Gonadal hormones, but not sex, affect the acquisition and maintenance of a Go/No-Go odor discrimination task in mice.

In mice, olfaction is crucial for identifying social odors (pheromones) that signal the presence of suitable mates. We used a custom-built olfactometer and a thirst-motivated olfactory discrimination Go/No-Go (GNG) task to ask whether discrimination of volatile odors is sexually dimorphic and modulated in mice by adult sex hormones. Males and females gonadectomized prior to training failed to learn even the initial phase of the task, which involved nose poking at a port in one location obtaining water at an adjacent port. Gonadally intact males and females readily learned to seek water when male urine (S+) was present but not when female urine (S-) was present; they also learned the task when non-social odorants (amyl acetate, S+; peppermint, S-) were used. When mice were gonadectomized after training the ability of both sexes to discriminate urinary as well as non-social odors was reduced; however, after receiving testosterone propionate (castrated males) or estradiol benzoate (ovariectomized females), task performance was restored to pre-gonadectomy levels. There were no overall sex differences in performance across gonadal conditions in tests with either set of odors; however, ovariectomized females performed more poorly than castrated males in tests with non-social odors. Our results show that circulating sex hormones enable mice of both sexes to learn a GNG task and that gonadectomy reduces, while hormone replacement restores, their ability to discriminate between odors irrespective of the saliency of the odors used. Thus, gonadal hormones were essential for both learning and maintenance of task performance across sex and odor type.

The relationship between dementia and elder abuse.

OBJECTIVE: Alzheimer's disease and other dementias may be associated with greater risk for physical abuse than other illnesses of the elderly. The authors examined the relationship between dementia and abusive behavior in a group of demented patients and their caregivers. METHOD: An anonymous questionnaire was distributed to 1,000 caregivers who called a telephone help line specializing in dementia. Demographic characteristics of patients and caregivers were assessed, the occurrence of abuse was examined, and caregivers completed the Zarit Burden Interview and the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale. RESULTS: Questionnaires were completed by 342 caregivers. The mean age of caregivers was 56.1 years; 163 (54.5%) were adult children caring for parents, 111 (37.1%) cared for spouses, and 25 (8.4%) cared for other relatives. Thirty-three caregivers (11.9%) reported that they had directed physically abusive behavior (e.g., pinching, shoving, biting, kicking, striking) toward the dementia patient in their care. These caregivers had been providing care for more years, cared for patients functioning at a lower level, displayed higher burden scores, and displayed higher depression scores than caregivers who reported no abuse. In addition, 92 caregivers (33.1%) reported that the patient directed abuse toward them during the course of providing care. Caregivers who had been abused by patients, in comparison to those who had not, were more likely to direct abusive behavior back toward the patient in their care. CONCLUSIONS: These results support the hypothesis that abuse involving cognitively impaired older adults and their caregivers may be associated with the relatively high psychological and physical demands placed on family members who care for relatives with dementia.

Negative symptoms in Alzheimer's disease.

OBJECTIVE: This study was undertaken to demonstrate that negative symptoms are prominent in patients with Alzheimer's disease and are distinct from depression. METHOD: patients with Alzheimer's disease (N=24) and a group of cognitively intact older adults (N=26) were compared in terms of scores on the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms in Alzheimer's Disease. RESULTS: Negative symptoms were more severe in patients with Alzheimer's disease than in the healthy elderly comparison subjects. Among the patients with Alzheimer's disease, negative symptoms were correlated with dementia severity. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with Alzheimer's disease display little interest in self-care, work and household tasks, social and family activities, and emotional needs of others, despite an absence of depressive symptoms, positive symptoms, comorbid systemic illnesses, or medication exposure. Such negative symptoms may contribute to functional disability and thus complicate management of such patients.

Depressive symptoms in Alzheimer's disease and multi-infarct dementia.

We examined the prevalence of major depression, depressed mood/anhedonia, and subjective and neurovegetative symptoms of depression that were unaccompanied by depressed mood/anhedonia in patients with clinically-diagnosed Alzheimer's disease (AD) and multi-infarct dementia (MID). The specificity of subjective and neurovegetative depressive symptoms for depressed mood in dementia was examined, as was the impact on depression of clinical variables such as family history, patient age, and dementia severity. Subjects were 105 outpatients who met DSM-III-R criteria for AD (n = 67) or MID (n = 38). Depressed mood/anhedonia was frequently noted in both the AD (40.3%) and MID (34.2%) groups. One or more depressive symptoms, not accompanied by depressed mood/anhedonia, were also common in AD and MID (49.3% and 36.8%, respectively). Major depression was relatively uncommon in AD (10.5%) but was noted more frequently in MID (29.0%). Among AD patients, neurovegetative symptoms of depression were not any more common in patients with depressed mood/anhedonia than in those without depressed mood/anhedonia. Subjective symptoms of depression were also not significantly associated with depressed mood/anhedonia. The study highlights the importance of viewing major depression, depressed mood-anhedonia, and other depressive symptoms (subjective and neurovegetative) as separate entities in AD and MID.

