ABSTRACT
Symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) include excessive activity, difficulty sustaining attention, and inability to act in a reflective manner. Early diagnosis and treatment of ADHD is key but may be influenced by the observation and communication skills of caregivers, and the experience of the medical professional. Attempts to obtain additional measures to support the medical diagnosis, such as reaction time when performing a task, can be found in the literature. We propose an information recording system that allows to study in detail the behavior shown by children already diagnosed with ADHD during a car driving video game. We continuously record the participants' activity throughout the task and calculate the error committed. Studying the trajectory graphs, some children showed uniform patterns, others lost attention from one point onwards, and others alternated attention/inattention intervals. Results show a dependence between the age of the children and their performance. Moreover, by analyzing the positions by age over time using clustering, we show that it is possible to classify children according to their performance. Future studies will examine whether this detailed information about each child's performance pattern can be used to fine-tune treatment.
ABSTRACT
Cognitive deficits in infants born preterm and infants at term with risk factors for brain damage are a common outcome. Attention deficits in preterm infants are related to the development of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and therefore, there is a need for earlier evaluations and treatment procedures that are implemented before the presence of signs of ADHD. METHODS: We studied preterm (74%) and term infants with the Infant Scale of Selective Attention (ISSA, Escala de Evaluación de la Atención Selectiva (EEAS), in Spanish). This scale evaluates both visual- and auditory-orienting attention. Two groups participated, one with attention deficits (n = 26) and another with regular performance (n = 36). An early attention-stimulation program (EASP) was implemented in the infant group with attention deficits from three to eight months of age. All infants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and visual and auditory evoked responses were assessed. RESULTS: All infants had prenatal and perinatal risk factors for brain damage and abnormal MRI findings, and the majority had abnormalities compatible with white matter injury. However, there were four infants with porencephalic cysts; 3 of them were in the treated group. At the beginning of the treatment, ISSA values showed differences between groups. These differences persisted for five months in the visual test and up to the sixth month in the auditory evaluation. Afterward, there were no significant differences, indicating that infants with attention deficits had satisfactorily responded to the treatment. CONCLUSIONS: The ISSA is helpful for the early evaluation of visual and auditory attention. Infants with attention deficits react well enough after six months of EASP.
Subject(s)
Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity , Brain Injuries , Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity/diagnosis , Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity/pathology , Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity/therapy , Brain/diagnostic imaging , Brain/pathology , Brain Injuries/pathology , Humans , Infant , Infant, Newborn , Infant, Premature/physiology , Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods , Risk FactorsABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a staggering number of deaths and a great deal of suffering in U.S. nursing homes. The spread of the virus across the country introduced a new emergency to a long-term care sector that had already been in a state of crisis for multiple decades. Nursing homes have been underfunded and understaffed for years, often delivering inadequate care to their vulnerable residents, and they are financed and regulated separately from the rest of the U.S. health care system. During the pandemic, policy responses at both the federal and state levels were often slow and inadequate, partly due to a frayed infrastructure that is the result of years of inattention from policy-makers. We review the state of nursing home care in the United States and the impacts of the pandemic, and we argue that a package of broader policy and delivery reforms should be implemented to improve the care of older adults that could help to prevent future tragedy.