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Biomedical subjects

C Hooker

Publications and source records attributed to C Hooker.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

Trajectory estimation in schizophrenia.

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the ability of schizophrenia patients to maintain internal representation over time and space. It has been hypothesized that the ability to guide behavior by internal representation, mediated by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), is impaired in schizophrenia [e.g. Goldman-Rakic, P.S., 1996. The functional parcellation of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the heterogeneous facets of schizophrenia. In: Matthysse, S., Levy, D.L. (Eds.), Psychopathology: Evolution of a New Science. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge]. In Experiment 1, subjects observed a target, which traveled behind an opaque wall during a part of its trajectory. The task was to accurately assess the speed of the target by predicting when the target would re-emerge on the other side of the wall. In Experiment 2, subjects were asked to estimate the spatial trajectory of an established target path when it was partially occluded from view by another object. Schizophrenia patients were impaired in estimating the speed of a moving target and in estimating the spatial trajectory, without showing deficits in the control tasks. These results suggest that schizophrenia patients may not be able to accurately maintain the internal representation of a target over time and space. Such deficits may have deleterious consequences in goal-directed behavior.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Impoverished counterfactual thinking is associated with schizophrenia.

Counterfactual thoughts are mental representations of alternatives to past events. Recent research has shown counterfactual thinking to be a pervasive cognitive process in normal populations and has linked it to effective problem-solving and decision-making. The present research demonstrates that counterfactual thinking is impaired in schizophrenia patients relative to normal control subjects; this impairment was evident using measures of counterfactual thoughts as well as counterfactual-derived inferences. Furthermore, this impoverished counterfactual thinking partly mediated impaired social functioning experienced by schizophrenia patients. Given the convergence of neuropsychological evidence showing counterfactual deficits in frontal lobe patients and the documented frontal deficits in schizophrenia patients, future studies investigating a specific relationship between counterfactual thinking and frontal lobe function in schizophrenia patients would be a logical next step in this line of research.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Increased repetition blindness in schizophrenia patients and first-degree relatives of schizophrenia patients.

This study investigated the phenomenon of repetition blindness in schizophrenia patients and first-degree relatives of schizophrenia patients. Twelve schizophrenia patients, 13 siblings of schizophrenia patients and 26 normal controls were tested on their ability to detect the repetitions within rapidly presentated visual word lists. Schizophrenics and their relatives showed increased repetition blindness compared with normal controls. This suggests a deficit in rapid information processing in schizophrenia.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The prevalence of psychological distress by cancer site.

PURPOSE: The goal of this project was to determine the prevalence of psychological distress among a large sample of cancer patients (n=4496). In addition, variations in distress among 14 cancer diagnoses were examined. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The sample was extracted from a database that consists of 9000 patients who completed the Brief Symptom Inventory as a component of comprehensive cancer care. Relevant data points for each case included age, diagnosis, gender, insurance status, marital status, race and zip code. Simple frequencies, percentages, measures of central tendency and variability were calculated. In addition, a univariate and multiple regression analysis was used to examine the relationships of these relevant variables to psychological distress. RESULTS: The overall prevalence rate of distress for this sample was 35.1%. The rate varied form 43.4% for lung cancer to 29.6% for gynecological cancers. While some rates were significantly different, diagnoses with a poorer prognosis and greater patient burden produced similar rates of distress. Pancreatic cancer patients produced the highest mean scores for symptoms such as anxiety and depression, while Hodgkin's patients exhibited the highest mean scores for hostility. CONCLUSIONS: These results offer vital support for the need to identify high-risk patients through psychosocial screening in order to provide early intervention. To simply perceive cancer patients as a homogeneous group is an erroneous assumption. Failure to detect and treat elevated levels of distress jeopardizes the outcomes of cancer therapies, decreases patients' quality of life, and increases health care costs.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Problem-solving cancer care education for patients and caregivers.

PURPOSE: A program evaluation was conducted to explore the potential effects of a 90-minute problem-solving education session for persons with advanced cancer and their families. DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM: Patients with advanced cancer and their families, who were visiting a tertiary-care outpatient setting, were invited to attend a 90-minute individualized educational session that taught basic problem-solving principles using a cognitive-behavioral framework. Pre-education and posteducation data were collected about the confidence of participants in providing care, their feelings about being informed about resources, and their perceptions of their problem-solving ability. RESULTS: At baseline, most participants reported low confidence about their ability to provide cancer care and felt uninformed about community resources, but they viewed themselves as moderate-to-good problem solvers. Forty-two educational sessions were delivered to 49 caregivers and 40 patients. Two months later, participants reported feeling more informed about community resources and achieved higher posteducation scores for problem-solving ability. More caregivers than patients reported that reading The Home Care Guide for Cancer made a great deal of difference in their approach to home care. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Most educational sessions for families affected by cancer focus on delivering information, not on building skills. These findings suggest that a one-on-one educational session that teaches problem-solving skills can be successfully delivered in a busy clinic setting. Family caregivers are especially likely to benefit from this program.

Caregivers↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A new psychosocial screening instrument for use with cancer patients.

The authors performed a principal components factor analysis on the 18-item Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI-18), a new brief screening inventory. The factor analysis, in which four factors were specified, is consistent with findings in a previous community sample. The study sample consisted of 1,543 cancer patients who completed the full BSI as part of their entry into care at a regional cancer center. The reliability of the BSI-18 was determined based on the calculation of the internal consistency, mean item scores, and correlations with the total score of the BSI. In addition, sensitivity and specificity was calculated to determine the ability of the BSI-18 to discriminate positive and negative cases. The BSI-18 is a shortened version of the BSI that can serve as a brief psychological screening instrument. The BSI-18 can be incorporated into outpatient clinics to prospectively and rapidly identify cancer patients with elevated levels of distress who are in need of clinical interventions. Early identification of distress with appropriate interventions can reduce distress, enhance quality of life, and decrease health care costs.

Adult↗