Convex third ventricle: a possible sign for dementia using MRI.

The shape and thickness of the third ventricles were studied with magnetic resonance imaging in 46 patients under evaluation for memory impairment. We compared this population with 23 subjects imaged for other reasons. The study group consisted of patients with diagnoses of probable dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT; 35.6%), multi-infarct dementia (MID; 22.2%), depression (8.9%), alcoholic dementia (6.7%), other dementias (OD; 13.2%) and no dementia (6.7%). Within the study group, there were no significant differences across diagnostic categories for duration of symptoms or level of education. Patients with DAT were, however, more impaired than others (Mini-Mental State Examination scores: DAT 14.6 [+/- 8.2] versus MID 17.4 [+/- 6.2] versus OD 21.2 [+/- 6.4]). Demented subjects were more likely than nondemented individuals to have a convex third ventricle and greater wall separation. The results suggest that the shape of the third ventricle may correlate with dementia. Possibly, the dorsal medial nucleus of the thalamus is involved in the dementia.

Influence of adult age on primary and secondary memory search.

We compared young and elderly adults on the ability to search lists of words stored in primary memory (PM) and in secondary memory (SM). The results of Experiment 1 indicated that age differences in search performance were greatest under SM conditions. Older adults, unlike the young, appeared biased toward responding that probe items were not members of the memory sets stored in SM. As a result of this apparent bias, older adults committed a large number of errors on trials in which the probe was a member of the memorized list (i.e., positive probe trials) yet few errors on trials in which the probe was not a member of the list (i.e., negative probe trials). In addition, the responses of older, but not younger, adults to negative probe trials were found to be more rapid than were those to positive probe trials. In Experiment 2 we examined this pattern of responding and concluded that age differences were involved in the ability to encode memory sets and transfer them from PM to SM as well as in the ability to retrieve information from SM prior to conducting a memory search.

Information and referral service usage among caregivers for dementia patients.

Questionnaires were mailed to 257 callers of a toll-free telephone "helpline" specializing in Alzheimer's disease and related dementing illnesses; 125 (48.6%) were completed and returned. On the average, 3.94 requests for information were made per call. The most common requests concerned services delivered to the home, general information about dementia, information about adult day care, and support group information. Results indicated that a telephone-based information and referral helpline is useful in disseminating knowledge about resources to caregivers of older community-residing adults with cognitive impairment.

The diagnosis of dementia: demographic characteristics.

The demographic characteristics of 242 clinic outpatients evaluated for dementia were examined. Each individual received a comprehensive assessment of medical status, psychological functioning, and social abilities. Diagnoses were arrived at by consensus, and appropriate treatment plans and follow-up recommendations were generated, with comprehensive feedback provided to family members and other caregivers. The results of this study help increase our knowledge of the characteristics of individuals with Alzheimer's disease, multi-infarct dementia, or other related disorders.

Should patients who assault staff be prosecuted?

This article discusses the issue of prosecution of mentally disordered patients particularly in relation to assaults or acts of violence in health care settings. The arguments for prosecuting those responsible for committing acts of dangerous behaviour are discussed, as are the arguments against prosecution and some of the possible reasons why this is a contentious area of discussion. There are significant risks to the integrity of mental health services if the consideration of prosecution as a strategy to reduce risk of violence in hospitals does not become an area of meaningful discussion at all levels. The risk of violence is real, but the risks of accepting it without taking measures to reduce the frequency or severity of violence is no less acceptable than accepting that burglary is inevitable and leaving one's front door ajar every day. Health care professionals may wish to consider that in the absence of a clinically based solution or ownership of the problem, the risk of an organizational response to this sensitive area, perhaps guided or driven by political concerns is likely, as has happened in areas such as risk assessment, treatability and compliance with treatment.

Adult age, information processing, and partial report performance.

Previous investigations using the partial report technique for examining adult age differences in iconic memory have suggested that older adults are less able to extract information stored in the icon than are young adults. The present study examined the hypothesis that poorer partial report performance on the part of older adults involves age-related differences in the speed of visual and auditory information processing. Elderly (M = 67 years) and young (M = 23.5 years) adults were contrasted on partial report, whole report, backward masking, and choice reaction time tasks. Results indicated that the older age group exhibited a smaller partial report advantage than did their younger counterparts. This age difference was found to be related in part to increases with age in the time required to encode and identify visual stimuli but was not related to the time required to translate auditory cues into recall instructions. In other words, the slowdown in visual information processing speed that accompanies increased age contributes to age differences in performance on tasks involving iconic memory.

Age differences in acoustic and semantic recognition memory.

