Predictive potential of circular walking in prodromal Parkinson's disease.

Background: Development of objective, reliable and easy-to-use methods to detect the onset of motor changes in Parkinson's disease (PD) is required to identify the temporal window in which neuromodulatory therapies could be implemented. Turning impairments are present at early stages of PD. However, it is unclear, to date, whether circular walking is also altered in prodromal PD.

[Implementation of an Open Door Policy on Two Acute Care Units].

Background: Since the amendments to the Baden-Württemberg Psychiatric Assistance Act, psychiatric patients who are treated involuntarily can be admitted to open wards. As a result, a comprehensive research project was carried out to implement an open-door policy. This work evaluates the attitudes of patients and therapeutic teams.

Performance Differences of a Touch-Based Serial Reaction Time Task in Healthy Older Participants and Older Participants With Cognitive Impairment on a Tablet: Experimental Study.

Background: Digital neuropsychological tools for diagnosing neurodegenerative diseases in the older population are becoming more relevant and widely adopted because of their diagnostic capabilities. In this context, explicit memory is mainly examined. The assessment of implicit memory occurs to a lesser extent.

Prevalence of prehospital pain and pain assessment difference between patients and paramedics: a prospective cross-sectional observational study.

Adequate analgesia is one of the most important interventions in emergency medicine. However, studies suggest that many patients are undertreated for pain. There can be many reasons why patients assess their pain differently to the paramedics.

State of illness-dependent associations of neuro-cognition and psychopathological syndromes in a large transdiagnostic cohort.

Background: There is a lack of knowledge regarding the relationship between dimensional psychopathological syndromes and neurocognitive functions, particularly across the major psychiatric disorders (i.e., Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Bipolar Disorder (BD), and Schizophrenia (SZ)).

Walking parameters of older adults from a lower back inertial measurement unit, a 6-year longitudinal observational study.

Gait changes during aging and differs between sexes. Inertial measurement units (IMUs) enable accurate quantitative evaluations of gait in ambulatory environments and in large populations. This study aims to provide IMU-based gait parameters' values derived from a large longitudinal cohort study in older adults.

Properties of Titanium Zirconium Molybdenum Alloy after Exposure to Indium at Elevated Temperatures.

Titanium zirconium molybdenum (TZM) is a high strength at high temperature alloy with favorable properties for use in high temperature structural applications. Use of TZM in high pressure, gas-containing autoclave systems was recently demonstrated for the ammonothermal method. Use of indium (In) in the system is desired, though there is a general lack of literature and understanding on the corrosion and impact of In on the mechanical properties of TZM.

Open Doors by Fair Means: a quasi-experimental controlled study on the effects of an open-door policy on acute psychiatric wards.

Background: Psychiatric wards treating involuntarily admitted patients are traditionally locked to prevent absconding. However, on the basis of observational evidence, the necessity for locked units in psychiatric hospitals has increasingly been questioned. Updated Mental Health Laws in several Federal States of Germany legitimate involuntary commitment without generally locked doors.

Effects of aging on functional connectivity in a neurodegenerative risk cohort: resting state versus task measurement using near-infrared spectroscopy.

Changes in functional brain organization are considered to be particularly sensitive to age-related effects and may precede structural cognitive decline. Recent research focuses on aging processes determined by resting state (RS) functional connectivity (FC), but little is known about differences in FC during RS and cognitive task conditions in elderly participants. The purpose of this study is to compare FC within and between the cognitive control (CCN) and dorsal attention network (DAN) at RS and during a cognitive task using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

[Telemedicine in mobile geriatric rehabilitation : Results of the VITAAL study].

Background: In order to implement the principle of rehabilitation before care, adaptive concepts for geriatric patients are required. Patients with visual impairments, impaired communication skills, mental illnesses or cognitive deficits are often not or only insufficiently treatable in a rehabilitation clinic. Mobile geriatric rehabilitation (MoGeRe) closes this gap in the care system, but its scope is limited.

Arm swing responsiveness to dopaminergic medication in Parkinson's disease depends on task complexity.

The evidence of the responsiveness of dopaminergic medication on gait in patients with Parkinson's disease is contradicting. This could be due to differences in complexity of the context gait was in performed. This study analysed the effect of dopaminergic medication on arm swing, an important movement during walking, in different contexts.

Impaired Executive Function and Depression as Independent Risk Factors for Reported Delirium Symptoms: An Observational Cohort Study Over 8 Years.

Background: Acute medical illnesses, surgical interventions, or admissions to hospital in older individuals are frequently associated with a delirium. In this cohort study, we investigated the impact of specific cognitive domains and depression before the occurrence of delirium symptoms in an 8-year observation of older non-hospitalized individuals.

