Psychological and functional impacts associated with restrictions in long-term care facilities (LTCF) due to the COVID-19 pandemic: A multicentre study.

Objectives: To analyze the impacts of the restrictions implemented in LTCF during the COVID-19 pandemic on the psychological and functional status of older adults. Design: A retrospective multicentre study is designed. We hypothesize that the negative effects of the restrictions will lead to a higher rate of decline between the measures taken immediately before and after the lockdown than between the two measures taken before the lockdown. Setting and participants: 365 participants recruited in four Spanish LTCFs in Galicia and Valencia.Methods: Impacts of restrictions on cognitive (MMSE), affective (GDS) and functional status (Barthel index, Tinetti) were analyzed by Linear Mixed Models with random intercepts, random slopes, and personal and contextual factors as covariates.Results: Social measures covaried significantly with the cognitive and functional status but did not predict longitudinal change. MMSE, Barthel index and Tinetti scores decreased significantly across pre- and post-lockdown measurement times, but only the Tinetti scores showed a specific impact of the restrictions.Conclusions: Only performance-based functional measures showed the real impact of restrictions. The findings highlight the importance of having data from several pre-lockdown measurements to enable identification of changes that can be causally attributed to the restrictions. The findings also support the resilience of older adults in mitigating the effect of the restrictions.

Characterizing Magnitude and Selectivity of Attrition in a Study of Mild Cognitive Impairment.

OBJECTIVES: Attrition is one of the greatest difficulties in longitudinal studies on cognitive ageing because of the associated risk of underestimating declines. The aims of this paper were to characterize the magnitude and selectivity of attrition in a study of mild cognitive impairment. DESIGN: Forty two patients with multiple-domain amnestic MCI, 71 with single-domain amnestic MCI, 35 with non-amnestic MCI and 318 healthy controls were recruited from primary care centers and assessed at baseline. MEASUREMENTS: All participants underwent extensive neuropsychological evaluation, including the Mini-Mental State Examination, the Californian Verbal Learning Test, the CAMCOG-R battery, the Counting Span task and Listening Span task, and the Subjective Memory Complaints Questionnaire. RESULTS: 21.5% of the participants at baseline did not participate in the follow-up assessment. Comparison between respondents and non-returners did not reveal differences in cognitive performance in the MCI group. Data obtained at the initial assessment regarding comorbidity, social activities and attention given to memory training enabled prediction of the status of the participants in the follow-up assessment. CONCLUSION: Identification of potential non- returners is relevant, especially in MCI studies, in order to develop retention strategies to minimize attrition.

Envejecimiento, deterioro cognitivo y lenguaje: resultados del Estudio Longitudinal Donosita / Aging, cognitive impairment and language: Results from the Donostia Longitudinal Study

El Estudio Longitudinal Donostia ha investigado el efecto de las intervenciones de tipo no farmacológicoen personas mayores sin deterioro cognitivo, condeterioro cognitivo leve y con demencia. El presentetrabajo se deriva de dicho estudio y pretende profundizaren el perfil lingüístico de las personas participantes,así como realizar una primera aproximaciónempírica al efecto de una intervención de tipomulticomponente en variables de tipo lingüístico.Para ello se ha contado con una muestra de 395 sujetosdistribuidos entre los estadios 1 y 4 de la GlobalDeterioration Scale (GDS). Se han realizado tres grupospor cada estadio: uno de ellos siguió una intervenciónde acuerdo a un modelo de deterioro por estadios, elsegundo realizó tareas de estimulación sin ningúnmodelo prefijado y el tercero no recibió ningún tipo deintervención.Los resultados muestran un mejor rendimiento enlos participantes con GDS 1 y 2 respecto a aquellosque presentan deterioro cognitivo. Entre GDS 3 y 4, seproducen diferencias en vocabulario, escritura y fluidezsemántica, pero no en comprensión auditiva,comprensión escrita y fluidez fonológica. Respecto alefecto de la intervención estimulativa, se observa unamejora en las variables que miden procesos léxicofonológicosen aquéllos participantes que no presentandeterioro cognitivo(AU)

Donostia Longitudinal Study has investigated the effect of non-pharmacological interventions inolder adults without cognitive impairment, withmild cognitive impairment and with dementia. Thecurrent work is derived from this study and aimsto go in depth into the linguistic profile of participants,as well as to perform a first empiricalapproximation to the effect of multi-type interventionin linguistic constructs.We have had a sample of 395 subjects dividedbetween stages from 1 to 4 of the Global DeteriorationScale (GDS). There have been threegroups for each stage: one of them followed anintervention established according to a patternof decline by stages; the second performed stimulationtasks without any theoretical backgroundand the third did not receive any kind ofintervention.The results showed a better performance in participantswith GDS 1 and 2 compared to those withcognitive impairment. Between GDS 3 and 4, differenceswere found in vocabulary, writing andsemantic fluency, but not in listening comprehension,reading comprehension and phonologicalfluency. Regarding to the effect of the intervention,an improvement is observed for those variablesthat measure lexical-phonological processesin those participants who do not suffer cognitiveimpairment(AU)

El fenómeno de la punta de la lengua en el deterioro cognitivo leve. Un estudio piloto / The phenomenon of the tip of the tongue in Mild Cognitive Impairment. A pilot study

