Publications by authors named "Ana Maria Vranceanu"

Objectives: Traumatic orthopedic injuries are a top cause of hospital visits in the U.S. The Toolkit for Optimal Recovery (TOR) is a brief mind-body intervention that targets catastrophic thinking and pain anxiety following orthopedic injury.

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Context: A diagnosis of ALS can be challenging, and many people find ways to adapt. At the same time, emotional distress can arise early after an ALS diagnosis even when high quality multidisciplinary care is provided. When emotional distress occurs, it can become chronic over time, and can affect both the person living with ALS and their care-partner (together called a dyad).

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Background And Objective: Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRDs) are progressive conditions that substantially impact individuals and families. Timely diagnosis and early support are critical for long-term adjustment. However, current dementia care models do not meet needs of patients and families.

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Traumatic orthopedic injuries are common and frequently associated with persistent pain, disability, and emotional distress. Risk factors of persistent pain and disability include pain catastrophizing and pain anxiety, though most interventions for orthopedic injuries are primarily biomedical (eg, surgeries, pharmacology, physiotherapy/exercise). The Toolkit for Optimal Recovery (TOR) is a brief, live video mind-body program designed to directly target pain catastrophizing and anxiety in patients with recent traumatic orthopedic injury to prevent persistent disability.

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Background: Nontraumatic painful upper-extremity conditions (NPUCs) are largely age-related degenerations that affect the majority of adults. Most patients with NPUCs do not seek medical care and adjust on their own. Among those who do seek care, approximately 20% report risky substance use, defined as a consumption pattern that increases the risk of harm to physical or psychosocial health.

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Aims: Chronic pain affects up to 37.8% of older adults with higher prevalence among those in under-resourced communities. While there are many treatments for chronic pain, there are complexities to treating under-resourced older adults in community clinics, including multimorbidity, barriers to treatment access, and varying degrees of openness to different treatment approaches.

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Objectives: Surgeons' awareness of ethno-racial disparities in orthopedic care is critical to the implementation and success of efforts to reduce them. We examine the association between surgeons' self-reported intentions to enhance their ability to work with orthopedic patients from diverse cultures and their awareness of disparities.

Methods: Seventy U.

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Purpose: Chronic pain is highly prevalent and disabling for older adults, particularly those from underserved communities. However, there is an absence of research on how contextual (eg, community/societal) factors interact with pain for these patients. Informed by the socio-ecological model, this study aimed to elucidate the individual, interpersonal, community, and societal factors associated with chronic pain from the perceptions of older adult patients and medical staff in a community clinic.

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Objectives: This qualitative study aimed to: (1) identify socio-ecological barriers to behavior change-oriented dementia (AD/ADRD) prevention from the perspectives of healthcare professionals, and (2) propose strategies to address these barriers during a clinical trial for an AD/ADRD prevention program ().

Method: Multidisciplinary healthcare professionals involved in geriatric care ( = 26, experience > 17 years) from diverse clinics within a medical center participated in focus groups. Using the Socio-Ecological Model (SEM), 5 focus groups were conducted to identify individual, interpersonal, institutional, community, and societal barriers.

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Background: Lifestyle behavior change and mindfulness have direct and synergistic effects on cognitive functioning and may prevent Alzheimer disease and Alzheimer disease-related dementias (AD/ADRD). We are iteratively developing and testing My Healthy Brain (MHB), the first mindfulness-based lifestyle group program targeting AD/ADRD risk factors in older adults with subjective cognitive decline. Our pilot studies (National Institutes of Health [NIH] stage 1A) have shown that MHB is feasible, acceptable, and associated with improvement in lifestyle behavior and cognitive outcomes.

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Interventions aimed at preventing chronic pain after acute traumatic injury have significant potential to reduce healthcare expenditures and improve quality of life for millions of individuals. Given recent development of such interventions, limited research has examined mechanisms of change using repeated measures (e.g.

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A systematic review and meta-analysis investigated randomized clinical trials (RCTs) of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) targeting lifestyle behaviors commonly associated with brain health in adults. Data sources included Ovid Medline, Ovid PsycINFO, CINAHL [EBSCO], Embase, Cochrane Library [Ovid], Web of Science, and https://ClinicalTrials.gov.

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Background: Approximately 100,000 patients undergo fecal ostomy operations annually across the United States. This patient population experiences high surgical complication rates and poor biopsychosocial outcomes. Surgical teams are not trained to address the psychosocial needs that often arise during recovery after fecal ostomy surgery.

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Article Synopsis
  • Concussions are common among young adults and can lead to persistent symptoms complicated by anxiety, which may affect recovery; a new program called TOR-C is designed to address both issues to improve outcomes after concussion.
  • The study involved five young adults participating in four weekly video sessions with a clinician, focusing on various psychological factors and measuring symptoms and feelings before, after, and three months later.
  • Results showed high feasibility and satisfaction, with strong adherence rates to the treatment and homework; most participants found the program credible and beneficial, indicating its potential for helping with concussion recovery.
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Shared cognitive decline among spouses remains in the early stages of being understood. In this commentary, we discuss Meng et al.'s systematic review and meta-analysis, which synthesizes the evidence for concordance of cognitive decline in couples.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to evaluate the Toolkit for Optimal Recovery after Concussion (TOR-C) and its effectiveness in preventing continuous concussion symptoms in young adults with anxiety compared to an active control group (HE-C).
  • A total of 50 participants aged 18-35, who had suffered a concussion within the last 3-10 weeks and displayed anxiety, engaged in four 45-minute Zoom sessions focused on different interventions.
  • Results showed that both intervention groups met feasibility benchmarks and experienced notable improvements in various outcomes like concussion symptoms and anxiety levels, with the TOR-C group specifically showing greater progress in certain areas like mindfulness and all-or-nothing behavior.
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Older adults from underserved backgrounds experience chronic pain at a rate of 60% to 75%. Pharmacological treatments have limited efficacy and involve considerable risks. Mind-body interventions hold promise to improve pain outcomes but are typically not implemented in community clinics in which they are needed most, thus contributing to health disparities in chronic pain treatment.

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Article Synopsis
  • * A scoping review of 13 studies found that 53-64% of older adults with pain consume alcohol, and 11-28% engage in hazardous alcohol use patterns.
  • * The relationship between pain severity and alcohol consumption raises concerns, as alcohol can worsen pain outcomes and older adults are more vulnerable to its negative effects due to health complications.
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  • - The study focuses on developing the Mindful and Self-Compassionate Care (MASC) program, which integrates mindfulness, self-compassion, and behavioral management to help reduce stress in caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer's and related dementias (ADRD).
  • - It outlines a structured research approach using the NIH stage model that includes collecting data from focus groups, conducting a pilot study, and implementing a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the MASC program's feasibility and efficacy.
  • - The program development involves gathering insights from stressed caregivers and aims to assess various outcomes such as acceptability, credibility, and indications of effectiveness through qualitative and quantitative methods across three research phases.
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  • - Chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) is prevalent and severely affects Black Americans, with racial and ethnic discrimination possibly impacting their pain experiences.
  • - The study of 401 Black adults with CMP explored how psychosocial risk factors (like pain avoidance and anxiety) might influence the relationship between perceived discrimination and pain outcomes like intensity and interference.
  • - Results showed that higher levels of these psychosocial factors were linked to increased pain. Specifically, pain avoidance, pain fusion, and pain anxiety significantly affected how perceived discrimination impacted pain intensity, suggesting potential areas for treatment intervention.
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This paper reviews dyadic psychosocial intervention approaches that flexibly incorporate both dyad members despite challenges to equitable involvement due to cognitive limitations or limited availability. We provide an overview, analysis, and examples for the following dyadic intervention approaches: (1) shared interventions that involve each dyad member equitably (i.e.

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Fear avoidance behaviour is associated with slow recovery from mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). This study is a preliminary evaluation of graded exposure therapy (GET), which directly targets fear avoidance behaviour, for reducing post-concussion symptoms (PCS) and disability following mTBI. In a historical comparison design, we compared two groups from independent randomized trials.

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