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Biomedical subjects

W Acker

Publications and source records attributed to W Acker.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1984

Assessment of cognitive function in alcoholics by computer: a control study.

Results are presented of the performance by 103 alcoholics and 90 controls on six computer-administered tests of cognitive function. The main analysis compared performance of the two groups when pre-existing differences in intellectual capacity, as estimated by NART, were accounted for statistically. The performance of the alcoholics was worse, at a statistically significant level, on 18 of 23 measures. Procedurally, the tests were found to offer practical advantages over conventional procedures.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Parental behavior and the availability of foods among undernourished inner-city children.

This study was designed to identify differences in parental behaviors and the availability of food between undernourished and well-nourished inner-city children of early school age. Children with a constellation of measurements of height below the 25th percentile, midarm muscle circumference below the 50th percentile, and hemoglobin concentration below 11.5 g/dL were considered undernourished. These children were matched with controls having measurements above these levels. The homes of all children were investigated. Families of undernourished children were found to have significantly less variety of nutritious foods requiring preparation by an adult available in the home (P less than .01), to have greater variety of convenience foods of low nutritional value (P less than .01), and to prefer fewer vegetables (P less than .04) and dairy products (P less than .01). The Polansky Child Level of Living Scale showed that mothers of undernourished children were less likely to prepare meals regularly for their children (P less than .05) and that they were less effective in providing general parental support to their children (P less than .03).

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Computerized tomography of the brain in chronic alcoholism: a Survey and follow-up study.

One hundred male alcoholics from an inpatient treatment unit were examined by computerized axial tomography. All were without clinically overt signs of brain damage. Fifty age-matched normal volunteers were used for comparison. Radiological indices differed markedly between the two groups, reflecting a high incidence of cortical shrinkage and ventricular dilatation among the alcoholics. Clinicoradiological correlations are discussed and the results of follow-up with rescanning are reported. Abstinence appeared to be strongly related to slow partial resolution of the CT scan changes.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

Attention, eye tracking and schizophrenia.

Two experiments are reported. The first experiment successfully replicated the finding that Smooth Pursuit Eye-Tracking(SPET) performance recorded using electronsystagmographic techniques statistically differentiates between groups of clinically diagnosed shizophrenic patients and normal controls. Ratings taken of spontaneous patient behaviour during testing indicated that behaviour which on a priori grounds was thought to preclude optimum attention to eye tracking was related to greater impairment of schizophrenic performance. The second experiment investigated the effect of experimentally induced distraction on SPET performance by normal controls. It was found that competing tasks of increasing levels of difficulty produced increasing degrees of impairment in SPET performance. The results of the two experiments were interpreted as evidence that SPET performance is sensitive to superficial inattention, and that deficits in schizophrenic SPET performance are best explained by attentional deficits in the schizophrenics.

Adolescent↗