Biomedical subjects

Martin Sliwinski

Publications and source records attributed to Martin Sliwinski.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2003

Leisure activities and the risk of dementia in the elderly.

BACKGROUND: Participation in leisure activities has been associated with a lower risk of dementia. It is unclear whether increased participation in leisure activities lowers the risk of dementia or participation in leisure activities declines during the preclinical phase of dementia. METHODS: We examined the relation between leisure activities and the risk of dementia in a prospective cohort of 469 subjects older than 75 years of age who resided in the community and did not have dementia at base line. We examined the frequency of participation in leisure activities at enrollment and derived cognitive-activity and physical-activity scales in which the units of measure were activity-days per week. Cox proportional-hazards analysis was used to evaluate the risk of dementia according to the base-line level of participation in leisure activities, with adjustment for age, sex, educational level, presence or absence of chronic medical illnesses, and base-line cognitive status. RESULTS: Over a median follow-up period of 5.1 years, dementia developed in 124 subjects (Alzheimer's disease in 61 subjects, vascular dementia in 30, mixed dementia in 25, and other types of dementia in 8). Among leisure activities, reading, playing board games, playing musical instruments, and dancing were associated with a reduced risk of dementia. A one-point increment in the cognitive-activity score was significantly associated with a reduced risk of dementia (hazard ratio, 0.93 [95 percent confidence interval, 0.90 to 0.97]), but a one-point increment in the physical-activity score was not (hazard ratio, 1.00). The association with the cognitive-activity score persisted after the exclusion of the subjects with possible preclinical dementia at base line. Results were similar for Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. In linear mixed models, increased participation in cognitive activities at base line was associated with reduced rates of decline in memory. CONCLUSIONS: Participation in leisure activities is associated with a reduced risk of dementia, even after adjustment for base-line cognitive status and after the exclusion of subjects with possible preclinical dementia. Controlled trials are needed to assess the protective effect of cognitive leisure activities on the risk of dementia.

Aged↗

PubMed2002

Screening for Alzheimer's disease: the memory impairment screen versus the conventional three-word memory test.

OBJECTIVES: To improve screening for Alzheimer's disease (AD) with the Memory Impairment Screen (MIS), a 4-minute, four-item delayed free and cued recall memory test with controlled learning and high discriminative validity. To assess the discriminative validity of the MIS for AD and to compare it with the conventional three-word memory test, a delayed free recall task, widely recommended as a dementia-screening test in clinical practice. DESIGN: Cross-sectional validation study nested within a longitudinal study of aging and dementia. The MIS and the standard three-word memory task were administered as part of a comprehensive neurological and neuropsychological evaluation. SETTING: Einstein Aging Study at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York. PARTICIPANTS: Two hundred forty community-dwelling older adults. MEASUREMENTS: Sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value (PPV) were calculated for the MIS and three-word memory test as screening tests for AD. RESULTS: In comparison with the three-word memory task, the MIS had higher sensitivity (.86 vs.65), higher specificity (.97 vs.85), and greater PPV (.80 vs.37) as a screen for AD. CONCLUSIONS: The MIS had high discriminative validity as a screening test for AD and substantially outperformed the three-word memory task. Given its validity and brevity, the MIS has important advantages as an AD screen for use in primary care.

Aged↗

PubMed2002

Differential age effects in semantic and episodic memory.

Results from 4 experimental tasks and 8 data sets (the 4 tasks involved either multiple sessions or different stimuli) as well as a vocabulary test conducted on the same 80 participants (40 younger and 40 older adults) are reported. The authors employed 2 semantic memory tasks (lexical decision and multiplication verification) using data from 2 sessions (for a total of 4 semantic data sets) and 2 episodic memory tasks (hybrid visual search and memory search with digits and with words as stimuli). Factor analyses using slope and intercept data from the 8 experimental data sets indicated the presence of 3 latent factors: a single intercept factor for both episodic and semantic tasks and separate slope factors for episodic and semantic tasks. A structural equation model with paths from age to 3 different 1st-order latent factors (episodic central processes, semantic central processes, and combined episodic and semantic peripheral processes) fit better than general factor models. These data are consistent with a theoretical framework in which there are age-related dissociations between peripheral and central processes across semantic and episodic memory.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Emotional perception in unilateral stroke patients: recovery, test stability, and interchannel relationships.

