Prediction of Alzheimer's Pathological Changes in Subjective Cognitive Decline Using the Self-report Questionnaire and Neuroimaging Biomarkers

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) may be the first symptomatic stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Hence, a screening tool to characterize the patients' complaints and assess the risk of AD is required. We investigated the SCD neuroimaging biomarker distributions and the relevance between the self-report questionnaire and Alzheimer's pathologic changes. METHODS: Individuals aged 50 and above with consistent cognitive complaints without any objective cognitive impairments were eligible for the study. The newly developed questionnaire consisted of 2 parts; 10 questions translated from the ‘SCD-plus criteria’ and a Korean version of the cognitive failure questionnaire by Broadbent. All the subjects underwent physical examinations such as blood work, detailed neuropsychological tests, the self-report questionnaire, brain magnetic resonance imagings, and florbetaben positron emission tomography (PET) scans. Amyloid PET findings were interpreted using both visual rating and quantitative analysis. Group comparisons and association analysis were performed using SPSS (version 18.0). RESULTS: A total of 31 participants with SCD completed the study and 25.8% showed positive amyloid depositions. The degree of periventricular white matter hyperintensities (WMH) and hippocampal atrophy were more severe in amyloid-positive SCDs compared to the amyloid-negative group. In the self-reported questionnaire, the ‘informant's report a decline’ and ‘symptom's onset after 65 years of age’ were associated with more Alzheimer's pathologic changes. CONCLUSIONS: Amyloid-positive SCDs differed from amyloid-negative SCDs on WMH, hippocampal atrophy, and a few self-reported clinical features, which gave clues on the prediction of AD pathology.

Usefulness of a self-reported physical activity questionnaire assessment for Japanese children / 体力科学

<p>The study aimed to assess a self-reported questionnaire about physical activity (PA) from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) using triaxial accelerometer as a criterion. Elementary school boys (N=292) and girls (N=313) in the fourth grade and higher completed the questionnaire and wore an accelerometer for at least 10 h/day for at least 4 days. The phi coefficients of the chi-square test 2-way tables (active/inactive as measured using the HBSC questionnaire × achievement/non-achievement of the recommended 60-min moderate to vigorous PA [MVPA] as measured using the accelerometer) were 0.25 (P<0.001), 0.17 (P=0.009), and 0.08 (P=0.217) for all children, boys, and girls, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity in boys were 82% (95% confidence interval [CI]=78-86%) and 34% (95%CI=26-41%) respectively, while the those of girls were 52% (95%CI=40-63%), 57% (95%CI=55-60%). The positive predictive value in boys was 70% (95%CI=66-73%) and negative predictive value in girls was 83% (95%CI=79-87%). The independent t-test showed that moderate PA (MPA), vigorous PA (VPA), and MVPA min/day of active children were significantly higher than those of inactive children (range of Cohen’s d=0.38 to 0.71). Area under the curve (AUC) of the VPA (AUC = 0.60–0.73) in girls was significantly higher than that of the MPA (AUC = 0.52–0.65) and MVPA (AUC = 0.54–0.67). Our results supported that the HBSC self-reported questionnaire has acceptable, but limited agreement for assessing achievement/non-achievement of the MVPA recommendation, and could estimate the differences in the MPA, VPA, and MVPA min/day of children.</p>

Relationship between metabolic syndrome components and periodontal health determined using a self-reported questionnaire / 대한구강보건학회지

OBJECTIVES: Many recent studies have suggested that several systemic conditions, such as obesity, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes, are related to periodontitis. The aim of this study was to investigate whether any particular metabolic syndrome component correlates with the periodontal status. METHODS: This study analyzed data from 501 adults (age range, 30 to 64 years) who completed a general physical examination and an oral-health-related questionnaire between January 2014 and June 2014. Periodontitis was already used by the validity and reliability has been proven questionnaire. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to assess the association between metabolic syndrome and the presence of chronic periodontitis. RESULTS: Among the 501 participants, 81 (16.2%) had metabolic syndrome and 91 (18.2%) had chronic periodontitis. The prevalence of chronic periodontitis was 28.40% (23/81) and 16.19% (68/420) in the participants with and without metabolic syndrome, respectively. The association remained significant after adjusting for sex, age, education, income, occupation, and smoking status; the adjusted odds ratio was 2.03 (95% confidence interval, 1.11 to 3.71). CONCLUSIONS: A significant association exists between metabolic syndrome components and the periodontal status.

