Patient-led advocacy in ALK-positive lung cancer.

Patient-led advocacy organizations in the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive lung cancer space are becoming increasingly influential. ALK Positive Inc. (hereafter "ALK Positive") is probably the most widely known among these organizations. Evolving from a private Facebook Support Group created in 2015 to provide a forum for ALK-positive lung cancer patients and caregivers to exchange information, empathy and support, ALK Positive transitioned in 2021 into a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (NPO), with the mission to improve the life expectancy and quality of life for ALK-positive cancer patients worldwide. This review provides a historical perspective on the growth, activities and aspirations of ALK Positive to pursue patient advocacy and enable development of new therapies for individuals with ALK-positive cancers. This growth has been enabled by the collaborative efforts of ALK-positive cancer patients, their care-partners and oncologists, academic researchers, other NPO advocacy organizations, and members of the biotech and pharma communities who develop new therapies for ALK-positive cancers. ALK Positive has grown to provide a variety of patient services, to award competitive support for translational research and clinical trials intended to enable new therapies and improved quality and extent of life for ALK-positive cancer patients, and to collaborate with industry and academia to accelerate the development of improved therapies for ALK-positive cancer patients. ALK Positive continues grappling with a variety of challenges including further improving patient quality of life, enabling the development of new therapies, and extending its already substantial global reach and impact. This review summarizes many of the tangible impacts and aspirations engendered by ALK Positive for ALK-positive cancer patients in the past, present and future tenses-where we have been, where we stand and where we hope to go. The content is based on the historical recollections of the authors, and is accurate as of November 30, 2022, to the best of the authors' knowledge.

The Montreal cognitive assessment as a screening tool for cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease.

Cognitive impairment is common in Parkinson's disease (PD) and can occur early in the disease course. No effective screening test exists for detection of early or mild cognitive impairment in PD. We examined the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) as a screening tool for cognitive dysfunction in PD. The test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.79 and the interrater intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.81. The correlation coefficient between the MoCA and a neuropsychologic battery was 0.72. The MoCA is reliable and valid in the PD population and warrants further study as a screening tool for cognitive dysfunction.

A multiple-levels-of-analysis perspective on resilience: implications for the developing brain, neural plasticity, and preventive interventions.

Resilient functioning, the attainment of unexpected competence despite significant adversity, is among the most intriguing and adaptive phenomena of human development. Although growing attention has been paid to discovering the processes through which individuals at high risk do not develop maladaptively, the empirical study of resilience has focused predominantly on detecting the psychosocial determinants of the phenomenon. For the field of resilience to grow in ways that are commensurate with the complexity inherent to the construct, efforts to understand underlying processes will be facilitated by the increased implementation of interdisciplinary research designed within a developmental psychopathology framework. Research of this nature would entail a consideration of psychological, biological, and environmental-contextual processes from which pathways to resilience might eventuate (known as equifinality), as well as those that result in diverse outcomes among individuals who have achieved resilient functioning (know as multifinality). The possible relation between the mechanisms of neural plasticity and resilience and specific suggestions concerning research questions needed to examine this association are discussed. Examples from developmental neuroscience and molecular genetics are provided to illustrate the potential of incorporating biology into the study of resilience. The importance of adopting a multiple-levels-of-analysis perspective for designing and evaluating interventions aimed at fostering resilient outcomes in persons facing significant adversity is emphasized.