Publications by authors named "Cummins N"

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is defined by an array of symptoms that make it challenging to understand the condition at a population level. Subtyping offers a way to unpick this phenotypic diversity for improved disorder characterisation. We aimed to identify depression subtypes longitudinally using the Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology: Self-Report (IDS-SR).

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Background: Anxiety and depression represent prevalent yet frequently undetected mental health concerns within the older population. The challenge of identifying these conditions presents an opportunity for artificial intelligence (AI)-driven, remotely available, tools capable of screening and monitoring mental health. A critical criterion for such tools is their cultural adaptability to ensure effectiveness across diverse populations.

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Article Synopsis
  • Remote Measurement Technology (RMT) utilizes wearable devices and smartphone apps to monitor health, aiding self-management of chronic conditions through data visualization and feedback.
  • This study investigates the data visualization preferences of individuals with depression, epilepsy, and multiple sclerosis (MS), utilizing focus groups and user reviews to gather insights.
  • Findings highlight key themes in design preferences, including effective data reporting, visualization impact, and the importance of tailored app features for users with neurological and psychiatric conditions.
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Background: Mallet finger injuries are a frequent cause of hospital attendance, being the fifth most common injury in the body. They are therefore a frequent cause of hospital visits. To date, these injuries have primarily been managed using generic splints.

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  • The study focused on the emergence and understanding of long COVID through the use of digital health technologies, particularly wearable devices, to collect objective data and self-reported symptoms.
  • It involved a large-scale longitudinal study where participants, diagnosed with COVID-19, were compared to controls to evaluate the prevalence and severity of long COVID symptoms over a 12-week period.
  • The findings highlighted significant changes in resting heart rate and identified potential sociodemographic and health factors associated with the risk of developing long COVID.
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Background: Paramedicine is a dynamic profession which has evolved from a "treat and transport" service into a complex network of health professionals working in a diverse range of clinical roles. Research is challenging in the paramedicine context, and internationally, research capacity and culture has developed slowly. International examples of research agendas and strategies in paramedicine exist, however, research priorities have not previously been identified in Ireland.

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Background: Changes in sleep and circadian function are leading candidate markers for the detection of relapse in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Consumer-grade wearable devices may enable remote and real-time examination of dynamic changes in sleep. Fitbit data from individuals with recurrent MDD were used to describe the longitudinal effects of sleep duration, quality, and regularity on subsequent depression relapse and severity.

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Background: Previous mobile health (mHealth) studies have revealed significant links between depression and circadian rhythm features measured via wearables. However, the comprehensive impact of seasonal variations was not fully considered in these studies, potentially biasing interpretations in real-world settings.

Objective: This study aims to explore the associations between depression severity and wearable-measured circadian rhythms while accounting for seasonal impacts.

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Background: Eating disorders (EDs) are serious, often chronic, conditions associated with pronounced morbidity, mortality, and dysfunction increasingly affecting young people worldwide. Illness progression, stages and recovery trajectories of EDs are still poorly characterised. The STORY study dynamically and longitudinally assesses young people with different EDs (restricting; bingeing/bulimic presentations) and illness durations (earlier; later stages) compared to healthy controls.

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The European Marriage Pattern (EMP), in place in NW Europe for perhaps 500 years, substantially limited fertility. But how could such limitation persist when some individuals who deviated from the EMP norm had more children? If their children inherited their deviant behaviors, their descendants would quickly become the majority of later generations. This puzzle has two possible solutions.

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  • This study explored the link between spoken language and depression by analyzing speech recordings from 265 participants with a history of depression using automated transcription and deep learning methods.
  • Six topics were identified as risk indicators for depression, including 'No Expectations' and 'Sleep', with participants discussing these topics showing signs of sleep issues and using more negative language.
  • Limitations include the study's focus on a specific depressed cohort, potentially limiting its applicability to broader populations, and the need for further validation of topics identified in larger datasets.
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Research into clinical applications of speech-based emotion recognition (SER) technologies has been steadily increasing over the past few years. One such potential application is the automatic recognition of expressed emotion (EE) components within family environments. The identification of EE is highly important as they have been linked with a range of adverse life events.