Factors infl uencing medication errors according to nurses’ decisions to do self-report.

Background: There are many factors associated with medication errors. These errors are mainly related to nursing care, including error in medication administration and omission. Nurses make up the largest group of health workers. Hence, quality of health care depends to a great extent to nurses. Nurses who work in hospitals with inadequate human resources and have more working hours are more likely to commit errors. This study aimed at determining the incidence of medication errors and factors affecting it according to nurses’ self-report. Methods: This is a descriptive analytical study in which 100 nurses in beast hospital in Sanandaj, Iran were selected randomly from different shifts. The questionnaire consisted of 2 sections. The fi rst section consisted of 17 questions on demographic information including age, sex, type of activity, duration of service, hospital ward and location, error during the years of service, reporting or non-reporting of mistakes and type of mistake. The second part of the tool consisted of 25 items rated to 1-to-5 likert scale, which checked out medical errors in 5 domains. For ethical issues, anonymous questionnaires were distributed with bar codes. Then the data were entered into SPSS version 16 and analyzed. Results: All the participants in this study had a history of medication error in the previous year. In 12% of the cases, association between workload and medication error were too high, 22% was high, 54% was average and 6% was low. Conclusions: The results of this study showed that the most important factors affecting the incidence of errors include workplace stress, working in the intensive care units, tiredness due to work load, and inappropriate nurse physician relationship. Hence, identifi cation of these factors helps nurses to reduce errors and helps reduce other medical consequences and improve in the quality of patient care and patient safety. Regarding the importance of patient safety it is necessary to improve positive relationship between nurse managers and nursing staff. Therefore, an environment of close collaboration, in-service training for new nurses regarding medication errors, and creating a reporting system is necessary.

Application of pain assessment tools in cancer pain patients / 中国肿瘤临床

Cancer pain is an inherently subjective feeling. As such, a patient's report of pain is the basis of assessment. Self-re-ported questionnaires are extensively used in clinical practice and research. Single-item unidimensional rating scales are often used to assess pain intensity. Numerical rating scale is recommended by the European Palliative Care Research Collaborative. Multidimension-al measurements, such as brief pain inventory and short-form McGill pain questionnaire (revised version), can also be used for more comprehensive pain assessments than other questionnaires. Furthermore, specific tools can be applied when cancer-related break-through pain or neuropathic pain is assessed. For patients with cognitive function impairments, face rating scale is a useful tool to screen pain. Multidimensional measurements should also be used for further evaluation. In cancer pain evaluation, the development of simple and practical computer-administered questionnaires is a new trend. Repeated cancer pain assessment is strongly recommended regardless of the applied scale.

Usefulness of Urinary Cotinine Test to Discriminate between Smokers and Nonsmokers in Korean Adolescents / 대한진단검사의학회지

BACKGROUND: Recently we have demonstrated that urinary cotinine test by an enzyme immunoassay is valid to discriminate smoking status among adults. This study was conducted for the same purpose among Korean high school students. METHODS: Questionnaire on smoking and urinary cotinine tests were performed for 1, 267 high school students. Cotinine concentrations in urine were measured by Cotinine Enzyme Immunoassay (Diag-nostic Reagents Inc., CA, USA) on 502X Multiple Chemistry Unit (A&T Co., Tokyo, Japan). RESULTS: The questionnaire was responded by 1, 227 of the 1, 267 students (96.8%); 6 male (0.8%) and 34 female students (5.9%) did not respond. Among the responders, 13.4% (92/685) of male students and 3.0% (16/542) of female students answered as smokers. By using 6 ng/mL as a cutoff, the sensitivity and specificity of the urinary cotinine test were 79.6% (86/108) and 91.4% (1023/1119), respectively. According to the results of urinary cotinine, 96 additional students were presumed as smokers. Of 85 abstainers and 40 non-responders, 41 (32.8%) tested positive for urinary cotinine. CONCLUSIONS: Unlike in a previous study with adults, the urinary cotinine test is shown not to be able to replace the self-reported questionnaire due to the lack of sensitivity for young adolescents. But the urinary continine test is valid to discriminate smokers among purported nonsmokers, espe-cially among non-responders and those who claimed abstinence.