Overnight consolidation of speech sounds predicts decoding ability in skilled adult readers.

PURPOSE: Phonological representations are important for reading. In the current work, we examine the relationship between speech-perceptual memory encoding and consolidation to reading ability in skilled adult readers. METHOD: Seventy-three young adults (age 18-24) were first tested in their word and nonword reading ability, and then trained in the late evening to identify an unfamiliar speech sound contrast (Hindi retroflex-dental). Participants were assessed in their ability to perceive the target contrast immediately before training, after training, and 12 hours later. RESULTS: While perceptual performance on the target at any time point was unassociated with reading ability, overnight changes to the post-training perceptual ability over the 12-hour delay was significantly associated with nonword reading (i.e. decoding) ability, but not real-word reading. CONCLUSION: These results provide preliminary support for the hypothesis that individual differences in memory processes that update phonological representations following acoustic-phonetic exposure relate to decoding performance, including in adulthood.

Nursing interventions to improve care of people living with dementia in hospital: A mixed methods systematic review.

BACKGROUND: There are growing numbers of people living with dementia being admitted to acute care hospitals. Hospitalization for people living with dementia can be difficult and is often associated with negative outcomes. Nurses play a significant role in shaping the hospital experience of people living with dementia, and there have been efforts to design, implement and evaluate interventions to improve nursing care of people living with dementia. OBJECTIVE: To synthesize evidence on the effectiveness of, and experiences with, nursing interventions to improve care of hospitalized people living with dementia. DESIGN: Mixed methods systematic review following the JBI convergent segregated approach to synthesis and integration of findings. METHODS: The quantitative component considered studies that evaluated nursing interventions to improve the care of people living with dementia in hospital, comparing the intervention to usual care, other therapeutic modalities, or no comparator. The qualitative component considered studies that explored the experiences of nursing interventions from the perspectives of people living with dementia, caregivers, and nurses. A total of 8 databases were used to search for published and unpublished studies. Titles, abstracts, and full text selections were screened by two or more independent reviewers and assessed for methodological quality. RESULTS: A total of 38 studies were included in the review, 24 quantitative, 9 qualitative and 5 mixed method designs. Critical appraisal scores were moderate. All studies regardless of methodological quality were included in the review. Interventions were grouped as principally related to (1) dementia education for nurses, (2) technology, (3) nursing skills, and (4) physical environment. Outcomes are presented related to health outcomes of people living with dementia; nurses' knowledge, confidence, and self-efficacy; and health system outcomes. As the interventions were heterogeneous, a meta-analysis of quantitative findings was not possible. The qualitative analysis incorporated 60 findings from 12 studies and led to nine categories and two synthesized findings recognizing external influences on nurses' practice with people living with dementia and the importance of interventions to humanize nurses' work with people living with dementia. Integration of the quantitative and qualitative results demonstrates the need to recognize the role of organization- and unit-level factors in the design and implementation of effective interventions. CONCLUSIONS: There is limited high-quality evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of interventions to improve nursing care of people living with dementia in hospital. Using approaches to intervention design and implementation that draw on models of behavior change and learning health systems may support effective change. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION NUMBER: PROSPERO 2021CRD42021230951.

Strategies and indicators to integrate health equity in health service and delivery systems in high-income countries: a scoping review.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this review was to describe how health service and delivery systems in high-income countries define and operationalize health equity. A secondary objective was to identify implementation strategies and indicators being used to integrate and measure health equity. INTRODUCTION: To improve the health of populations, a population health and health equity approach is needed. To date, most work on health equity integration has focused on reducing health inequities within public health, health care delivery, or providers within a health system, but less is known about integration across the health service and delivery system. INCLUSION CRITERIA: This review included academic and gray literature sources that described the definitions, frameworks, level of integration, strategies, and indicators that health service and delivery systems in high-income countries have used to describe, integrate, and/or measure health equity. Sources were excluded if they were not available in English (or a translation was not available), were published before 1986, focused on strategies that were not implemented, did not provide health equity indicators, or featured strategies that were implemented outside the health service or delivery systems (eg, community-based strategies). METHODS: This review was conducted in accordance with the JBI methodology for scoping reviews. Titles and abstracts were screened for eligibility followed by a full-text review to determine inclusion. The information extracted from the included studies consisted of study design and key findings, such as health equity definitions, strategies, frameworks, level of integration, and indicators. Most data were quantitatively tabulated and presented according to 5 secondary review questions. Some findings (eg, definitions and indicators) were summarized using qualitative methods. Most findings were visually presented in charts and diagrams or presented in tabular format. RESULTS: Following review of 16,297 titles and abstracts and 824 full-text sources, we included 122 sources (108 scholarly and 14 gray literature) in this scoping review. We found that health equity was inconsistently defined and operationalized. Only 17 sources included definitions of health equity, and we found that both indicators and strategies lacked adequate descriptions. The use of health equity frameworks was limited and, where present, there was little consistency or agreement in their use. We found that strategies were often specific to programs, services, or clinics, rather than broadly applied across health service and delivery systems. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that strategies to advance health equity work are siloed within health service and delivery systems, and are not currently being implemented system-wide (ie, across all health settings). Healthy equity definitions and frameworks are varied in the included sources, and indicators for health equity are variable and inconsistently measured. Health equity integration needs to be prioritized within and across health service and delivery systems. There is also a need for system-wide strategies to promote health equity, alongside robust accountability mechanisms for measuring health equity. This is necessary to ensure that an integrated, whole-system approach can be consistently applied in health service and delivery systems internationally. REVIEW REGISTRATION: DalSpace dalspace.library.dal.ca/handle/10222/80835.