ABSTRACT
<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) manifest progressive decline in writing abilities. Most studies on agraphia in AD have been performed in the alphabetic system, such as English. However, these findings may not be applicable to other written language systems. The unique features of the Chinese written script could affect the patterns of agraphia in Chinese AD patients. The aim of this study was to explore the features of writing errors in Chinese patients with AD and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (a-MCI), as well as to study the relationship between their writing errors and neuropsychological functions.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>In this study, we performed an observational study in a group of subjects including 17 AD patients, 14 patients with a-MCI, and 16 elderly healthy controls. We analyzed the writing errors in these subjects and also studied the relationship between their writing errors and neuropsychological functions.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Our study showed that in patients whose mother tongue is Chinese, writing ability was comparatively well preserved in the MCI phase but significantly impaired when the disease progressed to the stage of AD. The writing errors showed corresponding increase with the severity of cognition decline, both in the types of errors and rate of occurrence. Analysis of the writing errors showed that word substitution and unintelligible words were the most frequent error types that occurred in all the three study groups. The occurrence rate of unintelligible words was significantly higher in the AD group compared with the a-MCI group (P = 0.024) and control group (P = 0.018). In addition, the occurrence rates of word substitution were also significantly higher in AD (P = 0.013) and a-MCI groups (P = 0.037) than that of control group. However, errors such as totally no response, visuospatial impairment, paragraph agraphia, ideograph, and perseverative writing errors were only seen in AD group. Besides, we also found a high occurrence rate of visuoconstructional errors (13.3%) in our AD group.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>Our study confirmed that agraphia is an important feature in patients with AD. The writing error profile in patients whose native language is Chinese was unique compared to patients using the alphabetic language system.</p>
Subject(s)
Aged , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Agraphia , Diagnosis , Alzheimer Disease , Asian People , Cognition Disorders , Diagnosis , Cognitive Dysfunction , Diagnosis , Neuropsychological TestsABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the status of knowledge,attitude,willingness toward human organ donation and its influencing factors among undergraduate students in Hangzhou City.Methods Using stratified random sampling method, 626 students from six universities in Hangzhou were selected.Data was analyzed by statistical description,one -way ANOVA and multiple linear regression method.Results The average scores of knowledge,attitude and willingness were 8.47 ±2.68,89.33 ±1.44 and 9.09 ±2.37,respectively and those with a willingness of organ donation made up 16.61%.Interpersonal communication,traditional ideas,knowledge level and religious belief were the influencing factors (P <0.05 ).Conclusion Undergraduate students generally hold a positive view on organ donation while have a poor knowledge and willingness of it.Family,school,as well as the society should take effective measures to improve the level of knowledge,attitude and willingness of organ donation among undergraduate students.
ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To develop a suitable physical exercise behavior-psychological scale for the Chinese adolescents and to evaluate its validity and reliability.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A total of 3600 junior students were recruited and tested through multistage sampling method. Reliability was assessed, using Cronbach's α and split-half reliability; while exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were used to test its validity, with entries-dimension correlation coefficient (IIC), correlation coefficient between the scores and the dimension, the dimension of correlation coefficient test content validity.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The internal consistency reliabilities for total scale score (Cronbach's α = 0.888), Cronbach's α of four domains were 0.880, 0.706, 0.552 and 0.839, respectively. The four-domain split-efficacy reliabilities were ranged between 0.559 and 0.876. Data from the exploratory factor analysis revealed the following dimensions: the entries were all inclusive; the cumulative contribution rate was more than 40%.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>from the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the absolute fit measures of GFI = 0.972, AGFI = 0.958, RMSEA = 0.032 (90%CI: 0.030 - 0.034) could satisfy the condition while the model fit was better. The results of IIC showed: in the four dimensions, and the contained entries between Spearman correlation coefficient range were 0.396 - 0.700, 0.470 - 0.709, 0.696 - 0.771 and 0.665 - 0.813, while other dimensions from weak to moderate relationships, the r value range was from 0.386 to 0.935. With the change of the phase changing process, decision balance, self-efficacy scores were differently prompting the health-related intervention periodically and pertinently.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The reliability and validity of the 'Adolescent physical exercise behavior-psychological scales (Chinese version) ' were good, and could be used to measure the adolescent's physical training behavior-psychological conditions.</p>