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Biomedical subjects

M J Power

Publications and source records attributed to M J Power.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2007

The Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire (AAQ): development and psychometric properties.

OBJECTIVE: This paper describes the development of the Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire (AAQ) which is a self-report measure with which older people themselves can express their attitudes to the process of ageing. METHOD: The development of the AAQ followed a coherent, logical and empirical process taking full account of relevant gerontological knowledge and modern and classical psychometric analytical methods. Pilot testing with 1,356 participants from 15 centres worldwide refined the scale and provided the basis for a field test. A total of 5,566 participants from 20 centres worldwide contributed to the further development of this new scale with the derivation involving both classical and modern psychometric methods. RESULTS: The result is a 24-item cross-cultural attitudes to ageing questionnaire consisting of a three-factor model encompassing psychological growth, psychosocial loss, and physical change. The three-factor model suggests a way of conceptualizing and measuring successful ageing in individuals. CONCLUSIONS: The AAQ provides researchers, clinicians and policy makers with a unique scale to measure the impact of successful ageing interventions. It also provides a vehicle for the measurement of how individuals age across cultures and under different economic, political and social circumstances.

Aged↗
PubMed2007

The multistory self: why the self is more than the sum of its autoparts.

A summary is presented of both the theoretical and clinical points made by the contributors to this issue of Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session on the multiplicity of self. It is argued that there are many theoretical and clinical commonalities in the diverse range of psychotherapies that have been developed and that have been used in work with problems in the self-concept. Core problems encountered in clinical practice include an apparent self-integration that is attained through the exclusion of important parts of the self. The key to opening up clients who present such problems is through the use of experienced emotions and the therapeutic relationship. More extreme problems in the self-concept can be seen in the personality and psychotic disorders, in which the self may be chaotic or disintegrated. Such clients may need help with the development of a reflective self that can integrate and regulate the separate parts of the self-concept.

Humans↗
PubMed2005

Psychological approaches to bipolar disorders: a theoretical critique.

An outline is presented of five main psychological models of the bipolar disorders. These approaches include the Behavioural Activation/Inhibition Systems model, the Cognitive Therapy model, the Interpersonal and Social Rhythm Therapy model, the Interacting Cognitive Subsystems model, and the SPAARS model. Strengths and weaknesses are highlighted for each approach. It is concluded that although there is no model that can adequately account for even the key features of the bipolar disorders (such as periodicity, shifts in the valence of the self-concept, mixed affective states, and patterns of recovery and relapse), nevertheless, more recently developed multi-level approaches to emotion offer more sophisticated possibilities for modeling these complex disorders.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1999

Integrating psychological therapies: processes of meaning transformation.

We review the role played by meaning in different schools of psychotherapy, and propose that the systematic study of meaning transformation has the potential to unify understanding of the scientific basis of psychotherapy. We describe some of the most important innate and social origins of meaning, and identify seven major themes that characterize the thinking of people with psychological disorders. We also describe how these themes are processed cognitively on multiple levels, and propose common change processes that are consistent with research in cognitive psychology. These core sets of themes and processes are offered as a first step toward a systematic study of meaning and psychotherapeutic change.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1998

Repressive coping and the directed forgetting of emotional material.

Using a directed forgetting task, the authors tested in 2 experiments the hypothesis that repressors would be superior to controls in forgetting negative experimental material. Consistent with previous studies, there was an overall directed forgetting effect, with significantly more to-be-remembered material recalled than to-be-forgotten (TBF) material. In both experiments, repressors forgot more negatively valenced words in the TBF set than did nonrepressors, suggesting that repressors have an enhanced capability for using retrieval inhibition. The data offer preliminary support for a cognitive account of repressors' deficits in recalling negative autobiographical memories.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Effects of exercise on cognitive and motor function in chronic fatigue syndrome and depression.

