Effects of four maintenance programs on the long-term management of obesity.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to M G Perri.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The benefits and side effects of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) given two vs. three times per week were examined in depressed inpatients. Twenty subjects were randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions (unilateral ECT two or three times weekly). Examiners without knowledge of treatment condition rated depression and psychiatric status and administered tests of memory and visual-motor problem solving; subjects also provided self-ratings of depression. Measures were collected before treatment and 2 and 4 weeks after treatment began. Both schedules of treatment produced significant and equivalent improvements in psychiatric symptomatology, but visual memory impairment was significantly lower in the twice-weekly group.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Although the long-term maintenance of therapy induced behavior changes and the resulting weight loss represent critical issues in the treatment of obesity, there is a paucity of available data. The present study assessed the durability of treatment induced weight losses 5 years after treatment and the long-term adherence to treatment strategies. Thirty-six of the original 44 subjects who participated in a 10-week behavioral weight control program were interviewed in person (28), by mail (5) or reported their weights by phone (3). Results indicated that most subjects gained back a major portion of the weight they lost during treatment. The average subject had gained 11.94 lb. since treatment termination and was now 1.49 lb. heavier than when he/she entered treatment. Despite the fact that program adherence following the termination of treatment was typically low, both the number of program techniques conscientiously used and the months of conscientious technique use showed significant negative correlations with posttreatment weight gains. Subjects reported that numerous situational, social and emotional factors impacted upon their weight control efforts.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Discussed the utility of a measure of aggression using the MMPI (N = 54). Although child abusers significantly differed from a distressed and socioeconomic-status matched group on this scale, a discriminative analysis on the scale failed to adequately differentiate the groups. Results are discussed in terms of the deficiencies in the current method of separating their groups and for constructing measures that are likely to differentiate aggressive from nonaggressive populations.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
In this study, the authors describe the psychological characteristics of a large sample (N = 407) of adult patients evaluated for liver transplantation, and provide normative data on commonly used measures of cognitive functioning, affective status, psychosocial adjustment, coping, quality of life, and life satisfaction. The normative data suggest that the study's liver transplant candidates have poorer cognitive functioning and health-related quality of life when compared with available normative comparison groups, yet the former group is more comparable to medically ill peers on measures of anxiety, depression, psychosocial adjustment, and coping. Data also suggest a high rate of affective disturbance in liver transplant candidates. Results indicate the utility of normative data, such as the authors', for providing an appropriate comparison group for liver pretransplant candidates.
This study tested whether the efficacy of behavioral treatment of obesity (BT) might be improved through the use of a personalized system of skill acquisition (PSA) with reinforcement contingent on the mastery of changes in eating and exercise behaviors. A total of 108 obese adults were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) BT + PSA; (2) BT; or (3) a weight-loss educational (WLE) program. At posttreatment, the BT + PSA and BT conditions demonstrated significant beneficial changes in caloric consumption, intake of fats, and level of physical activity. Both conditions also produced equivalent reductions in body weight (Ms = 7.9 kg for BT + PSA and 9.5 kg for BT) that were significantly greater than the reduction accomplished in the WLE condition (M = 1.7 kg). These findings suggest that the addition of a PSA may not produce better outcome than standard behavioral treatment and that education alone is not sufficient to produce weight loss.
This study examined the effects of two maintenance programs on exercise participation, energy expenditure, energy consumption, and weight change in 67 obese adults undergoing behavioral weight-loss treatment. Following an initial 6-month treatment phase which produced a mean weight loss of 8.8 kg, participants were assigned randomly to an exercise-focused maintenance program or to a weight-focused maintenance program. Both maintenance programs included 6 months of biweekly group sessions. The exercise-focused program included supervised group walking sessions, individual and group contingencies for exercise completion, and relapse prevention training targeted specifically at the maintenance of physical activity. The weight-focused program contained a general focus on the maintenance of weight-loss through therapist-led group problem-solving of weight-related problems presented by individual participants. At the completion of the maintenance program and at long-term follow-up, there were no significant differences between conditions in exercise participation or energy expenditure. However, during the year following initial treatment, participants in the weight-focused program demonstrated significantly greater reductions in fat consumption and significantly better maintenance of weight losses than subjects in the exercise-focused program.