A Scoping Review of the Measurement of Depression in Older Adults with Cognitive Impairment.

OBJECTIVES: Depression and cognitive impairment are disabling conditions that commonly occur together in older adults. The interaction is challenging when choosing appropriate measurement scales. This review aimed to summarize the scales to measure depression symptoms in older people with cognitive impairment, investigating how cognitive impairment is related to the choice of measurement, and how the setting may affect the choice of measurement. METHODS: A scoping review of literature published between 2015 and 2021. RESULTS: After screening 1580 articles, 26 were included in the review with 11 different measures of depression symptoms identified. The measures mostly commonly used were the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia (CSDD) and the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI-Q). Most studies did not report on the usability of depression scales used with people with cognitive impairment and only two scales (CSDD and NPI-Q, not GDS) have been validated for use with this population. CONCLUSIONS: Severe cognitive impairment was under-represented in the identified studies, and no association was detected between study setting, cognitive impairment and type of measure used. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Clinicians and researchers should consider both the cognitive status of participants and the setting they live in when choosing a measure of depression symptoms.

BEFRIENding for Depression, Anxiety and Social support in older adults living in Australian residential aged care facilities (BEFRIENDAS): randomised controlled trial protocol.

BACKGROUND: This protocol describes an ongoing study of the impact of befriending on depression, anxiety and loneliness in older people living in residential aged care facilities in Australia. While systematic reviews of befriending have indicated positive benefits of befriending for people in a range of ages and settings, there have been no randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of befriending for older people living in residential aged care with depression and no studies of the cost effectiveness of befriending in residential aged care facilities (RACFs) in Australia. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We are conducting a single blind pragmatic RCT comparing two groups of older people living in RACFs, one receiving an intervention consisting of weekly befriending for 4 months from a trained volunteer and the other receiving treatment as usual. Participants undergo eligibility screening for depression (GDS-15 ≥ 4) and cognitive impairment (GPCog ≥ 4) and assessments at three measurement time points: baseline prior to randomisation, 2 months post-baseline and 4 months post-baseline. The primary outcome measure is depression, and secondary outcome measures are anxiety, loneliness, social isolation and quality of life. The economic evaluation will take the form of a cost-utility analysis based on the outcome of quality of life. The primary and secondary outcomes will be analysed using negative binomial and logistic regressions utilizing the Generalised Estimating Equations approach. DISCUSSION: To our knowledge, this is the first RCT evaluating the effectiveness of befriending on older people with depression living in residential aged care. It is expected that the befriending intervention will reduce the severity of depression symptoms experienced by older people living in residential aged care. If the intervention proves effective it may be incorporated into volunteer training programs and adopted as a way of supporting older people's mental health. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Trial registered with the Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry (ANZCTR) Number: ACTRN12619000676112 , registered 06/05/2019 - retrospectively registered.

Befriending Older Adults in Nursing Homes: Volunteer Perceptions of Switching to Remote Befriending in the COVID-19 Era.

Objectives: Residents in nursing homes are being isolated to prevent exposure to COVID-19. Many are prone to depression, anxiety and loneliness, and extra isolation leaves them vulnerable to compromised mental health. In this study, trained volunteers providing befriending for residents with symptoms of depression, anxiety and loneliness switched to remote befriending during COVID-19. The purpose of this study was to gauge volunteer perceptions of the switch.Methods: A qualitative phenomenological approach was used to understand how switching to remote befriending impacted on volunteers and residents. A convenience sample of 18 participants responded to questions either in individual or group interviews.Results: Volunteers adapted their befriending visits, switching from face to face visits to remote options. The format was decided collaboratively. Hearing impairments hindered phone calls. Residents sometimes felt uncomfortable with digital technology but on the whole, the change to remote "visiting" was accepted.Conclusions: Further research is being conducted to gauge mental health outcomes for residents. Most volunteers and residents accepted the switch to remote befriending as better than no contact.Clinical implications: Volunteers can provide valuable support for residents living with social isolation during COVID-19. The format for social support needs to be decided collaboratively between volunteer and resident.

