Publications by authors named "Gill Thomas"

Importance: Disparities in cognition, including dementia occurrence, persist between non-Hispanic Black (hereinafter, Black) and non-Hispanic White (hereinafter, White) older adults, and are possibly influenced by early educational differences stemming from structural racism. However, the association between school racial segregation and later-life cognition remains underexplored.

Objective: To investigate the association between childhood contextual exposure to school racial segregation and cognitive outcomes in later life.

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Importance: Although neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage has become the standard for evaluating contextual socioeconomic deprivation at the Census-block level, little is known about its prevalence or association with long-term mortality in nationally representative samples of older persons.

Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of neighborhood disadvantage among a nationally representative sample of community-living older adults; to identify how prevalence estimates differ based on relevant demographic, socioeconomic, geographic, clinical, and geriatric characteristics; and to evaluate the association between neighborhood disadvantage and all-cause mortality.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cohort study analyzed linked data of community-living persons aged 65 years or older in the contiguous US participating in the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) from 2011 to 2021.

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Objective: Aging-related changes and caregiver burden may increase the risk for sleep disturbances among older caregivers, yet few studies have examined the prevalence of insomnia and daytime sleepiness in this group. We examined the relationship of caregiver status with insomnia and daytime sleepiness among persons of advanced age (>75 years of age).

Design: Cross-sectional.

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Background And Objectives: Mounting evidence points to a strong connection between cardiovascular risk during middle age and brain health later in life. The American Heart Association's Life's Essential 8 (LE8) constitutes a research and public health construct capturing key determinants of cardiovascular health. However, the overall effect of the LE8 on global, clinically relevant metrics of brain health is still unknown.

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  • This study examined how different implant surface characteristics affect bone integration and growth in a minipig model with a specific type of dental defect.
  • A standardized grafting method using deproteinized bovine bone was utilized, comparing three types of implants over 2 and 8 weeks.
  • Results showed that while the amount of new bone formation wasn't affected by implant type, moderately rough surfaces had better integration and bone apposition compared to a new gradient anodized implant.
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Objectives: Older adults who survive critical illness are at risk for increased disability, limiting their independence and quality of life. We sought to evaluate whether the occurrence of symptoms that restrict activity, that is, restricting symptoms, is associated with increased disability following an ICU hospitalization.

Design: Prospective longitudinal study of community-living adults 70 years old or older who were interviewed monthly between 1998 and 2018.

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Objectives: The number of older adults struggling to maintain adequate housing is growing. Prior studies have used various criteria to measure housing insecurity; however, no standardized definition exists to date. Using a multidimensional approach, our study sought to calculate population-based estimates of various forms of housing insecurity among community-living older Americans and determine how these estimates differ across key characteristics.

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Background: Among older persons, neighborhood disadvantage is a granular and increasingly used social determinant of health and functional well-being. The frequency of transitions into or out of a disadvantaged neighborhood over time is not known. These transitions may occur when a person moves from one location to another or when the Neighborhood Atlas, the data source for the area deprivation index (ADI) that is used to identify disadvantaged neighborhoods at the census-block level, is updated.

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  • The ROAR-LCT clinical trial aimed to assess the feasibility of a supportive care intervention combining physical therapy and progressive muscle relaxation for older adults with advanced lung cancer.
  • The study recruited 22 participants aged 60 and older with specific types of lung cancer, evaluating them through various physical and mental health measures before and after the 12-session program.
  • Out of those who consented, 81.8% began the intervention, and 61.1% completed enough sessions to meet the feasibility criteria, indicating a promising approach to improve care for this population.
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This study utilized MODIS true color satellite imagery to analyse blowing sand and dust events dynamics in the Middle East from 2010 to 2021, focusing on Syria, Iraq, and Jordan. A total of 4923 dust point sources were detected, with a significant concentration (~90 %) located within the Tigris-Euphrates Basin (Nearest Neighbor Ratio = 0.41, р < 0.

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Chronological age offers an imperfect estimate of the molecular changes that occur with aging. Epigenetic age, which is derived from DNA methylation data, provides a more nuanced representation of aging-related biological processes. This study examines the bidirectional relationship between epigenetic age and the occurrence of brain health events (stroke, dementia, and late-life depression).

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Importance: Older adults who are hospitalized for COVID-19 are at risk of delirium. Little is known about the association of in-hospital delirium with functional and cognitive outcomes among older adults who have survived a COVID-19 hospitalization.

Objective: To evaluate the association of delirium with functional disability and cognitive impairment over the 6 months after discharge among older adults hospitalized with COVID-19.