Despite an ever-increasing literature on language and cognitive recovery after brain injury, there are relatively few investigations about the recovery of emotional processing. The main purpose of this study was to provide a preliminary evaluation of recovery of emotional perception across 3 communication channels in unilateral stroke patients. In addition, instrument stability and interrelationships among the channels were examined. Tasks assessing facial, prosodic, and lexical emotional identification from the New York Emotion Battery (Borod, Welkowitz, & Obler, 1992) were administered to right-brain-damaged (RBD), left-brain-damaged (LBD), and normal control (NC) participants. Emotional, as well as nonemotional control, tasks were examined at 2 times, with a median interval of 25 months. Findings revealed some evidence of recovery on emotional perception tasks. Participant group differences correlations were high for NCs and LBDs but low for RBDs. Significant relationships were more frequent for the facial versus prosodic channel than for the lexical versus the 2 nonverbal channels, suggesting that facial and prosodic perception may subserve a general emotional processor.

Aged↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Differential age effects in semantic and episodic memory, Part II: Slope and intercept analyses.

This study tested for dissociations between age-related slowing in peripheral and central processes across semantic and episodic memory tasks. We report the mixed-model analysis of variance (ANOVA) results using reaction time (RT), error, and data from four different experimental tasks and eight data sets (the four tasks involved either multiple sessions or different stimuli) conducted on the same 80 participants (40 younger and 40 older adults). An earlier paper (Allen, Sliwinski, Bowie, & Madden, in press) reported the factor analysis and structural equation modeling results of this study. We employed two semantic memory tasks (lexical decision and multiplication verification) using data from two different sessions (for a total of four semantic data sets), and two episodic memory tasks (hybrid visual search and memory search with digits and with words as stimuli). For RT analyses, we found Age x Task interactions for all four episodic memory data sets, but no Age x Task interactions for the four semantic memory data sets. Also, the intercept (assumed to index peripheral processes) and slope (assumed to index central processes) analyses demonstrated that older adults (relative to younger adults) showed both intercept and slope decrements for episodic memory tasks, but only intercept decrements for semantic memory tasks. These data are consistent with a theoretical framework in which there are age-related dissociations between peripheral and central processes across semantic and episodic memory.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Changes in posed facial expression of emotion across the adult life span.

The purpose of this study was to examine changes in the facial expression of emotion across the adult life span. Two positive and two negative emotional expressions were posed by 30 young (21 to 39 years), 30 middle-aged (40 to 59 years), and 30 older (60 to 81 years) healthy, right-handed women. Photographs of the four emotional expressions were rated by independent judges for intensity, accuracy, and confidence. Special features of this study were the use of a neutral face as a nonemotional control, as well as careful cognitive and affective screening procedures for posers and judges. Overall, the expressions of older posers were rated as significantly less accurate and with significantly less confidence than those of younger posers. Although the neutral faces of older posers were rated as significantly more intense than those of younger posers, there were no significant age-related intensity differences for positive and negative emotions. The results are discussed in terms of theoretical models of aging.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

MMSE cross-domain variability predicts cognitive decline in centenarians.

BACKGROUND: Early detection of dementia is one of the key issues in cognitive gerontology. However, so far the detection of early stages in cognitive decline has been rather unreliable. One central limitation of current assessment strategies is that they rely on information about a person's level of performance obtained from a single assessment. OBJECTIVE: In the first part of the present paper, we propose three strategies for overcoming this limitation by using information from several measurement occasions to improve diagnostic reliability. METHODS: In the second part, we present one exemplary empirical analysis of one of these approaches reporting data from the Heidelberg Centenarian Study. RESULTS: In this sample of very old individuals tested at baseline and at a follow-up 18 months later, the intra-individual cross-domain variability across MMSE subscales [1]at baseline predicted cognitive decline (i.e. change in an external cognitive functioning rating from baseline to follow-up) much better than baseline mean MMSE scores. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, we discuss the advantage of performance variability as a predictor for cognitive decline.

Aged↗