The influence of pre- and post-test instruction on immediate recall of high and low valued letters

LD2668 .T4 1966 T6Master of Scienc

Prospective observational pilot study of young women undergoing initial breast cancer treatment and their biopsychosocial profile

Background: Breast cancer in young women can be a major challenge for those affected. To offer support, the establishment of a biopsychosocial profile may be beneficial. Methods: For this prospective observational pilot study, we collected data of 19 women with a mean age of 42.8 ± 5.4 years (30.0-49.0 year) before (T0) and after (T1) initial breast cancer treatment. The handgrip strength (HGS), 6-minute walk test (6MWT), and bioimpedance analysis for the detection of phase angle (PhA) and bioimpedance vector analysis (BIVA) were used. Assessments included the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast (FACT-B), and Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue (FACIT-F). Results: Women (age <50 years) with breast cancer showed impaired functional status (HGS, 6MWT, and PhA), abnormal physiologic findings (BIVA), decreased health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and cancer-related fatigue (CRF) after breast cancer diagnosis prior to the onset of cancer treatment with significant deterioration following cancer treatment. This was accompanied by a potentially higher risk of mortality and impaired function due to the prevalence of values below a critical threshold (PhA: T0 = 11%, T1 = 42%; HGS: T0 = 21%, T1 = 32%). In addition, there was evidence of anxiety (47%) and depression (32%) at T0. Conclusion: Routine assessment of biomarkers of physical function, mental health, HRQoL, and CRF may lead to individual risk stratification and multidisciplinary intervention in young patients with breast cancer, which could help to personalize and optimize survivorship care plans

Routine cancer treatments and their impact on physical function, symptoms of cancer-related fatigue, anxiety, and depression

Background and purpose. Breast cancer can be a major challenge for affected women. Knowledge of the physical function, symptoms of cancer-related fatigue, anxiety, and depression based on the cancer treatment may help to guide adequate support. Methods. For this prospective observational study, we collected data from seventy-nine women with a mean age 54.6 ± 9.5 years prior to the onset of breast cancer treatment (T0) and after (T1/T2). Handgrip strength test (HGS), six-minute walk test (6MWT), the phase angle (PhA), the hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS), and functional assessment of chronic illness therapy-fatigue (FACIT-F) were used to collect data from four treatment subgroups SC, surgery + chemotherapy; SCR, surgery + chemotherapy + radiation therapy; SR, surgery + radiation therapy; and S, surgery. Results. A mixed ANOVA revealed a significant interaction between time and group for PhA, F = 8.55, p < 0.01; HGS, F = 3.59, p < 0.01; 6MWT, F = 4.47, p < 0.01; and FACIT-F, F = 2.77, p < 0.05 with most pronounced deterioration seen in group SCR (PhA 4.8°; HGS 27.5 kg, 6MWT 453.4 m, FACIT-F 33.8 points). HADS data displayed moderate anxiety and depression predominantly after treatment. Conclusion. Our study showed that the extent of change in physical function, symptoms of fatigue, anxiety, and depression depends on the treatment conditions. The potentially higher risk of impaired function due to the prevalence of values below a critical threshold requires early initiated multidisciplinary support

Individual differences in cortisol stress response predict increases in voice pitch during exam stress

Despite a long history of empirical research, the potential vocal markers of stress remain unclear. Previous studies examining speech under stress most consistently report an increase in voice pitch (the acoustic correlate of fundamental frequency, F0), however numerous studies have failed to replicate this finding. In the present study we tested the prediction that these inconsistencies are tied to variation in the severity of the stress response, wherein voice changes may be observed predominantly among individuals who show a cortisol stress response (i.e., an increase in free cortisol levels) above a critical threshold. Voice recordings and saliva samples were collected from university psychology students at baseline and again immediately prior to an oral examination. Voice recordings included both read and spontaneous speech, from which we measured mean, minimum, maximum, and the standard deviation in F0. We observed an increase in mean and minimum F0 under stress in both read and spontaneous speech, whereas maximum F0 and its standard deviation showed no systematic changes under stress. Our results confirmed that free cortisol levels increased by an average of 74% (ranging from 0 to 270%) under stress. Critically, increases in cortisol concentrations significantly predicted increases in mean F0 under stress for both speech types, but did not predict variation in F0 at baseline. On average, stress induced increases in voice pitch occurred only when free cortisol levels more than doubled their baseline concentrations. Our results suggest that researchers examining speech under stress should control for individual differences in the magnitude of the stress response

Cancer treatment regimens and their impact on the patient-reported outcome measures health-related quality of life and perceived cognitive function

