A Review of the Literature on HIV and Neuropsychological Functioning in Older Adults: Is More Research Needed?

The increase in the number of ageing people living with HIV and the documented neurocognitive impairments have highlighted the need to illuminate the existing findings and evaluate the impact that HIV has on older individuals. A review of the evidence for neuropsychological declines in memory, executive functions, attention and language in people aged 60 years or more was conducted. The databases MEDLINE, PsychINFO and Pubmed were searched for eligible studies based on keywords. Eight studies of low to high quality that looked at HIV+ older adults (≥ 60) were identified. The majority of older HIV+ adults experienced severe declines in all the cognitive domains under study. There were mixed results regarding the association among advancing age, functioning decline and HIV. Comparisons between HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected older adults showed that HIV+ subjects demonstrate higher scores of cognitive decline in memory, attention, language and executive functions. Further, comparisons among HIV+ adults, demographically matched individuals with mild cognitive impairment of the Alzheimer's type and healthy controls demonstrated that both disease groups perform worse, but the Alzheimer’s type group reports a greater decline in memory and language. Neuropsychological functioning in HIV+ adults presents great decline but studies on this population are limited. As individuals with HIV are increasingly living longer, studies should pay attention to these individuals and examine predictors of neuropsychological decline in the face of well-controlled interventions and treatments. Keywords: HIV, memory, neuropsychological function, executive functions, older adult

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DYSLEXIC STUDENTS AND CONTROLS MATCHED FOR EDUCATIONAL LEVEL IN WORD INTELLIGIBILITY AND TEXT COMPREHENSION PRESENTED VIA SYNTHETIC AND NATURAL SPEECH

This study investigated intelligibility and text comprehension for natural and synthetic speech held by a group of dyslexic students and their controls matched for educational level-school grade. Results have shown that both groups identified words and sentences better in natural speech. Dyslexic students however had shown worst performance in synthetic speech than controls. Overall, a significant difference has been observed between the two groups concerning their text comprehension in natural versus synthetic speech.  Article visualizations

Perception of Symmetries in Drawings of Graphs

Symmetry is an important factor in human perception in general, as well as in the visualization of graphs in particular. There are three main types of symmetry: reflective, translational, and rotational. We report the results of a human subjects experiment to determine what types of symmetries are more salient in drawings of graphs. We found statistically significant evidence that vertical reflective symmetry is the most dominant (when selecting among vertical reflective, horizontal reflective, and translational). We also found statistically significant evidence that rotational symmetry is affected by the number of radial axes (the more, the better), with a notable exception at four axes.Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 26th International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2018

The My Active and Healthy Aging (My-AHA) ICT platform to detect and prevent frailty in older adults: Randomized control trial design and protocol