OBJECTIVES: Patients with chronic fatigue syndrome complain of physical and mental fatigue that is worsened by exertion. It was predicted that the cognitive and motor responses to vigorous exercise in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome would differ from those in depressed and healthy controls. METHODS: Ten patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, 10 with depressive illness, and 10 healthy controls completed cognitive and muscle strength testing before and after a treadmill exercise test. Measures of cardiovascular functioning and perceived effort, fatigue, and mood were taken during each stage of testing. RESULTS: Depressed patients performed worst on cognitive tests at baseline. During the treadmill test, patients with chronic fatigue syndrome had higher ratings of perceived effort and fatigue than both control groups, whereas patients with depression reported lower mood. After exertion, patients with chronic fatigue syndrome showed a greater decrease than healthy controls on everyday tests of focused (p=0.02) and sustained (p=0.001) attention, as well as greater deterioration than depressed patients on the focused attention task (p=0.03). No between group differences were found in cardiovascular or symptom measures taken during the cognitive testing. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with chronic fatigue syndrome show a specific sensitivity to the effects of exertion on effortful cognitive functioning. This occurs despite subjective and objective evidence of effort allocation in chronic fatigue syndrome, suggesting that patients have reduced working memory capacity, or a greater demand to monitor cognitive processes, or both. Further insight into the pathophysiology of the core complaints in chronic fatigue syndrome is likely to be realised by studying the effects of exercise on other aspects of everyday functioning.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Validation of a high-performance liquid chromatographic assay for lysylpyridinoline in urine: a potential biomarker of bone resorption.

We developed and validated a high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method for quantifying the bone-specific collagen crosslink, lysylpyridinoline (LP), in urine, LP was purified from cortical bone and characterized by spectrophotometry, HPLC, and 1H NMR spectroscopy. Our HPLC detected urinary LP independently of the sample volume and the range of quantification was between 63 nM and 1 microM. Average recovery of added LP standard to human urine samples was 106 +/- 21%. Mean inter- and intraassay CVs, respectively, for urines containing low, medium, and high concentrations of the crosslink LP were 7.4 and 6.3%. This analytical method is more efficient than previously published HPLC assays for LP because of the significant 24-h reduction in urinary sample preparation time. There was agreement between urinary LP concentrations measured with this method and the Metra Pyrilinks-D enzyme immunoassay (r2 = 0.714). These results emphasize the importance of using a thoroughly standardized HPLC assay as the "gold standard" for comparison of results with newly developed immunoassays.

Aged↗
PubMed1996

Emotional priming in clinically depressed subjects.

A study is described in which the Emotional Priming Paradigm (Power and Brewin (1990) Cogn. Emotion 4, 39-51) was used with a group of currently depressed patients and a group of nondepressed controls. The results for the depressed patients showed significant facilitation effects on both the speed and rate of endorsement of negative trait adjectives when these were preceded by negative emotional primes. These results contrast with those obtained with the control subjects who failed to show such facilitation effects. The results are discussed in relation to the role of cognitive biases in depression.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Dependency, matching adversities, length of survival and relapse in major depression.

This paper reports the 1-year follow-up of a sample of depressed patients. Social cognitive variables obtained during the index episode, including ideal emotional support, roles and goals investment in various domains and dysfunctional attitudes were used to predict subjects' likelihood for subsequent relapse. More subjects who experienced severe life events in the year were found to have relapsed. However, the predictive value of life events was improved if adversity was in the most invested domain according to the roles and goals questionnaire that subjects filled in during their index episode (matching adversity). Subjects who experienced matching adversity had a 3-fold chance of relapse compared with subjects with nonmatching adversity. The majority of the matching events were in the interpersonal domain. Levels of dysfunctional attitudes alone did not predict relapse. However, matching adversity and the dependency subscale of the dysfunctional attitude scale contributed significantly both to whether or not subjects relapsed and to the number of weeks subjects survived before they relapsed. The higher the level of dependency dysfunctional attitudes, the sooner subjects relapsed. The findings of the follow-up study supported the importance of psychological and social factors in determining relapse.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1996

Chronic fatigue in the community: 'a question of attribution'.

