Prevalence and factors associated with the use of alternative (folk) medicine practitioners in 8 countries of the former Soviet Union.

BACKGROUND: Research suggests that since the collapse of the Soviet Union there has been a sharp growth in the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in some former Soviet countries. However, as yet, comparatively little is known about the use of CAM in the countries throughout this region. Against this background, the aim of the current study was to determine the prevalence of using alternative (folk) medicine practitioners in eight countries of the former Soviet Union (fSU) and to examine factors associated with their use. METHODS: Data were obtained from the Living Conditions, Lifestyles and Health (LLH) survey undertaken in eight former Soviet countries (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine) in 2001. In this nationally representative cross-sectional survey, 18428 respondents were asked about how they treated 10 symptoms, with options including the use of alternative (folk) medicine practitioners. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine the factors associated with the treatment of differing symptoms by such practitioners in these countries. RESULTS: The prevalence of using an alternative (folk) medicine practitioner for symptom treatment varied widely between countries, ranging from 3.5% in Armenia to 25.0% in Kyrgyzstan. For nearly every symptom, respondents living in rural locations were more likely to use an alternative (folk) medicine practitioner than urban residents. Greater wealth was also associated with using these practitioners, while distrust of doctors played a role in the treatment of some symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: The widespread use of alternative (folk) medicine practitioners in some fSU countries and the growth of this form of health care provision in the post-Soviet period in conditions of variable licensing and regulation, highlights the urgent need for more research on this phenomenon and its potential effects on population health in the countries in this region

Inquiries and Analyses of Mass Media Influences on Cross-Cultural Social and Political Perceptions

This thesis investigates the various implications that mass media has on social perceptions and political relations between nations, and the effects that traveling abroad can have cross-cultural relationships. These topics are discussed and compared against current theories and arguments, as well against this study's survey results from over four hundred university students from over 50 countries. The findings suggest that the time a person spends getting the news, as well as the sources, are very influential in how we perceive those not of our home countries. The findings suggest that American media, in particular, is very biased especially in regards to coverage of sensitive current events, like the war in Iraq. Furthermore, the study shows that worthwhile travels abroad are beneficial in breaking-down cross-cultural stereotypes that biased media creates.International Studie

Concert recording 2022-04-22

[Track 1]. Quartet in F, KV 370. I. Allegro ; II. Adagio ; III. Rondeau / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart -- [Track 2]. Oblivion / Astor Piazzolla -- [Track 3]. Fantaisie-tango for solo oboe d\u27Amore / Mathieu Lussier -- [Track 4]. Poem / Marina Dranishnikova -- [Track 5]. L\u27horloge de flore (Flower clock), IV. 3 Heures, Galant de jour ; V. 5 Heures, Cupidon bleu ; VI. 10 Heures, Cierge à grande fleurs ; VII. 12 Heures, Nyctanthe du Malabar ; VIII. 17 Heures, Belle de nuit ; IX. 19 Heures, Geranium triste ; X. 21 Heures, Silène noctiflore / Jean Françaix

Concert recording 2022-04-22

[Track 1]. Quartet in F, KV 370. I. Allegro ; II. Adagio ; III. Rondeau / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart -- [Track 2]. Oblivion / Astor Piazzolla -- [Track 3]. Fantaisie-tango for solo oboe d\u27Amore / Mathieu Lussier -- [Track 4]. Poem / Marina Dranishnikova -- [Track 5]. L\u27horloge de flore (Flower clock), IV. 3 Heures, Galant de jour ; V. 5 Heures, Cupidon bleu ; VI. 10 Heures, Cierge à grande fleurs ; VII. 12 Heures, Nyctanthe du Malabar ; VIII. 17 Heures, Belle de nuit ; IX. 19 Heures, Geranium triste ; X. 21 Heures, Silène noctiflore / Jean Françaix

Older Adults' Views on Genetic Testing

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145710/1/NPHA_Genetic-Testing-Report_092518-FINAL.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145710/2/13_October-2018-Genetic-Testing-Report-Qs_092018.pd

