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L Bieliauskas

Publications and source records attributed to L Bieliauskas.

4 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Cranial nerve clock. Part 1. A declarative memory paradigm.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: The authors performed this study to compare a declarative memory paradigm developed to help teach medical students about the cranial nerves with a traditional text-based approach. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The authors designed a clock-based paradigm to help medical students learn about the cranial nerves. To enhance memorization and related brain activation, the paradigm uses visual, spatial, and word associations in the context of an analog clock face. Twenty-one undergraduate students were randomly divided into two groups. Group T viewed traditional text slides, and group C viewed text slides followed by the corresponding cranial clock slides. Subjects were tested before and after these sessions. RESULTS: Group C performed significantly better than group T in learning the names of the cranial nerves and their correct order (P < .011). Recall of name, number, and function was better for 11 of 12 cranial nerves, with statistical significance reached for nerves III (P = .005), V (P = .04), and X (P = .03). CONCLUSION: Alternative teaching strategies may help improve declarative memory.

Cranial Nerves↗
PubMed1997

Development of cognitive instruments for use in clinical trials of antidementia drugs: additions to the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale that broaden its scope. The Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study.

The cognitive assessment protocol of the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS) was designed to evaluate the reliability and validity of cognitive assessment measures that might be valuable additions to the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale (ADAS) or other concise batteries used in antidementia drug trials. As part of an overall ADCS protocol to develop new instruments to be used in trials of treatments for Alzheimer's disease (AD), patients with mild to moderate AD and cognitively normal elderly were administered a battery of five tests at least three times over 1 year. The tests included word list learning with delayed free recall, a recognition memory test for faces, a series of letter and digit cancellation tests to measure concentration, tests of praxis, and a series of maze completion tasks designed to assess planning and executive function. A version of the digit cancellation task was reliable and sensitive to a broad range of dementia severity so that it could provide a useful addition to the present version of the ADAS. Performance on the word learning task with delayed recall and a subset of the mazes task were impaired even in mild AD, so these tasks may be useful in trials involving mild or at-risk subjects. Performances on the facial recognition task and on the praxis tasks were not related to dementia severity, so these tasks would not be useful to evaluate treatments. Therefore, the major outcome of this investigation was the identification of some potential additions to the present ADAS that extend both the cognitive domains and the range of symptom severity covered.

Aged↗
PubMed1996

Neuropsychological subgroups of patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Neuropsychological data from 134 patients diagnosed with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) were studied retrospectively to investigate whether subgroups of patients with qualitatively distinct profiles could be identified. Three empirical classification approaches were undertaken in this regard: Q-type factor analysis, hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis, and iterative partitioning. Three subgroups were consistently identified across the clustering methods. Subgroup 1, the largest of the groups, was marked by moderate to severe anomia and constructional dyspraxia. Individuals in subgroup 2 displayed relatively spared visual-perceptual/constructional functioning but severe anomia. Members of subgroup 3 exhibited intact naming and nonverbal reasoning and moderate difficulty in copying overlapping figures. The three subgroups did not differ with respect to age, age at disease onset, duration of illness, educational level, or Hamilton depression rating. Detailed description of the data analyses are provided as a tutorial outlining subtyping methodology. Results are discussed in terms of the subgroup and the stage model approaches to the conceptualization of AD.

Aged↗