The relationship between objective and subjective executive function in Parkinson's disease.

Introduction: Difficulties in executive functioning (EF) are common in PD; however, the relationship between subjective and objective EF is unclear. Understanding this relationship could help guide clinical EF assessment. This study examined the relationship between subjective self-reported EF (SEF) and objective EF (OEF) and predictors of SEF-OEF discrepancies in PD.

Exploring the status and critical issues in mixed methods research in doctoral nursing education in the Philippines.

Background: Mixed methods research (MMR) can be a pathway for doctoral nursing students to create innovative and noble contributions for the advancement of nursing theory, practice, and education. Several issues and challenges must be identified to successfully train, mentor, and support doctoral nursing students in conducting MMR.

Aim: The study aimed to explore the status and critical issues in conducting, mentoring, and training MMR in doctoral nursing programs in the Philippines.

Perception of Fragmented Letters by Patients With Pathologically Confirmed Dementia With Lewy Bodies or Alzheimer Disease.

Background And Objective: Patients with dementia with Lewy bodies perform worse than those with Alzheimer disease (AD) on tests of visual perception, but the clinical utility of these tests remains unknown because studies often had clinically diagnosed groups that may inadvertently cross-contaminate Lewy body disease (LBD) with pure AD pathology, used experimental tests not easily adaptable for clinical use, and had no way to examine relationships between the severity of LBD pathology and degree of cognitive impairment. Therefore, we sought to determine whether performance on a widely used clinical test of visuoperceptual ability effectively differentiates between patients with autopsy-confirmed LBD or AD and correlates with the severity of LBD pathology.

Methods: Patients with mild to moderate dementia (n = 42) and cognitively healthy controls (n = 22) performed a Fragmented Letters Test in which they identified letters of the alphabet that were randomly visually degraded by 70% and additional visuospatial and episodic memory tests.

Prospective predictors of care partner burden and depression in Parkinson's disease.

Objectives: Care partners who provide informal care to individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) report higher levels of burden and depression; however, longitudinal research on these symptoms is scarce. The current study assessed changes in care partner burden and depression, and patient and care partner predictors of these symptoms over time. Such knowledge may provide important information for assessment and treatment of depression and burden in care partners of individuals with PD.

REM Sleep Behavior Disorder in Parkinson's Disease: Change in Cognitive, Psychiatric, and Functional Outcomes from Baseline to 16-47-Month Follow-Up.

Objective: Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD) is common in Parkinson's Disease (PD) and is associated with cognitive impairment; however, the majority of the evidence on the impact of RBD on multidomain cognitive batteries in PD is cross-sectional. This study evaluated the longitudinal impact of probable RBD (pRBD) on cognitive, psychiatric, and functional outcomes in people with PD.

Method: Case-control study.

Association of Stress-Health Factors among Parkinson's Disease Patient/Caregiving-Partner Dyads.

Objective: Few studies have explored the shared effects of Parkinson's disease (PD) within patient/caregiver dyads. To fill this gap, we compared stress-health outcomes of patients with those of caregiving-partners, examined individual stress-health associations, and explored stress-health associations within dyads.

Method: A total of 18 PD patient/caregiving-partner dyads (N = 36) reported on disease-specific distress, anxiety, quality of life (QOL), and provided saliva samples for cortisol assessment.

Thalamic volume mediates associations between cardiorespiratory fitness (VOmax) and cognition in Parkinson's disease.

Introduction: Cognitive deficits occur in Parkinson's disease (PD). Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is associated with better cognitive performance in aging especially in executive function (EF) and memory. The association between CRF and cognitive performance is understudied in people with PD.

Medication Management Performance in Parkinson's Disease: Examination of Process Errors.

Objective: Individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) are at risk for increased medication mismanagement, which can lead to worse clinical outcomes. However, the nature of the errors (i.e.

Delineation of Apathy Subgroups in Parkinson's Disease: Differences in Clinical Presentation, Functional Ability, Health-related Quality of Life, and Caregiver Burden.

Background: Apathy is a prevalent, multidimensional neuropsychiatric condition in Parkinson's disease (PD). Several authors have proposed apathy subtypes in PD, but no study has examined the classification of PD patients into distinct apathy subtypes, nor has any study examined the clinical utility of doing so.

Objectives: The current study used a data-driven approach to explore the existence and associated clinical characteristics of apathy subtypes in PD.

Changes in Self- and Informant-Reported Frontal Behaviors in Parkinson's Disease: A Longitudinal Study.

Objective: Frontal behaviors (i.e., executive dysfunction, disinhibition, apathy) are common in Parkinson's disease (PD).

REM Sleep Behavior Disorder in Parkinson's Disease: Effects on Cognitive, Psychiatric, and Functional outcomes.

Objective: Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) affects 33-46% of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and may be a risk factor for neuropsychological and functional deficits. However, the role of RBD on neuropsychological functioning in PD has yet to be fully determined. We, therefore, examined differences in neurocognitive performance, functional capacity, and psychiatric symptoms among nondemented PD patients with probable RBD (PD/pRBD+) and without (PD/pRBD-), and healthy comparison participants (HC).

Cognitive decline profiles differ in Parkinson disease dementia and dementia with Lewy bodies.

Objective: To examine whether domain-specific patterns of cognitive impairment and trajectories of decline differed in patients with clinically diagnosed Parkinson disease dementia (PDD) (N = 29) and autopsy-confirmed dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) (N = 58) or Alzheimer disease (AD) (N = 174) and to determine the impact of pooling patients with PDD and DLB in clinical trials targeting cognition.