Driving Simulator Performance Across the Lifespan: A Preliminary Study

OBJECTIVES Normal aging is associated with decline in abilities that may put an individual at increased riskfor a crash. Older individuals may have slowed processing speed and motor responses, a reduceduseful field of view (Ball et al., 1988), and greater difficulty with mental rotation (Armstrong etal., 1998). Although collision rates increase with age (Transportation Research Board, 1988), ithas been argued that specific age-related functional impairments, and not age itself, put one atrisk (Ball & Owsley, 2003). The goal of this study was to examine the relationship betweenaging and performance on driving simulations assessing specific components of driving—accident avoidance, divided attention, and navigation—and the degree to which they predict onroaddriving performance.METHODSForty control drivers (age 22 to 84; \u3c 50 yo, n = 14; 50-70 yo, n = 13; and \u3e 70 yo, n = 13)completed 3 simulations and an on-road driving evaluation. Exclusion criteria includedneurologic confounds, substance use and psychiatric disorders, as well as abnormalneuropsychological performance (based upon demographically-corrected norms). Thesimulations were presented on a Pentium III PC computer using a 17” monitor at 1280 x 1024resolution, and running STISIM Drive version 2.0 software (Systems Technology, Inc.;Hawthorne, CA). Hardware included a steering wheel, turn signal, and brake/accelerator pedals.The simulations consisted of 1) Advanced Routine and Emergency Driving (ARED), a 15-minute route simulating city/country driving, in which drivers must obey traffic signs, pass cars,and respond to high-risk crash scenarios; 2) Virtual City (VC), in which drivers must navigate toand from a location in a 5 x 5 block simulated city, and 3) Divided Attention, in which driversare to maintain a constant speed and lane position while responding to divided attention tasks inthe corner of the monitor. Participants also completed a 35-minute on-road assessment. Lastly,participants were assessed on a battery of neuropsychological tests. Earlier versions of thesimulations were predictive of on-road driving performance in an HIV-infected cohort (Marcotteet al., 2004). RESULTSThe three groups performed similarly on ARED (crashes, speeding tickets), as well as on the VCtask when the map was oriented to the same direction as the participant. On the other hand, olderparticipants had significantly more difficulty navigating when their orientation on the map wasreversed (e.g., the \u3c 50 group took 1.2 blocks beyond optimum to return from the destination; the50-70 and \u3e 70 years old groups took approximately 7.5 blocks). The three groups performedsimilarly with respect to lane deviation on the Divided Attention task, but the older groups hadincreased variability in speed maintenance, and the oldest group failed to respond to a greaternumber of divided attention stimuli (\u3c 50 yo = .3 (.83), 50-70 yo = 1.0 (1.3), \u3e 70 yo = 3.6 (2.7)).Although only one participant failed the on-road drive (50-70 yo), the percent of driversconsidered marginal or worse increased with age (7% vs. 25% vs. 55%). In a logistic regression,the simulator variables that best discriminated safe vs. marginal on-road came from the DividedAttention task: the number of missed stimuli and speed deviation, both of which require an intactuseful field of view and the shifting of gaze away from the roadway. Age did not enter into amodel that included these variables.CONCLUSIONSIn this study of normal, healthy controls, older participants drove similarly to young-to-middleaged participants on a simulation that most closely approximated real driving. Consistent withcognitive declines seen in normal aging, older participants had greater difficulty on a taskrequiring navigating when map orientation was reversed (perhaps indicative of impairedegocentric spatial abilities), as well as on a measure of driving-related divided attention, witholder participants appearing to allocate more attention to the roadway at the cost of attending andresponding to peripheral cues. Although older drivers had more difficulty during the on-road test,these difficulties were a function of deficits in the ability to divide attention efficiently, ratherthan aging per se.REFERENCESArmstrong, C.L., & Cloud, B. (1998). The emergence of spatial rotation deficits in dementia andnormal aging. Neuropsychology, 12(2), 208-217.Ball, K.K., Beard, B.L., Roenker, D.L., Miller, R.L., & Griggs, D.S. (1988). Age and visualsearch: Expanding the useful field of view. J Opt Soc Am A, 5(12), 2210-2219.Ball, K., & Owsley, C. (2003). Driving competence: It\u27s not a matter of age. J Am Geriatr Soc,51(10), 1499-1501.Marcotte, T.D., Wolfson, T., Rosenthal, T.J., Heaton, R.K., Gonzalez, R., Ellis, R.J., et al.(2004). A multimodal assessment of driving performance in HIV infection. Neurology, 63(8),1417-1422.Transportation Research Board. (1988). Transportation in an Aging Society, Vol 1. Washington,D.C.: National Research Council