Fault-Tolerant Logical Gates in the IBM Quantum Experience.

Quantum computers will require encoding of quantum information to protect them from noise. Fault-tolerant quantum computing architectures illustrate how this might be done but have not yet shown a conclusive practical advantage. Here we demonstrate that a small but useful error detecting code improves the fidelity of the fault-tolerant gates implemented in the code space as compared to the fidelity of physically equivalent gates implemented on physical qubits. By running a randomized benchmarking protocol in the logical code space of the [4,2,2] code, we observe an order of magnitude improvement in the infidelity of the gates, with the two-qubit infidelity dropping from 5.8(2)% to 0.60(3)%. Our results are consistent with fault-tolerance theory and conclusively demonstrate the benefit of carrying out computation in a code space that can detect errors. Although the fault-tolerant gates offer an impressive improvement in fidelity, the computation as a whole is not below the fault-tolerance threshold because of noise associated with state preparation and measurement on this device.

The effect of acculturation and discrimination on mental health symptoms and risk behaviors among adolescent migrants in Israel.

This study examines the role of acculturation, perceived discrimination, and self-esteem in predicting the mental health symptoms and risk behaviors among 1.5 and second generation non-Jewish adolescents born to migrant families compared with native-born Jewish Israeli adolescents in Israel. Participants included n = 65 1.5 migrant adolescents, n = 60 second generation migrant adolescents, and n = 146 age, gender, and socioeconomic matched sample of native-born Jewish Israelis. Participants completed measures of acculturation pattern, perceived discrimination, and self-esteem as well as measures of mental health symptoms and risk behaviors. Results show that migrant adolescents across generations reported worse mental health symptoms compared with native-born Jewish Israelis. However, only the 1.5 generation migrants reported higher engagement in risk behaviors compared with second generation migrants and native-born Jewish Israelis. Our findings further showed that acculturation plays an important role in predicting the mental health status of migrant youth, with those characterized with integrated acculturative pattern reporting lower mental health symptoms compared with assimilated acculturation pattern. Importantly, contextual factors, such as higher perception of discrimination in the receiving culture as well as individual factors such as lower self-esteem and female gender were strongly associated with worse mental health symptoms. The findings manifest the complex relationship between contextual factors and individual level variables in the acculturative process of migrants as well as the importance of examining the effect of migration generation on mental health outcomes.

School engagement, acculturation, and mental health among migrant adolescents in Israel.

This study aimed to explore the role of school engagement and the mediation effect of acculturation in predicting 1.5 and second-generation migrant adolescents' mental health and risk behaviors. Participants included 448 seventh to tenth grade Israeli students (mean age 14.50, 53% boys): 128 non-Jewish 1.5 generation migrant adolescents (children of migrants living in Israel), 118 second-generation migrants (children of migrants born and living in Israel), and an age-matched sample of 202 native-born Jewish adolescents. All participants completed a battery of questionnaires assessing mental health symptoms, engagement in risk behaviors, social adjustment, and school engagement. Both migrant adolescent groups also completed an acculturation questionnaire. Differences between groups in school engagement, mental health symptoms, and risk behavior were examined, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to investigate the hypothesized mediating effect of acculturation. Findings revealed substantially higher levels of mental health symptoms (p < .001) and risk behaviors (p = .001) among 1.5 and second-generation migrant adolescents compared with native-born adolescents, with no significant differences between 1.5 generation and second-generation migrants. Migrants' age and gender were associated with mental health symptoms and risk behaviors-older participants engaged in more risk behaviors (p = .02), and females had elevated mental health symptoms (p = .007). Identification with the host country mediated the relationships between school engagement and mental health symptoms (ps .006 and .008) and risk behaviors (ps .001 and .004) in 1.5 generation and second-generation migrants, respectively. The results are discussed in reference to current theories and research, as well as practical implications for prevention and intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record