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Automatically extracted measures of speech constitute a promising marker of psychosis as disorganized speech is associated with psychotic symptoms and predictive of psychosis-onset. The potential of speech markers is, however, hampered by (i) lengthy assessments in laboratory settings and (ii) manual transcriptions. We investigated whether a short, scalable data collection (online) and processing (automated transcription) procedure would provide data of sufficient quality to extract previously validated speech measures.

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Automated speech analysis techniques, when combined with artificial intelligence and machine learning, show potential in capturing and predicting a wide range of psychosis symptoms, garnering attention from researchers. These techniques hold promise in predicting the transition to clinical psychosis from at-risk states, as well as relapse or treatment response in individuals with clinical-level psychosis. However, challenges in scientific validation hinder the translation of these techniques into practical applications.

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  • Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a significant cause of disability in young adults, and traditional clinical assessments may miss subtle changes in a patient's condition over time.
  • The RADAR-CNS study involved 400 MS patients monitored over 24 months using both clinical evaluations and remote data from wearable devices like Fitbits.
  • Results indicated that while some patients showed disability progression based on standard scales, there wasn't a significant decline in daily steps compared to stable patients, suggesting that continuous activity monitoring could be a more sensitive measure for tracking disability in MS.
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Background: Utilisation of the Emergency Department (ED) for non-urgent care increases demand for services, therefore reducing inappropriate or avoidable attendances is an important area for intervention in prevention of ED crowding. This study aims to develop a consensus between clinicians across care settings about the "appropriateness" of attendances to the ED in Ireland.

Methods: The Better Data, Better Planning study was a multi-centre, cross-sectional study investigating factors influencing ED utilisation in Ireland.

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Background: Speech contains neuromuscular, physiological and cognitive components, and so is a potential biomarker of mental disorders. Previous studies indicate that speaking rate and pausing are associated with major depressive disorder (MDD). However, results are inconclusive as many studies are small and underpowered and do not include clinical samples.

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Article Synopsis
  • Major depressive disorder (MDD) affects many people globally, but treatment is often delayed due to poor recall of symptoms and variability in individual experiences.
  • Researchers are studying how smartphone and wearable data can help track MDD symptoms continuously and remotely, but they face challenges like keeping participants engaged and understanding the variability in depression's manifestations.
  • This study utilized data from 479 MDD participants to extract features related to mobility, sleep, and smartphone use, assessing how data quality impacts the effectiveness of tracking symptoms and participant behavior over time.
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Background: frailty screening facilitates the stratification of older adults at most risk of adverse events for urgent assessment and subsequent intervention. We assessed the validity of the Identification of Seniors at Risk (ISAR), Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS), Programme on Research for Integrating Services for the Maintenance of Autonomy seven item questionnaire (PRISMA-7) and InterRAI-ED at predicting adverse outcomes at 30 days and 6 months amongst older adults presenting to the Emergency Department (ED).

Methods: a prospective cohort study of adults ≥65 years who presented to the ED was conducted.

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The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of automatically assessing the 2-Minute Walk Distance (2MWD) for monitoring people with multiple sclerosis (pwMS). For 154 pwMS, MS-related clinical outcomes as well as the 2MWDs as evaluated by clinicians and derived from accelerometer data were collected from a total of 323 periodic clinical visits. Accelerometer data from a wearable device during 100 home-based 2MWD assessments were also acquired.

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Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease (PD) and Huntington's disease (HD) are associated with progressive cognitive, motor, affective and consequently functional decline considerably affecting Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and quality of life. Standard assessments, such as questionnaires and interviews, cognitive testing, and mobility assessments, lack sensitivity, especially in early stages of neurodegenerative diseases and in the disease progression, and have therefore a limited utility as outcome measurements in clinical trials. Major advances in the last decade in digital technologies have opened a window of opportunity to introduce digital endpoints into clinical trials that can reform the assessment and tracking of neurodegenerative symptoms.

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Abnormal tau protein impairs mitochondrial function, including transport, dynamics, and bioenergetics. Mitochondria interact with the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) via mitochondria-associated ER membranes (MAMs), which coordinate and modulate many cellular functions, including mitochondrial cholesterol metabolism. Here, we show that abnormal tau loosens the association between the ER and mitochondria in vivo and in vitro.

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