Thirty-eight subjects identified in a large community survey were found to attribute their fatigue to 'myalgic encephalomyelitis' (ME). They were matched randomly to two other groups of subjects who attributed their fatigue to either psychological or social factors. All three groups were followed up 18 months later and were asked to complete a series of questionnaires that examined fatigue, psychological distress, number of symptoms, attributional style and levels of disability. At onset the 'ME' group were found to be more fatigued, had been tired for longer but were less psychologically distressed than the other two groups. At follow-up the 'ME' group were more handicapped in relation to home, work, social and private leisure activities, even when controlling for both duration of fatigue and fatigue at time 1, but were less psychologically distressed. The relationships between psychological distress, specific illness attributions, attributional style and their effect on the experience of illness and its prognosis are discussed. Attributing fatigue to social reasons appears to be most protective.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1995

Dysfunctional attitudes in depressed and recovered depressed patients and their first-degree relatives.

A series of depressed probands and their first-degree relatives were categorized as follows: (a) currently depressed; (b) recovered depressed; and (c) never-ill relatives. Their scores on a subscaled version of the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (the DAS-24) were compared. The DAS total scores mirrored previous findings in that the total scores for recovered individuals returned to normal or near-normal levels. However, the dependency subscale scores remained elevated for the recovered depressed group. It is proposed that these results support the conclusion that self-report measures of cognitive vulnerability should focus on specific rather than global effects, if progress is to be made in the search for true vulnerability factors.

Achievement↗
PubMed1995

The role of social support in HIV infection.

A study was carried out in a group of 91 HIV positive gay men to investigate the relationship between social support, measures of affect and health; the changing nature of support over time; and the causal direction of this relationship. Overall levels of support for this group were found to be moderately high and consistent over 6 months and were associated with greater psychological well-being. Individuals in receipt of quantitatively different levels of support were found to differ on measures of depression, stress, coping efficacy and self-esteem, while individuals in receipt of deficient levels of support were found to be more depressed. However, initial support levels were found to be the most powerful predictors of subsequent support levels. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1995

Social and cognitive approaches to depression: towards a new synthesis.

A description of a social-cognitive theory of depression is presented which combines the concepts of mental models, personal goals and social roles. An analysis is made of how a number of proposals about the onset of depression can be summarized as the loss of a valued goal or social role in an individual who has few other sources of self-worth. In subsequent sections, limitations of the theory are outlined, and the relationship between the present theory and other theories of depression is briefly considered.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1995

The development of anti-CD79 monoclonal antibodies for treatment of B-cell neoplastic disease.

The B-cell antigen receptor (BCR) consists of cell surface IgM associated with the CD79 alpha/beta heterodimer. In this paper we describe a panel of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) recognising the extracellular regions of human CD79 alpha and beta. FACS analysis demonstrated that the mAbs bind to a range of Burkitt's lymphoma lines, a mouse B-cell line (JO-72) transfected with human CD79 alpha and beta, and tumour biopsies from NHL patients. The specificity of the mAbs was confirmed by immunoprecipitation. The Ka for the binding of IgG from the anti-CD79 alpha mAbs to cell surface CD79 alpha on Ramos cells was 3 x 10(8) M-1, and their maximum level of binding, 1.7-2 x 10(5) molecules/cell, matched that obtained with anti-Fc mu and anti-Fd mu mAbs. All four anti-CD79 beta mAbs were of lower affinity. Interestingly, in growth arrest studies, we found that while all anti-Fc mu mAbs caused profound inhibition of proliferation of Ramos cells, a range of other anti-BCR mAbs, which included the anti-CD79, anti-Fab mu, anti-gamma and anti-idiotype reagents, all performed poorly giving a maximum of 25% inhibition. These differences in performance are believed to relate to the ability of anti-BCR mAbs to cross-link neighbouring surface BCR and suggest that, unlike anti-Fc mu which favours cross-linking, most of these mAbs are binding in a monogamous, non-cross-linking, union with the BCR.

Animals↗
PubMed1994

Social support and depression in three groups of psychiatric patients and a group of medical controls.

Levels of depression and aspects of social support were examined in groups of chronic schizophrenic (n = 21), depressed (n = 26) and parasuicide patients (n = 26) and in a group of medical controls (n = 25). Depression was equally severe in the parasuicide and depressed groups and low in the schizophrenic and control groups. The psychiatric groups reported lower perceived levels of social support than did the controls. The depressed and parasuicide patients, but not the psychotic patients, felt dissatisfied with the available support. These results are interpreted as suggesting that deficiencies in social support may be more important in neurotic disorder, in particular depressive disorders, than in psychoses.

Adult↗