The occupational risk of operators using display screen equipment (DSE) is usually evaluated according to the extent of time spent in active operator-DSE interactions. Risk assessment is based on activity data collected through questionnaires. We evaluated an original and innovative system that can objectively assess active operator-DSE interactions by collecting electrical impulses generated by the activation of mouse, keyboard and a camera that collects attentive eye-screen fixation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Stroke rehabilitation interventions are routinely personalized to address individuals' needs, goals, and challenges based on evidence from aggregated randomized controlled trials (RCT) data and meta-syntheses. Individual participant data (IPD) meta-analyses may better inform the development of precision rehabilitation approaches, quantifying treatment responses while adjusting for confounders and reducing ecological bias.
Aim: We explored associations between speech and language therapy (SLT) interventions frequency (days/week), intensity (h/week), and dosage (total SLT-hours) and language outcomes for different age, sex, aphasia severity, and chronicity subgroups by undertaking prespecified subgroup network meta-analyses of the RELEASE database.
Temporal Binding Window (TBW) represents a reliable index of efficient multisensory integration process, which allows individuals to infer which sensory inputs from different modalities pertain to the same event. TBW alterations have been reported in some neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders and seem to negatively affects cognition and behavior. So far, it is still unknown whether deficits of multisensory integration, as indexed by an abnormal TBW, are present even in Multiple Sclerosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe exact incidence of neurological and cognitive sequelae of COVID-19 in the long term is yet unknown. The aim of this research is to investigate the type of neurological and cognitive impairment in COVID-19 cases of different severity. Two hundred fifteen patients, who had developed COVID-19, were examined 4 months after the diagnosis by means of neurological exam and extensive cognitive evaluation, investigating general cognition, memory, verbal fluency, visuospatial abilities and executive functions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDevelopmental topographical disorientation (DTD) has been defined as a developmental deficit in human navigational skills in the absence of congenital or acquired brain damage. We report the case of Lost In Space Again (LISA), a 22-year-old woman with a normal development and no clinical history of neurological or psychiatric diseases, evaluated twice, with an interval of 5 years. The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examination did not reveal any morphological alteration, while diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) showed a structural connectivity deficit (a decreased fractional anisotropy-FA) in the parieto-prefrontal and parieto-premotor pathway.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCentral and peripheral nervous system involvement during acute COVID-19 is well known. Although many patients report some subjective symptoms months after the infection, the exact incidence of neurological and cognitive sequelae of COVID-19 remains to be determined. The aim of this study is to investigate if objective neurological or cognitive impairment is detectable four months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, in a group of patients who had mild-moderate COVID-19.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Cognitive impairment is a common and disabling feature of multiple sclerosis (MS), but a precise characterization of cognitive phenotypes in patients with MS is lacking.
Objectives: To identify cognitive phenotypes in a clinical cohort of patients with MS and to characterize their clinical and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) features.
Design, Setting, And Participants: This multicenter cross-sectional study consecutively screened clinically stable patients with MS and healthy control individuals at 8 MS centers in Italy from January 1, 2010, to October 31, 2019.
Background: Pneumonia with respiratory failure represents the main cause of death in COVID-19, where hyper inflammation plays an important role in lung damage. This study aims to evaluate if tocilizumab, an anti-soluble IL-6 receptor monoclonal antibody, reduces patients' mortality.
Methods: 85 consecutive patients admitted to the Montichiari Hospital (Italy) with COVID-19 related pneumonia and respiratory failure, not needing mechanical ventilation, were included if satisfying at least one among: respiratory rate ≥ 30 breaths/min, peripheral capillary oxygen saturation ≤ 93% or PaO2/FiO2<=300 mmHg.
Background: Serum neurofilament light chain (sNfL) may be used as a biological marker of disease progression in multiple sclerosis (MS), although longitudinal studies correlating cognitive deficits to sNfL are limited.
Objective: To longitudinally investigate the relation between cognitive dysfunction, sNfL and MRI brain volume in a relapsing remitting MS patients.
Methods: 18 MS patients (9 males and 9 females, mean age 45 years, mean education 12.
Background: Speech and language therapy (SLT) benefits people with aphasia following stroke. Group level summary statistics from randomised controlled trials hinder exploration of highly complex SLT interventions and a clinically relevant heterogeneous population. Creating a database of individual participant data (IPD) for people with aphasia aims to allow exploration of individual and therapy-related predictors of recovery and prognosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe above article was published online with an error in author name's affiliation. The Author Claudia Niccolai has changed her affiliation to IRCCS Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi, Florence, Italy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The increase in life expectancy of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) requires a better knowledge of disease features in the older patients group.