Patterns of information encoding were examined across a wide age range of subjects. Subjects aged 8-, 10-, 24-, 66-, and 75-yr. were administered a recognition memory task involving both acoustically and semantically related distractor words. The errors and latencies indicated no age-difference in encoding patterns. A comparison of errors for 8-, 10-, and 24-yr.-olds alone, however, indicated a shift from acoustic tp se,amtoc encoding style between the ages of 8 and 10.

Diagnosis of multi-infarct dementia: predictive value of clinical criteria.

Clinical and neuroimaging features that best discriminated a multi-infarct dementia diagnosis from a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease were retrospectively reviewed for 192 patients of a university-based dementia diagnostic clinic. Only a subset of features usually ascribed to multi-infarct dementia actually distinguished that diagnosis from the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

Techniques for recruiting foster homes for mentally retarded children.

A survey indicates that a mass media campaign increases awareness of a foster care program for mentally retarded children, but personal contact, especially with a current or former foster parent, is a decisive factor in the decision to apply.

Developmentally disabled children can be adopted.

People have often thought that developmentally disabled children were hard to place and poor risks in adoption. However, this research shows that a large number of children of all ages and disabilities were placed for adoption with few disruptions. In light of these findings, agencies may well put more effort into identifying developmentally disabled children as suitable candidates for adoption services.

Relationship between foster care and adoption units serving developmentally disabled children.

There were few differences between developmentally disabled foster children and those who were adopted. The foster children as a group were slightly older and more likely to have intact biological families who continued to maintain contact with them. More differences were found in the agencies' structures and practices. The major problem areas identified during the site visits appeared to be within the child welfare system itself, specifically at the interface between foster care and adoption. Bridging mechanisms were needed between units to temper the differences in perception, values, role expectations, and decision-making criteria used by the specialized staffs. When bridging mechanisms were in place, specialization of function was related to increased effectiveness in placing developmentally disabled children for adoption.

Agency practices in successful adoption of developmentally disabled children.

The authors discuss the variables associated with success in placing developmentally disabled children for adoption by public and private agencies. They also describe the results of their national study of 199 agencies.

Age differences and practice in forward visual masking.

Three groups of subjects of mean age 24-, 65, and 74-years were contrasted with respect to performance on a forward visual masking task. Twenty-five-year-olds required 24.5 msec to escape masking, 65-year-olds required 52.2 msec, and 74-year-olds, 69.5 msec. These findings suggested that increased age yields a rise in susceptibility to forward masking by visual noise. The effects of practice on age reduction in the interstimulus interval required to escape masking for each age group. There was, however, no significant interaction between age and practice.

Adult age, presentation time, and memory performance.

The present investigation involved an examination of the influence of the task variable of presentation time on the free recall performance of young and elderly adults. The two age groups of participants were initially asked to predict the number of words (out of 16) they would be able to recall if given a particular presentation duration. These predictions were subsequently compared to actual recall performance of the two groups when lists were displayed for the durations employed during the prediction phase. Results indicated that young adults more accurately predicted their recall performance than did older adults. Both age groups, however, were found to vary their recall predictions in a similar fashion as a function of changes in hypothetical presentation time of the word lists. The findings of the present study, therefore, supported those of previous investigations which concluded that age differences in memory knowledge do not accurately reflect age differences in memory task performance. No support, however, was provided for the hypothesis that age differences exist with respect to knowledge about the relationship between the task variable of presentation time and memory performance. Thus, these findings suggest that different dimensions of memory knowledge may be differentially influenced by the aging process.

Age differences in primary organization or processing variability? Part I: An examination of age and primary organization.

We compared young and elderly adults on the ability to serially recall sequences of letters assumed to be stored in secondary memory. The results showed that older adults recalled significantly fewer complete strings than younger adults. However, both age groups exhibited the same pattern of transitional error probabilities (TEPs), indicating that the two groups were chunking information in the same qualitative manner. Interestingly, though, the older adults exhibited higher TEP spikes (indicating stronger chunk bounderies) than did younger adults. These results do not support the view that there are qualitative age differences in primary organization, but the results do indicate that older adults have a secondary memory deficit.

Age differences in primary organization or processing variability? Part II: Evidence for processing variability.

Young and older adults were compared on their ability to organize letter sets into "opaque" memory codes (letters were either transposed within or between imposed chunk boundaries on a secondary memory, recognition task). Also, processing variability (i.e., internal noise) was examined via signal detection methods. The data indicated that there were no qualitative age differences in the manner in which both groups organized opaque memory codes, although older adults did take significantly longer to respond. The results from the signal detection theory portion of the present experiment demonstrated that older adults' memory operating characteristic curves exhibited significantly more variability than those of the young. This suggested that an age difference in processing variability existed, rather than any appreciable age difference in the primary organization (i.e., the forming of opaque memory codes) of item order information.