Efeitos do treino musical sobre a memória visual de curto prazo em crianças / Evalution of memory in children with and without musical training

Este estudo teve por objetivo avaliar a memória de crianças que executam atividades musicais.Participaram 32 crianças, de 7 a 1 2 anos. Destas, 1 6 faziam aulas de música (condição experimental; M=9,81 anos; DP = 0,84) e as outras 1 6 não o faziam (condição controle; M= 9,63 anos; DP = 1 ,82). Fora utilizados o teste pictórico de memória (Tepic-M) e um questionário sociodemográfico. Realizam-se análises descritivas e o teste t de Student de amostras independentes. A condição experimental apresentou média superior (M= 11 ,63, DP = 3,07) em relação à condição controle (M= 8, DP = 3,58), obtendo-se uma diferença estatisticamente significativa entre os grupos [t(22) = 3,07, p<0,05]. Destarte, sugere-seque a execução musical possa beneficiar a memória de curto prazo

Psychometric Properties of Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale for Mild Cognitive Impairment and Mild Alzheimer's Disease Patients in an Asian Context

<p><b>INTRODUCTION</b>The purpose of the current study is to assess the psychometric properties of Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive subscale (ADAS-Cog) on patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) in a multicultural Asian context.</p><p><b>MATERIALS AND METHODS</b>Sixty-four mild AD patients (mean age ± SD; 72.24 ± 7.88 years), 80 MCI patients (66.44 ± 7.45 years) and 125 healthy controls (HCs) (61.81 ± 6.96 years) participated in the study. Participants underwent a clinical interview and serial neuropsychological testing. ADAS-Cog total and subtest scores were compared across the 3 groups. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis were performed and sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive values (PPVs) and negative predictive values (NPVs) were calculated.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Patients with MCI attained significantly worse neuropsychological test scores than healthy controls but significantly better results than patients with mild AD on ADAS-Cog total score, subtest items, and the delayed recall item (P <0.001). The best cutoff score to differentiate between MCI and HC was ≥4 (sensitivity = 0.73, specificity = 0.69, PPV = 0.90, NPV = 0.40), while the best cutoff score to distinguish between MCI and mild AD was ≥12 (sensitivity = 0.86, specificity = 0.89, PPV = 0.99, NPV = 0.32). Evidence of internal consistency of the ADAS-Cog (Cronbach α = 0.85) as well as convergent validity with the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) (ρ = -0.75) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) (ρ = -0.81) (both P <0.001) was also found.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The ADAS-Cog which is widely used in clinical trials is applicable to the Asian cohort. It is useful in the detection of MCI and mild AD as well as in distinguishing these 2 conditions.</p>