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F Wilkie

Publications and source records attributed to F Wilkie.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

Quality of life measures in the Miami HIV-1 infected drug abusers cohort: relationship to gender and disease status.

PURPOSE: This study examined activity, daily living, health, support, and outlook in HIV+ drug users. METHODS: Using the physician-administered Spitzer Index, the study assessed 75 HIV-1 seropositive men (n = 51) and women (n = 24) enrolled in the Miami HIV-1 Infected Drug Abusers Study (MIDAS). RESULTS: Total composite scores were significantly lower in the HIV-1 infected women than the men (p = .03). Significant gender differences were observed in activity assessment, independent of disease status, with women six times as likely to have lower activity scores (p = .0038). Most women (45%) in this category were homeless or marginally housed, compared to 11 percent of the men. Additionally, women with low activity scores had less social support than women with high activity scores. Cocaine use was significantly related to reports of normal activity, and varied across genders; more men used cocaine than women (p = .03). Compared to non-AIDS participants, AIDS patients were more likely to have lower scores in health (p = .009) and poorer outlook (p = .03). IMPLICATIONS: These findings reveal specific deficits in areas of psychosocial capacity, particularly in HIV-1 infected women who abuse drugs, that may need to be strengthened in order to enhance function and adherence to treatment, as well as well-being.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1998

Memory-scanning task performance in Alzheimer's disease.

Individuals with mild Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and healthy normal control (NC) older adults performed a varied-set version of the Sternberg memory-scanning task with Set Sizes 1, 2, 3, and 4. The AD group (N = 23) had slower and more variable reaction times (RT) than the NC group (N = 38). RT differences between groups were bigger for NO than for YES responses. The linear relationship between RT and set size was not as strong for the AD group as for the NC group. However, in contrast to earlier studies with fewer subjects, participants with AD and healthy older individuals did not differ in the rate at which they scan items in the memory set.

Aged↗
PubMed1995

Plasma cobalamin levels affect information processing speed in a longitudinal study of HIV-1 disease.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether information processing speed is influenced by change in plasma cobalamin status in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 disease. DESIGN: A longitudinal study, using autoregression, to evaluate the relationship between plasma cobalamin status and change in information processing speed assessed by Posner Letter Matching, Sternberg Short-Term Memory Search, Figure Visual Scanning and Discrimination of Pictures, and continuous paired associates learning tasks. SETTING: University of Miami (Fla) School of Medicine from fall 1987 through summer 1991. PARTICIPANTS: Eighty-four human immunodeficiency virus type 1-infected homosexual men aged 20 to 55 years. None of the subjects displayed acquired immunodeficiency syndrome-defining symptoms at baseline; over the course of the study, 9.5% progressed to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Biochemical measurement of plasma cobalamin; performance on information processing speed tasks. RESULTS: Significant improvement in the Posner Letter Matching NI-PI (Name Identity minus Physical Identity) differential was associated with becoming cobalamin adequate or remaining adequate. Becoming cobalamin deficient, in contrast, was associated with a significant decline in the speed of accessing overlearned name codes. CONCLUSION: Normalization of plasma cobalamin inadequacy in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 disease may provide significant improvement in the speed of retrieving overlearned information from long-term memory.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Plasma vitamin B12 level as a potential cofactor in studies of human immunodeficiency virus type 1-related cognitive changes.

Studies of cognitive function in subjects with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection who remain relatively asymptomatic (ie, Centers for Disease Control stages II and III) have provided widely variable estimates of cognitive impairment. In view of the finding that approximately 25% of asymptomatic HIV-1-infected subjects demonstrate either marginal or overt vitamin B12 deficiency, we have investigated plasma vitamin B12 status as a potential cofactor in studies of HIV-1-related cognitive impairment. When cognition was assessed in asymptomatic (Centers for Disease Control stages II and III) HIV-1-infected participants taking into consideration vitamin B12 status, those subjects with low plasma vitamin B12 levels (less than 180 pmol/L) performed more poorly than did those with normal (greater than or equal to 180 pmol/L) vitamin B12 status on specific measures of information processing speed and visuospatial problem-solving skills. These findings suggest that concurrent vitamin B12 deficiency may be a cofactor in subtle cognitive changes observed in the asymptomatic stages of HIV-1 infection. These differences in prevalence of low plasma vitamin B12 levels may help to explain differences among studies in the proportion of HIV-1-infected subjects showing cognitive impairment.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Letter matching: effects of age, Alzheimer's disease, and major depression.

