Creativity and humor in the elderly: Shared mechanisms and common functions to promote well-being.

In the paper the possible links between creative thinking and humor are sketched and their role in promoting well-being in the elderly is taken into account. The specific features of creative thinking in older people and its developmental trend in aging are outlined. The changes in humor which occur during aging are considered as well. The connections between creative thinking and humor are analysed, by highlighting the cognitive mechanisms which are shared and the alleged common neural underpinnings. The functions which creativity and humor can play to promote well-being in late adulthood are discussed. These functions refer to the way older people can interpret their own experience, interact and communicate with others, and face daily problems.

Occupational medicine and occupational psychology: a rendezvous in Milan after World War II.

BACKGROUND: In the 1950s, occupational medicine and occupational psychology found a common field of action in the Clinica del Lavoro in Milan. OBJECTIVES This study aims to analyze and document how this encounter took place and, in particular, the contribution of the Clinica del Lavoro to the development of occupational psychology in Italy. METHODS: Historical sources of that period were investigated. RESULTS: Before the 1950s, experimental psychology was only taught at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan. The first professor of clinical psychology in the School of Medicine at the State University of Milan, was Marcello Cesa-Bianchi (1926-2018). He collaborated with the graphic, textile and pharmaceutical industries for the personnel training and management, and carried out important research in occupational psychology on behalf of the European Coal and Steel Community. The Chair of Clinical Psychology was initially located in the Clinica del Lavoro and the activity of the team of Cesa-Bianchi was oriented towards the elaboration of professional profiles and job analysis. In those years Cesa-Bianchi also conducted pioneering research in the field of psycho-gerontology. CONCLUSIONS: The historical experience that integrated psychology and occupational medicine in the scientific context of Milan contains a series of values, useful to today's reflection and practice. Our work also undelines the importance of preserving historical documents: only a better knowledge of history can guarantee a better destiny.

Correlation between human nervous system development and acquisition of fetal skills: An overview.

Understanding the association between fetal nervous system structure and functioning should be an important goal in neurodevelopmental sciences, especially when considering the emerging knowledge regarding the importance of prenatal onset. Intrauterine development of the human central nervous system consists of specific processes: neurogenesis, neuronal migration, synaptogenesis, and myelination. However, as extensively shown by the neurobehavioral studies in the last century, the development of the central nervous system involves both structure and functioning. It is now recognised that the developing motor and sensory systems are able to function long before they have completed their neural maturation and that the intrauterine experience contributes to neurobehavioral development. This review analyzes the recent literature, looking at the association between the human nervous system maturation and fetal behavior. This article will follow the development and skill acquisition of the anatomical nervous system across the three trimesters of the gestation period.

Diagnosis disclosure and advance care planning in Alzheimer disease: opinions of a sample of Italian citizens.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: In current Alzheimer disease (AD) research there is growing asymmetry between the modest benefits of the currently available treatments, in contrast to the possibility to diagnose AD early in its natural history. This complex situation brings along a number of important ethical issues about diagnosis disclosure and end-of-life decisions that need to be addressed. The principal aim of the study was to investigate the attitudes towards disclosure of a diagnosis of AD and disposition towards completion of advance care planning, in a sample of Italian citizens. METHODS: A convenience sample of 1,111 Italian citizens recruited from a community hospital in Brescia were interviewed using a structured questionnaire with both yes/no and multiple choice format questions about AD. RESULTS: The majority of the sample (83 %) wanted disclosure for themselves. Women and caregivers were significantly less likely to agree that their hypothetically afflicted relative should be informed of a diagnosis of AD. The majority of the sample (81 %) was in favor of advance care planning completion, most of all younger participants and non-caregivers. Less than a third of the sample (24 %) was aware of the existence a judicially appointed guardian for patients affected by dementia. CONCLUSION: The majority of the participants wanted a potential diagnosis of AD to be disclosed to them and to their relatives if they were to be afflicted. The utility of completion of advance care planning and designation of a judicially appointed guardian is frequently endorsed by the sample.

Modernity in medicine and hygiene at the end of the 19th century: the example of cremation.

Medicine in the second half of the nineteenth century takes on some characteristics of modernity. These characteristics are worthy of our attention because they help us to understand better some of the current problems of hygiene and public health. One of the topics that was most discussed in the scientific-academic milieu of the second half of the nineteenth century was cremation. There was a poetic precedent: the cremation of Percy Bysse Shelley (1792-1822). The earliest apparatus to completely destroy the corpse was made in Italy and Germany in the 1870s. As far as hygiene was concerned, the reasons for cremation were not to pollute the water-bearing strata and an attempt to streamline the cemetery structure. As in an apparent schizophrenia, scientists of the day worked to both destroy and preserve corpses. There is also the unusual paradox that when the first cremations took place, the corpses were first preserved then to be destroyed later. The catholic world (mainly in Italy) and forensic scientists opposed cremation. It was left to the hygienists to spread the practice of cremation. An analysis of scientific literature shows us that if we leave out the related forensic and ethical problems, recent years have seen attention paid to any harmful emissions from crematoria equipment which have poured into the environment. Another issue is the assessment of inadvertent damage which may be caused by the condition of the corpse. Some topics, however, such as the need for preventive autopsies (first proposed in 1884 in Milan) are still a subject of debate, and seem to pass virtually unchanged from one generation to the next.

Lorenzo Tenchini (1852-1906): neuroanatomy and criminal anthropology.

Lorenzo Tenchini was born in Brescia and studied Medicine in Pavia where he became lecturer of Anatomy in 1880. In 1881, at the age of 29 years, he was appointed Professor of Anatomy at the University of Parma. In this city Tenchini began to study the morphology of the brains of criminals, later founding the "Museum of Criminal Anthropology". He collected brains of delinquents and their wax masks and studied the relationship between neuroanatomy and criminality. He promoted the building of a lunatic asylum in the province of Parma and was interested in social medicine, including the pellagra scourge in Northern Italy. Tenchini conducted important research work in the field of neuropsychiatry and anthropology. He was one of the founders of criminal anthropology in Italy and sought to explain criminal behavior through the study of neuroanatomy.