El presente estudio investiga la denominación de personasfamosas en un grupo de pacientes con deteriorocognitivo leve (DCL) (6 individuos) y un grupocontrol de personas sanas (13 individuos) equiparadosen edad y nivel educativo. Tiene como objetivo estudiarlas dificultades en el acceso semántico y fonológicoa los nombres propios en pacientes con DCL. Seutilizó una tarea de denominación a partir de60 fotos de personas famosas con un paradigma quefacilita la producción de eventos del fenómeno de lapunta de la lengua (PDL). Los resultados indicaronque los participantes con DCL producían más respuestasde PDL positivos, cometían más errores y resolvíanmenos PDL que los participantes control sanos.La información semántica sobre los personajes eramás difusa en los participantes con DCL que en loscontroles sanos. Se sugiere que el DCL afecta negativamente a la activación de las representacionessemánticas y debilita la transmisión desde las representaciones semánticas a las representaciones fonológicas

The present study investigates naming of famouspeople in a group of Mild Cognitive Impairment(MCI) patients (6 individuals) and a group ofhealthy controls (13 individuals) matched on ageand educational level. The research is aimed atstudying difficulties on semantic and phonologicalaccess to proper names in MCI patients. A task ofnaming from 60 famous persons pictures, includedinto a paradigm for facilitating tip-of-the-tongueevents, was used. Results indicated that the MCIpatients produced more positive TOT, more errorsand resolved fewer TOT than the healthy controls.Semantic information was more diffuse in MCIpatients than in healthy controls. We suggest thatMCI affects negatively activation of the semanticrepresentations of proper names and weakenstransmission from the semantic to the phonological representations (AU)

Variabilidad en el acceso al léxico en el envejecimiento normal / Variability in lexical access in normal aging

Se ha estudiado la variabilidad interindividual o diversidad en el acceso al léxico en el proceso de envejecimiento normal. las medidas de variabilidad se basaron en el rendimiento de 141 voluntarios con edades comprendidas entre los 19 y 82 años en una tarea experimental de producción de eventos de la punta de la lengua (PDL) y en dos test de vocabulario, el WAIS y el Peabody. Se realizó un análisis descriptivo basado en la representación gráfica de máximos y mínimos y en un análisis de regresión polinomial sobre la edad. los resultados indicaban que la variabilidad se incrementa con la edad en dos de las medidas utilizadas, TR de los PDL y puntuaciones en el Peabody, pero no en frecuencia de PDL ni en puntuaciones del WAIS. Estos resultados se interpretan, dentro de la teoría de la división de recursos de procesamiento lingüístico, como que la variabilidad aumenta con el incremento de la edad en los procesos on-line pero no en los procesos off-line implicados en el procesamiento léxico. Se discute también la implicación de los hallazgos en relación con la teoría de la inteligencia fluida y cristalizada en la vejez, sugiriendo que la variabilidad aumenta en factores cognitivos fluidos pero no en los cristalizados

Variability between persons (diversity) in lexical access was examined in normal aging. Variability measures were based on performance of 141 volunteers aged from 19 to 92 years in an experimental task for producing tip of the tongue events (TOTs) and in two vocabulary tests (WAIS and Peabody). Data were subjected to a descriptive analysis based on maximum and minimum graphic representation, and to a polynomial regression analysis on age. Results indicated that variability increases with increasing aging in two of the used measures as RT of TOTs and Peabody scores but not in the frequency of TOTs and WAIS scores. These results are interpreted, in the light of the hypothesis of division of linguistic processing resources, as an increase of variability in the online but not in the off-line pracesses in aging. The findings are discussed with respect to the Crystallized and Fluid Intelligence theory in aging suggesting that variability increases for fluid factors but not for crystallized factors

Efectos del envejecimiento en el fenómeno de la punta de la lengua. Sugerencias para la intervención en el acceso al léxico / Aging effects on the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. Suggestions for intervention on lexical access

La principal dificultad de acceso al léxico de las personas mayores normales consiste en un fallo para recordar palabras conocidas que ha sido llamado «fenómeno de la punta de la lengua» (PDL). Este fallo puede tener consecuencias negativas sobre el normal desarrollo del proceso de conversación y comunicación y puede producir problemas emocionales en los mayores. Con el objetivo de conocer algunas pautas que puedan ayudar a las personas mayores a resolver las situaciones de PDL hemos realizado un estudio experimental sobre la incidencia y naturaleza del PDL. En el estudio, 57 adultos agrupados en tres grupos de edad (jóvenes, mediana edad y mayores) participaron en un experimento de definiciones de palabras (nombres comunes, nombres propios, verbos y adjetivos) para elicitar PDL. Para inducir la resolución utilizamos también una tarea de evocación libre de palabras, presentada como una tarea de fluidez, y una tarea de primado, presentada como una tarea de pronunciación. los resultados confirman una mayor incidencia de los PDL y un menor efecto de la facilitación fonológica en las personas mayores. A partir de los resultados, se sugiere que las estrategias más eficaces para mejorar el acceso al léxico en este grupo de edad, son aquellas que se basan en el procesamiento consciente, arriba-abajo, no constreñido por el tiempo y con tareas que utilicen claves contextuales y semánticas

The main important difficulty of lexical access for the elderly consists in a failure to recall a word of which one has knowledge that has been called «the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon» (TOT). That failure has negative consequences on the normal flow of conversation and communication and can produce emotional disturbances in the elderly. We carried out an experimental study on the influence of aging on incidence and resolution of IOT events with the aim of knowing some guide lines for intervention that can help aged people to successfully resolve these situations. In this study, 57 adults grouped into three groups of age (young, middle age, old) participated in an experiment using definitions about common names, proper names, adjectives and verbs to elicit TOTs. They also were induced to resolve the TOTs introducing a freeevocation-of-words task and a priming task presented as a fluency and a pronunciation task respectively. Results confirm a higher incidence of TOTs and a lower effect of phonological priming on the older than on the younger people. From our results we suggest that the more efficacious strategies to facilitate lexical access in the elderly are those that are based on a conscious and top-down processing without temporal constraints and implemented by tasks using contextual and semantic cues