Background and purpose. Breast cancer can be a significant challenge for those affected. Knowledge of physical function, social-emotional challenges, and perceived cognitive function based on the cancer treatment regimens may help to inform adequate support. Methods. For this prospective observational pilot study, we collected data of seventy-nine women (mean age 54.6 ± 9.5 years) before (T0) and after (T1) initial breast cancer treatment. Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast (FACT-B) and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy–Cognitive-Function (FACT-Cog) were used to collect data of four treatment subgroups: SCR = Surgery + Chemotherapy + Radiation Therapy; SC = Surgery + Chemotherapy; SR = Surgery + Radiation Therapy; S = Surgery. A mixed ANOVA and posthoc analysis (Tukey, Games-Howell) were used to detect interactions (group by time) and the main effect. A repeated-measures ANOVA displayed individual group differences (time). Results. Significant interaction showed more deterioration was experienced with SC and SCR than SR and S for FACT-B (p < 0.01) and FACT-Cog (p < 0.001). The longitudinal comparison between T0 and T1 indicated a significant group main effect on all subscales (p < 0.001) except for Emotional Well-Being. Significant reductions (p < 0.05) in FACT-B, (− 19%); FACT-Cog, (− 21%) with most pronounced effect in Physical Well-Being (− 30%), Functional Well-Being (− 20%), Breast Cancer Subscale (− 20%), Perceived Cognitive Impairments (− 18%) and Impact of Cognitive Impairments on Quality of Life (− 39%) were detected for SCR. Conclusion. Our study showed that the extent of change in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and perceived cognitive function (PCF) depends on the treatment regimen. Multidisciplinary support initiated early in breast cancer therapy is needed, especially for women undergoing combined cancer treatment. Routine assessment of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in oncology practice may increase the transparency of patients’ perceived circumstances, leading to personalized and optimized acute and survivorship care

Detection of severe obstructive sleep apnea through voice analysis

tThis paper deals with the potential and limitations of using voice and speech processing to detect Obstruc-tive Sleep Apnea (OSA). An extensive body of voice features has been extracted from patients whopresent various degrees of OSA as well as healthy controls. We analyse the utility of a reduced set offeatures for detecting OSA. We apply various feature selection and reduction schemes (statistical rank-ing, Genetic Algorithms, PCA, LDA) and compare various classifiers (Bayesian Classifiers, kNN, SupportVector Machines, neural networks, Adaboost). S-fold crossvalidation performed on 248 subjects showsthat in the extreme cases (that is, 127 controls and 121 patients with severe OSA) voice alone is able todiscriminate quite well between the presence and absence of OSA. However, this is not the case withmild OSA and healthy snoring patients where voice seems to play a secondary role. We found that thebest classification schemes are achieved using a Genetic Algorithm for feature selection/reduction

Objective methods for reliable detection of concealed depression

Recent research has shown that it is possible to automatically detect clinical depression from audio-visual recordings. Before considering integration in a clinical pathway, a key question that must be asked is whether such systems can be easily fooled. This work explores the potential of acoustic features to detect clinical depression in adults both when acting normally and when asked to conceal their depression. Nine adults diagnosed with mild to moderate depression as per the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) were asked a series of questions and to read a excerpt from a novel aloud under two different experimental conditions. In one, participants were asked to act naturally and in the other, to suppress anything that they felt would be indicative of their depression. Acoustic features were then extracted from this data and analysed using paired t-tests to determine any statistically significant differences between healthy and depressed participants. Most features that were found to be significantly different during normal behaviour remained so during concealed behaviour. In leave-one-subject-out automatic classification studies of the 9 depressed subjects and 8 matched healthy controls, an 88% classification accuracy and 89% sensitivity was achieved. Results remained relatively robust during concealed behaviour, with classifiers trained on only non-concealed data achieving 81% detection accuracy and 75% sensitivity when tested on concealed data. These results indicate there is good potential to build deception-proof automatic depression monitoring systems

An examination of the language construct in NIMH's research domain criteria:Time for reconceptualization!

The National Institute of Mental Health’s Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Initiative “calls for the development of new ways of classifying psychopathology based on dimensions of observable behavior.” As aresult of this ambitious initiative, language has been identifi d as an independent construct in the RDoC matrix. In this article, we frame language within an evolutionary and neuro- psychological context and discuss some of the limitations to the current measurements of language. Findings from genomics and the neuroimaging of performance during language tasks are dis- cussed in relation to serious mental illness and within the context of caveats regarding measuring language. Indeed, the data collec- tion and analysis methods employed to assay language have been both aided and constrained by the available technologies, methodologies, and conceptual defi Consequently, differ- ent fields of language research show inconsistent defi s of language that have become increasingly broad over time. Individ- ually, they have also shown significant improvements in conceptual resolution, aswell as inexperimental and analytic techniques. More recently, language research has embraced collaborations across disciplines, notably neuroscience, cognitive science, and computa- tional linguistics and has ultimately re-defi classical ideas of language. As we move forward, the new models of language with their remarkably multifaceted constructs force a re-examination of the NIMH RDoC conceptualization of language and thus the neuroscience and genetics underlying this concept