[EN] Introduction Frailty increases the risk of poor health outcomes, disability, hospitalization, and death in older adults and affects 7%¿12% of the aging population. Secondary impacts of frailty on psychological health and socialization are significant negative contributors to poor outcomes for frail older adults. Method The My Active and Healthy Aging (My-AHA) consortium has developed an information and communications technology¿based platform to support active and healthy aging through early detection of prefrailty and provision of individually tailored interventions, targeting multidomain risks for frailty across physical activity, cognitive activity, diet and nutrition, sleep, and psychosocial activities. Six hundred adults aged 60 years and older will be recruited to participate in a multinational, multisite 18-month randomized controlled trial to test the efficacy of the My-AHA platform to detect prefrailty and the efficacy of individually tailored interventions to prevent development of clinical frailty in this cohort. A total of 10 centers from Italy, Germany, Austria, Spain, United Kingdom, Belgium, Sweden, Japan, South Korea, and Australia will participate in the randomized controlled trial. Results Pilot testing (Alpha Wave) of the My-AHA platform and all ancillary systems has been completed with a small group of older adults in Europe with the full randomized controlled trial scheduled to commence in 2018. Discussion The My-AHA study will expand the understanding of antecedent risk factors for clinical frailty so as to deliver targeted interventions to adults with prefrailty. Through the use of an information and communications technology platform that can connect with multiple devices within the older adult's own home, the My-AHA platform is designed to measure an individual's risk factors for frailty across multiple domains and then deliver personalized domain-specific interventions to the individual. The My-AHA platform is technology-agnostic, enabling the integration of new devices and sensor platforms as they emerge.This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 689582 and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHRMC) European Union grant scheme (1115818). M.J.S. reports personal fees from Eli Lilly (Australia) Pty Ltd and grants from Novotech Pty Ltd, outside the submitted work. All other authors report nothing to disclose.Summers, MJ.; Rainero, I.; Vercelli, AE.; Aumayr, GA.; De Rosario Martínez, H.; Mönter, M.; Kawashima, R. (2018). 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Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 41(3), 283-296. doi:10.1111/j.1532-5415.1993.tb06707.xShamliyan, T., Talley, K. M. C., Ramakrishnan, R., & Kane, R. L. (2013). Association of frailty with survival: A systematic literature review. Ageing Research Reviews, 12(2), 719-736. doi:10.1016/j.arr.2012.03.001Woodhouse, K. W., & O’Mahony, M. S. (1997). Frailty and ageing. Age and Ageing, 26(4), 245-246. doi:10.1093/ageing/26.4.245CAMPBELL, A. J., & BUCHNER, D. M. (1997). Unstable disability and the fluctuations of frailty. Age and Ageing, 26(4), 315-318. doi:10.1093/ageing/26.4.315Drey, M., Pfeifer, K., Sieber, C. C., & Bauer, J. M. (2011). The Fried Frailty Criteria as Inclusion Criteria for a Randomized Controlled Trial: Personal Experience and Literature Review. Gerontology, 57(1), 11-18. doi:10.1159/000313433Albert, M. S., DeKosky, S. T., Dickson, D., Dubois, B., Feldman, H. H., Fox, N. C., … Phelps, C. H. (2011). The diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease: Recommendations from the National Institute on Aging-Alzheimer’s Association workgroups on diagnostic guidelines for Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s & Dementia, 7(3), 270-279. doi:10.1016/j.jalz.2011.03.008Petersen, R. C., Smith, G. E., Waring, S. C., Ivnik, R. J., Tangalos, E. G., & Kokmen, E. (1999). Mild Cognitive Impairment. Archives of Neurology, 56(3), 303. doi:10.1001/archneur.56.3.303Winblad, B., Palmer, K., Kivipelto, M., Jelic, V., Fratiglioni, L., Wahlund, L.-O., … Petersen, R. C. (2004). Mild cognitive impairment - beyond controversies, towards a consensus: report of the International Working Group on Mild Cognitive Impairment. Journal of Internal Medicine, 256(3), 240-246. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2796.2004.01380.xDubois, B., Hampel, H., Feldman, H. H., Scheltens, P., Aisen, P., … Andrieu, S. (2016). Preclinical Alzheimer’s disease: Definition, natural history, and diagnostic criteria. 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A Short Physical Performance Battery Assessing Lower Extremity Function: Association With Self-Reported Disability and Prediction of Mortality and Nursing Home Admission. Journal of Gerontology, 49(2), M85-M94. doi:10.1093/geronj/49.2.m85Powell, L. E., & Myers, A. M. (1995). The Activities-specific Balance Confidence (ABC) Scale. The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 50A(1), M28-M34. doi:10.1093/gerona/50a.1.m28Kendzierski, D., & DeCarlo, K. J. (1991). Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale: Two Validation Studies. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 13(1), 50-64. doi:10.1123/jsep.13.1.50Folstein, M. F., Folstein, S. E., & McHugh, P. R. (1975). «Mini-mental state». Journal of Psychiatric Research, 12(3), 189-198. doi:10.1016/0022-3956(75)90026-6Brandt, J. (1991). The hopkins verbal learning test: Development of a new memory test with six equivalent forms. Clinical Neuropsychologist, 5(2), 125-142. doi:10.1080/13854049108403297Lubben, J. E. 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Predictors of 1-year compliance with adaptive servoventilation in patients with heart failure and sleep disordered breathing: preliminary data from the ADVENT-HF trial

Despite its effectiveness in suppressing sleep disordered breathing (SDB), positive airway pressure therapy (PAP) is not always well tolerated by patients and long-term adherence can be problematic. Recently, two multicentre, randomised clinical trials (RCTs) tested the effects of PAP for patients with cardiovascular disease and co-existing SDB on morbidity and mortality with negative outcomes [1, 2]. Relatively poor adherence to PAP therapy (mean 3.7 and 3.3 h·day-1, respectively) in these two trials might have contributed to their poor results. Indeed, higher PAP use per day is associated with better clinical outcomes than lower use [3]

INVESTIGATING THE RELATIONSHIP AMONG MENTAL RESILIENCE, CULTURE SELF-ESTEEM AND SELF-EFFICACY FOR PEER INTERACTION OF STUDENTS WITH AND WITHOUT MILD SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS

This study investigated the relationship between mental resilience, culture free self-esteem and self-efficacy for peer interactions in students with and without mild special educational needs. Results have shown that students with mild special educational needs had scored significantly lower mean values for mental resilience, culture free self-esteem and self-efficacy for peer interactions than their control counterparts did. For the group of students with mild special educational needs the internal factors of mental resilience and their self-efficacy for peer interactions interpreted the external factors of their mental resilience at 52% whereas for the control group it was the mental resilience as an overall score and their general self-esteem that interpreted the self-efficacy for peer interactions at 24%.  Article visualizations

The development of reading and spelling in Greek preschool and primary school children

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN030288 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo