Relationship between objective measures of peripheral arterial disease severity to self-reported quality of life in older adults with intermittent claudication.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the relation between functional measures of peripheral arterial disease (PAD) severity with both disease-specific and generic self-reported health-related quality-of-life (HR-QOL) measures, as well as the relation between the two types of HR-QOL measures.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional observation of participants from the community and primary care or vascular surgery clinics in an academic Veterans Administration medical center. Eighty patients with symptomatic Fontaine stage II PAD provided physiologic measures and self-response questionnaires.

Correlates of exercise adherence in an African American church community.

This study identified correlates of attendance to a community-based exercise program in an African American church congregation. After medical clearance, 48 participants completed measures of social support, health-related quality of life, depression, exercise self-efficacy, and exercise motivation and then participated in an exercise program for 6 months (attendance rate = 27%). Age, a sense of affiliation as a motivator to exercise, and weekly caloric expenditure derived from yard work were positively associated with program attendance, and full- or part-time employment was negatively associated with attendance.

Factors influencing the use of computer technology in the collection of clinical data in a predominantly African-American population.

Objectives: To determine the cognitive and demographic factors that affect the performance of a predominantly African-American population in the use of a computerized version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D).

Design: Cross-sectional.

Setting: University Medical Center and Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland.

Cardiovascular risk factors and cognitive function in African Americans.

The present study examined the cross-sectional association of medically determined cardiovascular risk factors with cognitive function in 43 African Americans (aged 43-82 yr; 83% women). Measures of attention, memory, and executive functions were evaluated in relation to blood pressure (BP), total cholesterol, glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), and fitness level (peak O(2)). Multiple regression analyses with age, education, number of antihypertensive medications, HbA1c, diastolic BP, and peak O(2) as predictors revealed significant (and marginally significant) associations between lower levels of fitness (peak O(2)) and poorer executive functions and delayed verbal memory.