We compared Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Aged normal, and Young normal controls on a letter-matching task designed to measure the time needed to access overlearned linguistic information in long-term memory. Name identity (NI) and physical identity (PI) reaction time and the NI-PI difference were compared for ADs, MDDs, and Aged normals and separately for Aged and Young normal groups. AD subjects had slower NI and PI reaction times and a bigger NI-PI difference than Aged normal and MDD subjects, suggesting that speed of access to overlearned letter-name information in long-term memory is slowed for ADs. There were no reliable differences between Aged normal and MDD subjects. Aged normals had slower NI and PI reaction times and a bigger NI-PI difference than Young normals, suggesting that the highly practiced operations needed to access letter-name information slow with age. A discriminant analysis was used to evaluate the usefulness of the "easy to perform" letter-matching task for diagnostic purposes. Ninety percent of normal and MDD subjects but only 68% of AD subjects were classified correctly.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

The occurrence of different intrusive errors in patients with Alzheimer's disease, multiple cerebral infarctions, and major depression.

Recent evidence suggests that specific types of intrusive errors may occur more often in the protocols of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients than in those of patients diagnosed with other types of dementia. Using the FULD Object Memory Evaluation, we documented the occurrence of five qualitatively different types of intrusive errors for mildly and moderately impaired patients with AD and multiple cerebral infarctions (MCI). Depressed and normal elderly controls were also studied. Despite an equivalent degree of impairment on a broad array of neuropsychological measures, mildly impaired AD patients evidenced greater deficits on a measure tapping retrieval from semantic memory and demonstrated a higher occurrence of specific types of intrusive errors relative to their mildly impaired MCI counterparts. Further, both of these measures were highly correlated, suggesting that these indices may be particularly sensitive to semantic dysfunction associated with early AD.

Aged↗
PubMed1989

A new scale for the assessment of functional status in Alzheimer's disease and related disorders.

Assessment of the functional competencies of patients with dementia is typically conducted in an indirect manner. Psychological tests of cognition or descriptions by relatives or other caregivers are often used to make judgments as to the patient's ability to adapt to the demands of the environment. However, these methods have built-in biases. The need for direct assessment of functional status was addressed by developing a standardized operational procedure to examine areas of functional competence which may become impaired in Alzheimer's disease and other related memory disorders. The resulting instrument has high interrater and test-retest reliabilities. Convergent validity is evidenced by significant correlations between the scale and established measures of functional status. Patients with Alzheimer's disease exhibited deficits in functional capacities relative to age-equivalent normal controls and to elderly patients with a primary major depression.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1971

Intelligence and blood pressure in the aged.

Diastolic hypertension was related to significant intellectual loss over a 10-year period among individuals initially examined in their 60's. Such loss was not found in their age peers in association with normal or mild elevations of blood pressure. Of the subjects initially examined at 70 to 79 years of age, none with hypertension completed the follow-up program, and those with normal and mildly elevated blood pressure showed some intellectual decline over the decade. At the initial examination, hypertension was related to lower intelligence test scores only among those subjects who subsequently did not complete the follow-up program. The results suggest that hypertension is related to intellectual changes among the aged.

Aged↗
PubMed1970

Improvement of learning in the aged by modification of autonomic nervous system activity.

Partial blockade of beta-adrenergic end-organ response to the autonomic nervous system was effected in a group of older men by administration of propranolol. The result was improved performance in a learning task. The data support the hypothesis that the learning decrement found among older men is not simply a manifestation of structural change in the central nervous system but is, at least in part, associated with the heightened arousal of the autonomic nervous system that accompanies the learning task.

Aged↗