A central role of sulcal width in the associations of sleep duration and depression with cognition in mid to late life.

Study Objectives: Evidence suggests that poor sleep impacts cognition, brain health, and dementia risk but the nature of the association is poorly understood. This study examined how self-reported sleep duration, napping, and subjective depression symptoms are associated with the brain-cognition relationship in older adults, using sulcal width as a measure of relative brain health.

Methods: A canonical partial least squares analysis was used to obtain two composite variables that relate cognition and sulcal width in a cross-sectional study of 137 adults aged 46-72.

Evaluation of AID-COM, a communication-focused program for family carers of people with early-stage Alzheimer's disease: A pilot study (innovative practice).

Families providing care to relatives with Alzheimer's disease are quickly destabilized by changes that disrupt communication. This pilot mixed-design study aimed to provide a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of a communication-based training program for carers of people with early-stage Alzheimer's disease. Five participants received three training sessions.

Assessing clinical reasoning in optometry using the script concordance test.

Background: Clinical reasoning is central to any health profession but its development among learners is difficult to assess. Over the last few decades, the script concordance test (SCT) has been developed to solve this dilemma and has been used in many health professions; however, no study has been published on the use of the script concordance test in optometry. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a script concordance test for the field of optometry.

Optometrists' clinical reasoning made explicit: a qualitative study.

Purpose: Because the clinical reasoning processes engaged in by practicing optometrists have not previous been investigated, until now, there has been no way of knowing whether models of clinical reasoning from other health professions can be transposed to optometry. The purpose of this study has therefore been twofold: making explicit the clinical reasoning processes of optometrists at both the "competent" and "expert" levels and comparing these processes to highlight the characteristics of clinical reasoning expertise.

Methods: Four competent-level optometrists and four expert-level optometrists participated in this qualitative study.

Development of professional expertise in optometry.

Background: Development of professional expertise is the gradual transition from novice to expert within a profession. Studies on expertise in the profession of optometry have never been published. However, many studies have been performed in other health professions (e.

Hyper-response of OP3 to systemic hyperoxia in the dark-adapted retina.

Purpose: We have demonstrated that the third wavelet (OP3) of the scotopic flash oscillatory potential (OP) complex shows a hyper-response during experimentally-induced systemic hyperoxia. The objective of the present study was to further evaluate and detail the time course of this enhanced retinal response.

Methods: Twenty healthy adults volunteered for this study.

Spasm of the near reflex triggered by disruption of normal binocular vision.

A 26-year-old healthy female was referred by her optometrist to the binocular vision clinic of our institution for the investigation of an accommodative spasm occurring during monocular conditions. Corrected binocular visual acuity was 20/20 (6/6), with normal pupils and good ocular alignment. When the fellow eye was covered, visual acuity was <20/200 (6/60) in each eye, miosis was present in both eyes, and the occluded eye was in esodeviation, indicating a spasm of the near reflex.

Modulation of the scotopic electroretinogram and oscillatory potentials with systemic hyperoxia and hypercapnia in humans.

Purpose: Systemic hyperoxia reduces blood flow to the retina while systemic hypercapnia has the opposite effect. However, the effect this modification in blood flow has on neuroretinal function in humans has not been documented yet. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of pure oxygen and carbogen breathing on scotopic electroretinograms (ERGs) and oscillatory potentials (OPs) in humans.