Objective: To describe the prevalence and profile of cognitive impairment (CI) in older patients with MS and perform a comparison with younger patients.
Methods: Patients were consecutively recruited for 6 months.
Aphasia is one of the most devastating symptoms in stroke survivors and severely affects patients' communication, quality of life, and social interactions. Several factors are critical to the prediction of aphasia recovery, including acute stroke management and subsequent language rehabilitation. A comprehensive assessment of language skills with appropriate instruments in different phases of post stroke months and years is needed in patients, in order to monitor their language improvement and to guide speech therapies over time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the original article, Maria Pia Amato's second affiliation was not included. The second affiliation is IRCCS Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi, Florence, Italy. The correct affiliation is presented here.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this consensus paper was to define the state of the art on cognitive assessment of persons with multiple sclerosis (PwMS), with the purpose of providing recommendations for the Italian centers involved in MS management. While there are no formal guidelines published regarding the assessment of cognitive function in MS, on the basis of an expert opinion meeting, held in Milan (Italy) on July 4, 2016, we report the recommendations of a panel of Italian experts including MS neurologists and neuropsychologists for the assessment and follow-up of cognitive function in adult MS subjects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCognitive impairment (CI) affects 40-65% of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. This study attempted evaluating the effects of fingolimod and interferon beta-1b (IFN β-1b) on CI progression, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and clinical outcomes in relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) patients over 18 months. The GOLDEN study was a pilot study including RRMS patients with CI randomised (2:1) to fingolimod (0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this study, we assessed the impact of multiple sclerosis (MS) on bodily self-consciousness (BSC) using the Rubber Hand Illusion. Patients with MS showed a dissociation between body ownership and self-location: they did report an explicit ownership of the rubber hand, but they did not point towards it, showing a defective ability of localizing body parts in space. This evidence indicates that MS may affect selective components of BSC, whose impairment may contribute to, and even worsen, the functional disability of MS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIndividuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) often face important health-related and financial decisions that involve trade-offs between short-term and long-term benefits, yet decision making is rarely studied in MS patients. The temporal discounting paradigm is a useful tool for investigating such time-dependent choices in humans. Here, we investigated whether patients with relapsing-remitting MS differed from healthy controls when making choices between hypothetical monetary rewards available at different points in time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Patients with paediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (POMS) could be at an increased risk for cognitive impairment (CI), given the potential harmful effects of disease activity in neurodevelopment. However, there is scarce information on their long-term cognitive outcomes.
Objective: To compare the prevalence and profile of CI between adults with a history of POMS and those with classic, adult-onset multiple sclerosis (AOMS).
This study investigated whether damage to the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) impairs the capacity to retrieve multiple aspects of the encoding context in which items were studied, or whether it impairs the subjective awareness of recollection. Patients with lesions to the PPC (PPC patients) and healthy controls memorized words along with the position in which the words were presented on the screen and the ink color in which they were printed. We studied PPC patients' recognition and source memory performance, as well as subjective recollection as indexed by Remember/Know judgments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is limited and inconsistent information on the clinical determinants of cognitive impairment (CI) in multiple sclerosis (MS).
Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the prevalence and profile of CI across MS disease subtypes and assess its clinical determinants.
Methods: Cognitive performance was assessed through the Brief Repeatable Battery and the Stroop test in consecutive patients with MS referred to six Italian centers.
Cognitive rehabilitation in multiple sclerosis (MS) has been reported to induce neuropsychological improvements, but the persistence of these effects has been scarcely investigated over long follow ups. Here, the results of a multicenter randomized clinical trial are reported, in which the efficacy of 15 week domain specific cognitive training was evaluated at 2 years follow up in 41 patients. Included patients were randomly assigned either to domain specific cognitive rehabilitation, or to aspecific psychological intervention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring intertemporal choice, humans tend to prefer small-sooner rewards over larger-delayed rewards, reflecting temporal discounting (TD) of delayed outcomes. Functional neuroimaging (fMRI) evidence has implicated the insular cortex in time-sensitive decisions, yet it is not clear whether activity in this brain region is crucial for, or merely associated with, TD behavior. Here, patients with damage to the insula (Insular patients), control patients with lesions outside the insula, and healthy individuals chose between smaller-sooner and larger-later monetary rewards.
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