Normative data for the Brazilian population in the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination: influence of schooling

In Neurolinguistics, the use of diagnostic tests developed in other countries can create difficulties in the interpretation of results due to cultural, demographic and linguistic differences. In a country such as Brazil, with great social contrasts, schooling exerts a powerful influence on the abilities of normal individuals. The objective of the present study was to identify the influence of schooling on the performance of normal Brazilian individuals in the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE), in order to obtain reference values for the Brazilian population. We studied 107 normal subjects ranging in age from 15 to 84 years (mean ± SD = 47.2 ± 17.6 years), with educational level ranging from 1 to 24 years (9.9 ± 4.8 years). Subjects were compared for scores obtained in the 28 subtests of the BDAE after being divided into groups according to age (15 to 30, N = 24, 31 to 50, N = 33 and 51 years or more, N = 50) and education (1 to 4, N = 26, 5 to 8, N = 17 and 9 years or more, N = 61). Subjects with 4 years or less of education performed poorer in Word Discrimination, Visual Confrontation Naming, Reading of Sentences and Paragraphs, and Primer-Level Dictation (P < 0.05). When breakdown by schooling was 8 years or less, subjects performed poorer in all subtests (P < 0.05), except Responsive Naming, Word Recognition and Word-Picture Matching. The elderly performed poorer (P < 0.05) in Complex Ideational Material, Visual Confrontation Naming, Comprehension of Oral Spelling, Written Confrontation Naming, and Sentences to Dictation. We present the reference values for the cut-off scores according to educational level

A study of the abilities in oral language comprehension of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination - Portuguese version: a reference guide for the Brazilian population

We analyzed the performance of 162 normal subjects, subdivided into groups according to age and schooling, in the oral comprehension tasks of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination translated and adapted to Brazilian Portuguese to obtain a profile of performance for the Brazilian population, as well as cut-off scores for each task, and to determine the best combination of tasks that distinguish normal from aphasic subjects, as a guide for clinicians. The normal subjects were compared to 69 aphasics. Age alone influenced the performance in the designation of actions (subjects above 70 years showing the worst performance); schooling alone influenced the comprehension of forms, colors and numbers (subjects with less than four years of education showing a poorer performance). Both age and schooling influenced the performance in Body Part Identification (BPI) and Complex Ideational Material (CIM) with mean values of 70.5 ± 3.3 (Word Discrimination, WD), 18.9 ± 1.4 (BPI), 14.7 ± 0.9 (Commands), and 10.3 ± 1.7 (CIM) for the whole sample; the cut-off scores obtained were 65 (WD), 17.5 (BPI), 14 (Commands), and 9.5 (CIM) for the whole sample. Logistic regression showed that the combination of BPI + Commands + CIM was the most efficient in differentiating normal subjects from aphasics, with 72.5% sensitivity and 97.6% specificity. However, for low-education subjects, BPI and Commands were sufficient for this differentiation (75.7% sensitivity and 84.7% specificity). The main contribution of this study was to provide reference values that are far more representative of our population to be used by health professionals in Brazil, taking into account cultural differences

Fusion-relevant basic radiation effects: theory and experiment

A summary is given of results of the basic radiation effects program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which are relevant to fusion reactor materials applications. The basic radiation effects program at ORNL is a large effort with the dual objectives of understanding the atomic and microstructural defect mechanisms underlying radiation effects and of determining principles for the design of radiation resistant materials. A strength of this effort is the parallel and integrated experimental and theoretical approaches in each major research area. The experimental effort is active in electron microscopy, ion irradiations and ion-beam techniques, neutron irradiations, surface analysis and in other areas. The theoretical effort is active in developing the theory of radiation effects for a broad range of phenomena and in applying it to the design and interpretation of experiments and to alloy design

Performance of the visual analogue scale of happiness and of the Cornell scale for depression in dementia in the tremembé epidemiological study, Brazil [Desempenho Na Escala Analógica Visual De Felicidade E Na Escala Cornell De Depressão Em Demência No Estudo Epidemiológico De Tremembé, Brasil]

Made available in DSpace on 2019-09-12T16:26:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2014Depression is a major growing public health problem. Many population studies have found a significant relationship between depression and the presence of cognitive disorders. Objective: To establish the correlation between the Visual Analogue Scale of Happiness and the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia in the population aged 60 years or over in the city of Tremembé, state of São Paulo, Brazil. Methods: An epidemiological survey involving home visits was carried out in the city of Tremembé. The sample was randomly selected by drawing 20% of the population aged 60 years or older from each of the city’s census sectors. In this single-phase study, the assessment included clinical history, physical and neurological examination, cognitive evaluation, and application of both the Cornell Scale and the Analogue Scale of Happiness for psychiatric symptoms. The presence of depressive symptoms was defined as scores greater than or equal to 8 points on the Cornell Scale. Results: A total of 623 subjects were evaluated and of these 251 (40.3%) had clinically significant depressive symptoms on the Cornell Scale, with a significant association with female gender (p<0.001) and with lower education (p=0.012). One hundred and thirty-six participants (21.8%) chose the unhappiness faces, with a significant association with age (p<0.001), female gender (p=0.020) and low socioeconomic status (p=0.012). Although there was a statistically significant association on the correlation test, the correlation was not high (rho=0.47).  Conclusion: The prevalence of depressive symptoms was high in this sample and the Visual Analogue Scale of Happiness and Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia should not be used as similar alternatives for evaluating the presence of depressive symptoms, at least in populations with low educational level. © 2014, Academia Brasileira de Neurologia. All rights reserved.César, K.G., Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, Brazil, University of Taubaté, BrazilBrucki, S.M., Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilTakada, L.T., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilNascimento, L.F.C., University of Taubaté, BrazilGomes, C.M., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilAlmeida, M.C., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilOliveira, M.O., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilPorto, F.H., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilSenaha, M.L., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilBahia, V.S., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilSilva, T.B.L., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilIanof, J.N., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilSpíndola, L., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilSchmidt, M.T., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilJorge, M.S., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilVale, P.H., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilCecchini, M.A., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilCassimiro, L., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilSoares, R.T., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilGonçalves, M.R., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilSmid, J., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilPorto, C.S., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilCarthery-Goulart, M.T., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilYassuda, M.S., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilMansur, L.L., Epidemiologic Study (TES) Group, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, BrazilNitrini, R., University of São Paulo Medical School, Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology Unit, Department of Neurology, University of São Paulo, Brazi