount of their cognitive capacity, and hence communication ability. In addition, patients need to communicate important messages, such as discomfort or pain. Automated methods would support the current healthcare system by allowing for telemedicine, i.e., lesser costly and logistically inconvenient examination. In this work we compare methods for assessing facial dynamics such as talking, singing, neutral and smiling in AD-patients, captured during music mnemotherapy sessions. Specifically, we compare 3D Con-vNets, Very Deep Neural Network based Two-Stream ConvNets, as well as Improved Dense Trajectories. We have adapted these methods from prominent action recognition methods and our promising results suggest that the methods generalize well to the context of facial dynamics. The Two-Stream ConvNets in combination with ResNet-152 obtains the best performance on our dataset, capturing well even minor facial dynamics and has thus sparked high interest in the medical community

Validity of Type D personality in Iceland: association with disease severity and risk markers in cardiac patients

Type D personality has been associated with poor prognosis in cardiac patients. This study investigated the validity of the Type D construct in Iceland and its association with disease severity and health-related risk markers in cardiac patients. A sample of 1,452 cardiac patients completed the Type D scale (DS14), and a subgroup of 161 patients completed measurements for the five-factor model of personality, emotional control, anxiety, depression, stress and lifestyle factors. The Icelandic DS14 had good psychometric properties and its construct validity was confirmed. Prevalence of Type D was 26–29%, and assessment of Type D personality was not confounded by severity of underlying coronary artery disease. Regarding risk markers, Type D patients reported more psychopharmacological medication use and smoking, but frequency of previous mental problems was similar across groups. Type D is a valid personality construct in Iceland, and is associated with health-related risk markers, but not cardiac disease severity

Music Therapy in Moderate and Severe Dementia of Alzheimer\u27s Type: A Case-control Study

BACKGROUND: Music therapy is a potential non-pharmacological treatment for the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, but although some studies have found it to be helpful, most are small and uncontrolled. METHODS: This case-control study was carried out by qualified music therapists in two nursing homes and two psychogeriatric wards. The participants were 38 patients with moderate or severe Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) assigned randomly to a music therapy group and a control group. RESULTS: The study showed a significant reduction in activity disturbances in the music therapy group during a 6-week period measured with the Behavior Pathology in Alzheimer\u27s Disease Rating Scale (BEHAVE-AD). There was also a significant reduction in the sum of scores of activity disturbances, aggressiveness and anxiety. Other symptoms rated by subscales of the BEHAVE-AD did not decrease significantly. Four weeks later the effects had mostly disappeared. CONCLUSIONS: Music therapy is a safe and effective method for treating agitation and anxiety in moderately severe and severe AD. This is in line with the results of some non-controlled studies on music therapy in dementia