Methods: Patients were matched on demographics and level of global cognitive impairment. Patterns of cross-sectional performance and longitudinal decline were examined in 4 cognitive domains: Visuospatial, Memory, Executive, and Language.

Mild cognitive impairment, psychiatric symptoms, and executive functioning in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Objective: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and psychiatric symptoms (anxiety, depression, and apathy) are common in Parkinson's disease (PD). While studies have supported the association between psychiatric symptoms and cognitive performance in PD, it is unclear if the magnitude of link between psychiatric symptoms and cognitive health is stronger by MCI status. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between cognitive performance and psychiatric symptoms in PD and whether MCI status moderates this association.

Recall and Recognition Discriminability in Parkinson's Disease and Huntington's Disease.

Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) and Huntington's disease (HD) are two neurodegenerative diseases affecting frontal-striatal function and memory ability. Studies using the original California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) to examine recall and recognition abilities between these groups have produced mixed findings. Some found that individuals with HD demonstrate worse recall and recognition than those with PD, whereas others reported comparable performance.

Utility of the D-KEFS Color Word Interference Test as an embedded measure of performance validity.

The D-KEFS Color Word Interference Test (CWIT) is among the most commonly administered measures of verbally mediated processing speed and executive functioning. Previous research suggests that this test may also be sensitive to performance invalidity. We sought to develop new embedded measures of performance invalidity based on multi-condition performance on the CWIT and to evaluate previously proposed embedded measures for performance invalidity on this test.

Factor Analysis of the Apathy Scale in Parkinson's Disease.

Background: The Apathy Scale (AS), a popular measure of apathy in Parkinson's disease (PD), has been somewhat limited for failing to characterize dimensions of apathy, such as those involving cognitive, behavioral, and emotional apathy symptoms. This study sought to determine whether factors consistent with these apathy dimensions in PD could be identified on the AS, examine the associations between these factors and disease-related characteristics, and compare PD patients and healthy control (HCs) on identified factors.

Methods: Confirmatory (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were conducted on AS scores of 157 nondemented PD patients to identify AS factors.

The role of dispositional mindfulness in a stress-health pathway among Parkinson's disease patients and caregiving partners.

Purpose: Parkinson's disease (PD) patients and their caregivers experience significant distress that impacts physical, emotional and social functioning in the patient, and in turn, has a significant impact on the caregiver. Lower levels of stress have been associated with a better prognosis in PD. The quality of dispositional mindfulness-innate present moment, non-judgmental awareness-has consistently been associated with less perceived stress, greater well-being, and better physical health in both clinical and healthy populations.

Collectivism Is Associated With Greater Neurocognitive Fluency in Older Adults.

Neuropsychological research has been limited in the representation of cultural diversity due to various issues, raising questions regarding the applicability of findings to diverse populations. Nonetheless, culture-dependent differences in fundamental psychological processes have been demonstrated. One of the most basic of these, self-construal (individualism, collectivism), is central to how many other differences are interpreted.

Medication Management Capacity and Its Neurocognitive Correlates in Huntington's Disease.

Objective: Although medication management is a necessary daily activity for individuals with Huntington's disease (HD), medication management abilities and their relation to cognitive functioning have not been evaluated.

Method: Twenty individuals with HD and 20 healthy adults (HA) completed the Medication Management Abilities Assessment (MMAA). Individuals with HD also completed a self-report medication management measure and neuropsychological tests assessing executive function, retrospective memory, and prospective memory.

Evaluation of ReminX as a Behavioral Intervention for Mild to Moderate Dementia.

Dementia is a growing global challenge that is difficult to treat. Pharmaceutical treatment approaches have had limited success, leading to an increased focus on nonpharmaceutical approaches to the treatment of dementia. A clinical pilot study was performed to evaluate whether ReminX digital therapeutic software, based on reminiscence therapy, has the potential to improve emotional functioning in patients with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.

Altered Functional Interactions of Inhibition Regions in Cognitively Normal Parkinson's Disease.

Deficient inhibitory control in Parkinson's disease (PD) is often observed in situations requiring inhibition of impulsive or prepotent behaviors. Although activation of the right-hemisphere frontal-basal ganglia response inhibition network is partly altered in PD, disturbances in interactions of these regions are poorly understood, especially in patients without cognitive impairment. The present study investigated context-dependent connectivity of response inhibition regions in PD patients with normal cognition and control participants who underwent fMRI while performing a stop signal task.

Worse cognitive performance predicts increased anxiety and depressive symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease: A bidirectional analysis.

Objective: Symptoms of anxiety, depression commonly co-occur with cognitive decline in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). The directionality of this association is unclear, however, in that poor cognitive performance may lead to increased symptoms of anxiety and depression or higher anxiety and depressive symptoms may lead to cognitive decline. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the directionality of the association between symptoms of anxiety and depression with cognitive performance in newly diagnosed patients with PD.

Does the Geriatric Depression Scale measure depression in Parkinson's disease?

Unlabelled: The Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) is recommended for screening depression in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). Empirical evidence, however, is limited regarding its validity and factor structure in PD. Thus, the current study sought to evaluate the convergent and divergent validity of the GDS, as well as the structure and validity of the derived factors.

Detecting Mild Cognitive Deficits in Parkinson's Disease: Comparison of Neuropsychological Tests.

Background: Numerous neuropsychological tests and test versions are used in Parkinson's disease research, but their relative capacity to detect mild cognitive deficits and their comparability across studies are unknown. The objective of this study was to identify neuropsychological tests that consistently detect cognitive decline in PD across studies.

Methods: Data from 30 normed neuropsychological tests across 20 international studies in up to 2908 nondemented PD patients were analyzed.