Reducing the Emotionality of Auditory Hallucination Memories in Patients Suffering From Auditory Hallucinations

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy targets emotionally disturbing visual memories of traumatic life events, and may be deployed as an efficacious treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder. A key element of EMDR therapy is recalling an emotionally disturbing visual memory while simultaneously performing a dual task. Previous studies have shown that auditory emotional memories may also become less emotional as a consequence of dual tasking. This is potentially beneficial for psychotic patients suffering from disturbing emotional auditory memories of auditory hallucinations. The present study examined whether and to what extent emotionality of auditory hallucination memories could be reduced by dual tasking. The study also assessed whether a modality matching dual task (recall + auditory taxation) could be more effective than a cross modal dual task (recall + visual taxation). Thirty-six patients suffering from auditory hallucinations were asked to recall an emotionally disturbing auditory memory related to an auditory hallucination, to rate emotionality of the memory, and to recall it under three conditions: two active conditions, i.e., visual taxation (making eye-movements) or auditory taxation (counting aloud), and one control condition (staring at a non-moving dot) counterbalanced in order. Patients re-rated emotionality of the memory after each condition. Results show the memory emotionality of auditory hallucinations was reduced and the active conditions showed stronger effects than the control condition. No modality-specific effect was found: the active conditions had an equal effect

Reducing the Emotionality of Auditory Hallucination Memories in Patients Suffering From Auditory Hallucinations

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy targets emotionally disturbing visual memories of traumatic life events, and may be deployed as an efficacious treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder. A key element of EMDR therapy is recalling an emotionally disturbing visual memory while simultaneously performing a dual task. Previous studies have shown that auditory emotional memories may also become less emotional as a consequence of dual tasking. This is potentially beneficial for psychotic patients suffering from disturbing emotional auditory memories of auditory hallucinations. The present study examined whether and to what extent emotionality of auditory hallucination memories could be reduced by dual tasking. The study also assessed whether a modality matching dual task (recall + auditory taxation) could be more effective than a cross modal dual task (recall + visual taxation). Thirty-six patients suffering from auditory hallucinations were asked to recall an emotionally disturbing auditory memory related to an auditory hallucination, to rate emotionality of the memory, and to recall it under three conditions: two active conditions, i.e., visual taxation (making eye-movements) or auditory taxation (counting aloud), and one control condition (staring at a non-moving dot) counterbalanced in order. Patients re-rated emotionality of the memory after each condition. Results show the memory emotionality of auditory hallucinations was reduced and the active conditions showed stronger effects than the control condition. No modality-specific effect was found: the active conditions had an equal effect

Genetic disorders and dual diagnosis: Building clinical management on etiology and neurocognition

Item does not contain fulltextMajor advances have been made in the identification of genetic neurodevelopmental disorders and psychological (dis)functioning among persons with intellectual disabilities. This chapter first provides an overview of developments on the topic. Thereafter, our preference to study "dual diagnosis" from a neuropsychological perspective is described, building upon the increasing opportunities in genetic testing and beyond classificatory diagnosis of psychiatric conditions (e.g., DSM, ICD) in genetic neurodevelopmental disorders. This implies a multimethod assessment of cognitive functioning and understanding behavior from a contextual perspective, across the life span. Applying this neuropsychological clinical research strategy provides opportunities for developing and implementing (multidisciplinary) treatment strategies, as is shown in the syndrome descriptions in Chap. 4. Common conditions such as Fragile X syndrome and Noonan syndrome are reviewed as well as several rare genetic syndromes (e.g., Kleefstra syndrome, KBG syndrome, and Phelan-McDermid syndrome) with typically co-occurring mental health disorders and/or challenging behaviors. Special attention is paid to Prader-Willi syndrome, because it typically illustrates the complex interplay of the syndrome-bound phenomena and the great benefits of interdisciplinary study thereof. Resulting clinical strategies that may emerge from the advocated genetic neuropsychological paradigm are shortly addressed, including future vistas on this dynamic and rapidly developing field

ERASE screening instrument for elder abuse: Prevalence of elder abuse and positive predictive value ERASE

A prospective study design to investigate the prevalence of elder abuse and the positive predictive value of ERASE (screening instrument)

Established rheumatoid arthritis: clinical assessments.

Contains fulltext : 52026.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)Clinical assessment of established rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can have several purposes. It can be used to evaluate prognosis, disease course or interventions at both the individual and the group level (i.e. in a clinical trial), over the short or long term. The instruments used for the different purposes are not always the same. For example, information on prognosis is very useful when assessing the risk:benefit ratio of early aggressive pharmacotherapy; however, established prognostic factors are currently of limited use in individual patients with established RA. As, at the individual patient level, disease activity, disability and joint damage have variable courses, the course of the disease should be evaluated regularly both with process (i.e. erythrocyte sedimentation rate, joint counts) and with outcome (i.e. radiological progression, sum of past process) measures. For the evaluation of interventions, 'core sets' of valid measures to assess disease activity, outcome and specific criteria for improvement are used; these can, to some extent, be useful in clinical practice