Methods: In total, we included 807 participants (48-83 years).

Abnormally reduced frontal cortex activity during Trail-Making-Test in prodromal parkinson's disease-a fNIRS study.

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder leading to typical motor as well as a range of non-motor symptoms, including cognitive decline mainly characterized by executive deficits. The latter are known to appear years before the typical motor signs, thus representing the prodromal phase of PD. However, appropriate methods for measuring executive dysfunction in this context are not well established yet.

Age-related deterioration of performance and increase of cortex activity comparing time- versus item-controlled fNIRS measurement.

In our aging society, research into neurodegenerative processes is of great interest. Thereby, cortical activation under different neurocognitive conditions is considered to be a promising predictor. Against this background, the executive functions of a total of 250 healthy older adults (53-84 years) have been investigated using the Trail Making Test (TMT) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy in a block design.

Insulin sensitivity predicts cognitive decline in individuals with prediabetes.

Introduction: Epidemiological studies indicate an association between type 2 diabetes and cognitive dysfunction that appear to start already in the prediabetic state. Although cross-sectional studies have linked insulin resistance to impaired cognition, the potential predictive value of insulin resistance has not yet been sufficiently studied longitudinally without confounding by overt diabetes (and its pharmacological treatment).

Research Design And Methods: We investigated longitudinal data from participants of the 'Tübinger Evaluation of Risk Factors for Early Detection of Neurodegeneration' Study.

Bottom-Up Design of Composite Supraparticles for Powder-Based Additive Manufacturing.

Additive manufacturing promises high flexibility and customized product design. Powder bed fusion processes use a laser to melt a polymer powder at predefined locations and iterate the scheme to build 3D objects. The design of flowable powders is a critical parameter for a successful fabrication process that currently limits the choice of available materials.

Intraindividual Neurofilament Dynamics in Serum Mark the Conversion to Sporadic Parkinson's Disease.

Background And Objectives: With disease-modifying treatment strategies on the horizon, stratification of individual patients at the earliest stages of Parkinson's disease (PD) is key-ideally already at clinical disease onset. Blood levels of neurofilament light chain (NfL) provide an easily accessible fluid biomarker that might allow capturing the conversion from prodromal to manifest PD.

Methods: We assessed longitudinal serum NfL levels in subjects converting from prodromal to manifest sporadic PD (converters), at-risk subjects, and matched controls (72 participants with ≈4 visits), using single-molecule array (Simoa) technique.

Cortical oxygenation during exposure therapy - in situ fNIRS measurements in arachnophobia.

Exposure therapy is a well-studied and highly efficacious treatment for phobic disorders. Although the neurobiological model of fear is well underpinned by various studies, the mechanisms of exposure therapy are still under discussion. Partly, this is due to the fact that most neurophysiological methods like fMRI are not able to be used in the natural therapeutic settings.

Evaluating the Use of Circulating MicroRNA Profiles for Lung Cancer Detection in Symptomatic Patients.

Importance: The overall low survival rate of patients with lung cancer calls for improved detection tools to enable better treatment options and improved patient outcomes. Multivariable molecular signatures, such as blood-borne microRNA (miRNA) signatures, may have high rates of sensitivity and specificity but require additional studies with large cohorts and standardized measurements to confirm the generalizability of miRNA signatures.

Objective: To investigate the use of blood-borne miRNAs as potential circulating markers for detecting lung cancer in an extended cohort of symptomatic patients and control participants.

Machine Learning to Detect Alzheimer's Disease from Circulating Non-coding RNAs.

Blood-borne small non-coding (sncRNAs) are among the prominent candidates for blood-based diagnostic tests. Often, high-throughput approaches are applied to discover biomarker signatures. These have to be validated in larger cohorts and evaluated by adequate statistical learning approaches.

Gait analysis with wearables predicts conversion to parkinson disease.

Objective: Quantification of gait with wearable technology is promising; recent cross-sectional studies showed that gait characteristics are potential prodromal markers for Parkinson disease (PD). The aim of this longitudinal prospective observational study was to establish gait impairments and trajectories in the prodromal phase of PD, identifying which gait characteristics are potentially early diagnostic markers of PD.

Methods: The 696 healthy controls (mean age = 63 ± 7 years) recruited in the Tubingen Evaluation of Risk Factors for Early Detection of Neurodegeneration study were included.

[Open doors in psychiatric hospitals : An overview of empirical findings].

Background: Currently, it is a topic of debate whether psychiatric hospitals can and should be managed with a full open door policy. The revised legislation of public law for involuntary commitment explicitly allows or even encourages such practice in several German federal states. In parts of Austria, open doors are required for legal reasons.