The association among apathy, leisure activity participation, and severity of dementia in nursing home residents with Alzheimer's disease: A cross-sectional study.

The purpose of this study was to examine 1) the relationship between apathy and leisure activity participation in nursing home residents with Alzheimer disease (AD) and 2) the moderator effect of the severity of dementia on this relationship. Data were collected from 290 residents with AD using the Apathy Evaluation Scale-informant version (AES-I), Leisure Activities Questionnaire (LAQ), and Clinical Dementia Rating scale (CDR). The multiple linear regression model showed that leisure activity participation (ß=-0.452, p<0.001) was negatively associated with apathy, while the severity of dementia (ß=0.515, p<0.001) was positively associated with apathy. The severity of dementia moderated the effect of leisure activity participation on apathy (ß=-0.108, p=0.015). The results indicate that the effects of leisure activity participation on apathy diminish with the aggravation of AD. The severity of dementia should be considered when designing and delivering leisure activity interventions to manage apathy in nursing home residents with AD.

Global dynamics of an SIRS model with demographics and transfer from infectious to susceptible on heterogeneous networks.

In this paper, by taking full consideration of demographics, transfer from infectious to sus-ceptible and contact heterogeneity of the individuals, we construct an improved Susceptible-Infected-Removed-Susceptible (SIRS) epidemic model on complex heterogeneous networks. Using the next generation matrix method, we obtain the basic reproduction number $\mathcal{R}_0$ which is a critical value and used to measure the dynamics of epidemic diseases. More specifically, if $\mathcal{R}_0$ < 1, then the disease-free equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable; if $\mathcal{R}_0$ > 1, then there exists a unique endemic equilib-rium and the permanence of the disease is shown in detail. By constructing an appropriate Lyapunov function, the global stability of the endemic equilibrium is proved as well under some conditions. Moreover, the effects of three major immunization strategies are investigated. Finally, some numerical simulations are carried out to demonstrate the correctness and validness of the theoretical results.