Biomedical subjects

A C Coyne

Publications and source records attributed to A C Coyne.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1991

Information and referral service usage among caregivers for dementia patients.

Questionnaires were mailed to 257 callers of a toll-free telephone "helpline" specializing in Alzheimer's disease and related dementing illnesses; 125 (48.6%) were completed and returned. On the average, 3.94 requests for information were made per call. The most common requests concerned services delivered to the home, general information about dementia, information about adult day care, and support group information. Results indicated that a telephone-based information and referral helpline is useful in disseminating knowledge about resources to caregivers of older community-residing adults with cognitive impairment.

Adult↗

PubMed1979

Stimulus persistence and age.

Stimulus persistence theory states that the effects of stimulation are longer lasting in the nervous system of the old person than the younger one. This concept and its relation to perceptual functioning and age was examined via two perceptual aftereffect tasks, the Spiral and the Waterfall. Twenty-four elderly adults (mean age = 65.5) and twenty-four young adults (mean age = 24.8) were each exposed to both stimulus displays, at four exposure durations: 45, 60, 90, and 120 seconds. Following the offset of each display, the duration of any apparent motion aftereffect was recorded. Although on the basis of stimulus persistence theory it was expected that the elderly would exhibit longer mean aftereffects than the young, no support for this hypothesis was noted. Possible explanations of these results and their relation to previous findings, in terms of fatigue effects and sample characteristics, are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1978

Adult age differences in reflection-impulsivity.

Adult age differences in reflection-impulsivity were examined on a modified version of Kagan's adult Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFF). The sample consisted of 20 elderly adults (mean age = 70.6) and 20 young adults (mean age = 21.9), each of whom was administered the modified MFF by an adult examiner. On half of the 24 items, the original (i.e., the standard) was present among the four alternatives ("original present" condition), while on the other half, all the alternatives were variants of the standard ("original not present" condition). The elderly subjects were generally more impulsive (had shorter latencies and committed more errors) than were the young adults. The results, though, varied somewhat with the two stimulus conditions employed. An analysis of the mean scores of both age groups indicated that the elderly took less time to respond only in the "original present" condition. A higher number of errors was observed for the older group in both conditions, and both age groups had fewer errors in the "original present" condition. Possible interpretations of these findings, in terms of age group differences in search strategy, anxiety, and other aspects of decision style are offered, and implications for further research are provided.

Adolescent↗