Test-Retest Reliability of Standard Deviation of Lane Position as Assessed on a PC-Based Driving Simulator

Driving is an everyday activity that is commonly affected by neurologic disorders and medical treatments. A frequently used metric for assessing driving ability is the standard deviation of lane position (SDLP), or the amount that subjects “swerve” within their driving lane. This measurement has been used with individuals under the influence of alcohol, illicit drugs, and prescribed medications in both on-road and simulator studies. Although good test-retest reliability is critical if one is to measure change in individuals over time, there is surprisingly limited data regarding the test-retest reliability of SDLP. Objective. To examine the test-retest reliability of SDLP in subjects tested at (1) a 3-month retest interval (a time frame common to clinical trials), and (2) a year or longer retest interval (a time period over which one might track changes in neurologic patients. Methods. Group 1 completed retesting an average of 84 (s.d. = 8.1) days after their initial simulator assessment. Both HIV negative (HIV-; n = 16) and positive (HIV+; n = 13) subjects were included to explore short-term reliability in control and mildly ill patient groups. All HIV+ subjects were medically asymptomatic, and unlikely to experience HIV-related changes over this interval. Two HIV+ subjects were neuropsychologically (NP) impaired. Group 2 (n = 31), a different cohort, was retested an average of 19.8 (8.3) months after baseline. All subjects completed NP evaluations at baseline and follow-up, with NP status rated on a scale of 1 (above average) to 9 (severe impairment) by a clinician blinded to simulator performance. Twelve subjects (39%) were NP impaired. In order to examine reliability in a stable neurologic cohort, all subjects were selected because they remained at the same level of NP functioning at follow-up. SDLP was assessed in both groups using an interactive PC-based driving simulator that consisted of a monitor, steering wheel, and brake/accelerator pedals. Participants were required to maintain lane position while holding a constant speed (55 mph) and responding to divided attention tasks in the corner of the monitor. Group 2 completed an existing, standardized scenario (TOPS), while Group 1 completed a newly developed driving scenario. Both simulations lasted approximately 7 minutes. Results. Combined reliability for Group 1 was .74. Test-retest reliability was .68 for the HIVand .83 for the HIV+ subjects. For Group 2, SDLP was significantly correlated with NP functioning at baseline (r = .5, p = .005) and follow-up (r = .48, p = .006), with impaired subjects evidencing a higher SDLP than NP normal subjects at both baseline (mean of 1.9 vs 1.2; p = .006) and follow-up (1.7 vs 1.1, p = .01). Combined test-retest reliability for Group 2 was .86. The NP normal group had a test-retest reliability of .74; test-retest reliability for the NP impaired group was .87. Conclusions. SDLP is a reliable measure for periods ranging from months to years when assessed in cognitively stable subjects. As such, this may serve as a useful tool in tracking the effects of neurologic disorders and pharmacologic treatments on driving abilities

Coming Together during COVID-19: A Mixed Methods Exploratory Study on Collective Efficacy in a State Developmental Disabilities Network

Background: Collective efficacy (CE) is a group’s shared belief that through their united efforts they can overcome challenges to achieve common goals (Bandura, 1993; 1997). CE has been shown to be related to professional growth, stress reduction, and overall collaborative impact in studies of groups responding to ongoing challenges as well as unforeseen circumstances (i.e. teachers, first-responders, and community responses to natural disasters) (Benight, 2004; Donohoo, 2016; Prati et al., 2011). COVID-19 has forced organizations serving individuals with disabilities to come together to adapt and change the ways in which they serve the disability community. Objective: This study examines reported attributes of CE as experienced by Arizona Developmental Disability Network (ADDN) members and their partners. This study respectively examines CE prior to COVID-19, currently, and predicted likelihood of CE attributes continuing in the future. Method: This mixed-method study involves data collected through a questionnaire and qualitative data collected through interviews with ADDN members and their partners. Results: The questionnaire results describe and compare the attributes of CE using sub-domains of social cohesion and trust, group competence, and enabling structures in three-time frames: prior to COVID-19, currently, and prediction of six months from now. The interviews provide narrative description of specific ADDN activities, roles, and perceptions; thus, adding a valuable dimension to interpreting the results. Conclusion: ADDN members and their partners have persisted and quickly adapted to COVID-19. These connections made during this time are likely to remain and help better serve Arizona’s disability community