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Importance: Disparities in cognition, including dementia occurrence, persist between White and Black older adults, and are possibly influenced by early educational differences stemming from structural racism. However, the relationship between school racial segregation and later-life cognition remains underexplored.

Objective: To investigate the association between childhood contextual exposure to school racial segregation and cognitive outcomes in later life.

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Background: Clinical trials in older adults are increasingly focused on functional outcomes, and the composite outcome of dementia, disability, and death is gaining pivotal importance. Genetic variation, particularly the APOE epsilon(ε) variants, may modify responses to new treatments. Although APOE ε4 is known to influence these outcomes separately, the magnitude of its effect on this composite outcome remains unknown.

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Background: Cognitive decline may be an early indicator of major health issues in older adults, though research using population-based data is lacking. Researchers objective was to assess the relationships between distinct cognitive trajectories and subsequent health outcomes, including health status, depressive symptoms, and mortality, using a nationally representative cohort.

Methods: Data were drawn from the National Health and Aging Trends Study.

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Objectives: The aim of the present study was to compare a novel tapered, double-threaded self-tapping tissue-Level design implant (TLC) to a well-established parallel walled tissue-level (TL) implant in terms of primary and secondary stability over time.

Materials And Methods: Test TLC (n = 10/per timepoint) and control TL (n = 10/per timepoint) implants were placed in the mandible of minipigs and left for submerged healing for 3, 6, and 12 weeks. Maximum insertion torque and implant stability quotient (ISQ) were measured for each implant at placement.

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Importance: Given the critical role of neurocognitive development in early life, understanding the association between early-life circumstances and racial disparities in cognition has important implications.

Objective: To assess whether racial differences in early-life circumstances are collectively and individually associated with racial disparities in late-life cognition among older adults in the US.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cross-sectional study used comprehensive life history data from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative survey of US adults 50 years or older.

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We report the magnetic structure and properties of a thiocyanate-based honeycomb magnet [Na(OH)]Mn(NCS) which crystallises in the unusual low-symmetry trigonal space group 3̄. Magnetic measurements on powder samples show this material is an antiferromagnet (ordering temperature = 18.1(6) K) and can be described by nearest neighbour antiferromagnetic interactions = -11.

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Background: Variable data quality poses a challenge to using electronic health record (EHR) data to ascertain acute clinical outcomes in multi-site clinical trials. Differing EHR platforms and data comprehensiveness across clinical trial sites, especially if patients received care outside of the clinical site's network, can also affect validity of results. Overcoming these challenges requires a structured approach.

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Smartwatches are a type of wearable device that enable continuous monitoring of an individual's activities and critical health metrics. As the number of older adults age 65+ continues to grow in the U.S.

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Importance: Older adults with socioeconomic disadvantage develop a greater burden of disability after critical illness than those without socioeconomic disadvantage. The delivery of in-hospital rehabilitation that can mitigate functional decline may be influenced by social determinants of health (SDOH). Whether rehabilitation delivery differs by SDOH during critical illness hospitalization is not known.

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  • - The electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO) can be enhanced using DNA as a molecular-scale "Velcro" to attach porphyrin-based catalysts to electrode surfaces, improving their effectiveness.
  • - This method increases the stability of the catalysts and boosts their Faradaic efficiencies, achieving nearly 100% efficiency in immobilization on carbon electrodes.
  • - The results show that DNA-immobilized catalysts require lower potentials to generate carbon monoxide (CO) and exhibit significantly higher efficiencies, reaching up to 79.1% for CO production, indicating a promising approach for various aqueous reactions.
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We present measurements of the coherence times of excited states of hydrogen-like arsenic impurities in germanium (Ge:As) using a table-top two-dimensional time-domain spectroscopy (2D-TDS) system. We show that this laboratory system is capable of resolving the coherence lifetimes of atomic-like excited levels of impurity centers in semiconductors, such as those used in solid-state quantum information technologies, on a subpicosecond time scale. By fitting the coherent nonlinear response of the system with the known intracenter transition frequencies, we are able to monitor coherent population transfer and decay of the transitions from the 2p and 2p states for different low excitation pulse fields.

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  • Aortic stenosis (AS) presents a serious public health issue, and the new Digital AS Severity index (DASSi) leverages AI to improve detection of severe AS through simple echocardiography, without needing complex Doppler analysis.
  • The study focused on patients with no severe AS initially (from Yale and Cedars-Sinai hospitals) to assess how well DASSi could predict AS onset and progression, with results analyzed from August 2023 to February 2024.
  • Findings revealed that a higher DASSi score was linked to a quicker increase in peak aortic valve velocity and significantly elevated risks for aortic valve replacement, especially for scores above 0.2
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