The Incidence of Pelvic and Low Back Pain in Patients with Pelvic Organ Prolapse.

Introduction And Hypothesis: To define the prevalence and incidence of pelvic/low back pain in patients with pelvic organ prolapse (POP).

Methods: Patients presenting for POP to three urogynecology centers in the US, UK, and Chile were enrolled in an IRB-approved cross-sectional study assessing pain, GU, GI and sexual function symptoms. For prevalence, symptoms were noted as present if the participant recorded the symptom and reported the degree of bother as "somewhat," "a moderate amount," or "a lot.

Reading and lexical-semantic retrieval tasks outperforms single task speech analysis in the screening of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.

Age-related cognitive impairment have increased dramatically in recent years, which has risen the interes in developing screening tools for mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. Speech analysis allows to exploit the behavioral consequences of cognitive deficits on the patient's vocal performance so that it is possible to identify pathologies affecting speech production such as dementia. Previous studies have further shown that the speech task used determines how the speech parameters are altered.

Speech changes in old age: Methodological considerations for speech-based discrimination of healthy ageing and Alzheimer's disease.

Background: Recent evidence suggests that speech substantially changes in ageing. As a complex neurophysiological process, it can accurately reflect changes in the motor and cognitive systems underpinning human speech. Since healthy ageing is not always easily discriminable from early stages of dementia based on cognitive and behavioural hallmarks, speech is explored as a preclinical biomarker of pathological itineraries in old age.

Speech biomarkers of risk factors for vascular dementia in people with mild cognitive impairment.

Introduction: In this study we intend to use speech analysis to analyze the cognitive impairments caused by pathologies of vascular origin such as diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and heart disease, predictors of the development of vascular dementia.

Methods: In this study, 40 participants with mild cognitive impairment were asked to read while being recorded and they were inquired about their history of the aforementioned conditions. Their speech was then analyzed.

Many Changes in Speech through Aging Are Actually a Consequence of Cognitive Changes.

Background: During aging, changes in human speech may arise because of the neurophysiological deterioration associated with age, or as the result of an impairment in the cognitive processes underlying speech production. Some speech parameters show specific alterations under the presence of dementia. The objective of our study is to identify which of these parameters change because of age, cognitive state, or the interaction of both.

Ten Years of Research on Automatic Voice and Speech Analysis of People With Alzheimer's Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Systematic Review Article.

The field of voice and speech analysis has become increasingly popular over the last 10 years, and articles on its use in detecting neurodegenerative diseases have proliferated. Many studies have identified characteristic speech features that can be used to draw an accurate distinction between healthy aging among older people and those with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. Speech analysis has been singled out as a cost-effective and reliable method for detecting the presence of both conditions.

Effect of berberine on LPS-induced expression of NF-B/MAPK signalling pathway and related inflammatory cytokines in porcine intestinal epithelial cells.

Berberine is an alkaloid extracted from medicinal plants such as and . It possesses anti-inflammatory, anti-tumour and anti-oxidation properties, and regulates Glc and lipid metabolism. This study explored the mechanisms of the protective effects of berberine on barrier function and inflammatory damage in porcine intestinal epithelial cells (IPEC-J2) induced by LPS.

Changes in the Rhythm of Speech Difference between People with Nondegenerative Mild Cognitive Impairment and with Preclinical Dementia.

This study explores several speech parameters related to mild cognitive impairment, as well as those that might be flagging the presence of an underlying neurodegenerative process. Speech is an excellent biomarker because it is not invasive and, what is more, its analysis is rapid and economical. Our aim has been to ascertain whether the typical speech patterns of people with Alzheimer's disease are also present during the disorder's preclinical stages.

The impact of international videoconferencing among older adults and secondary students.

This study explores young adults' emotional affect and attitudes towards ageing, as well as older adults' emotional affect and self-esteem following participation in the intergenerational videoconferencing programme Smile Connect (SC). The sample consisted of 94 participants (46 older Spanish adults living in a care home in Spain and 48 young Italian adults -secondary students- learning Spanish at school in Italy). Each age group was divided into an intervention and control group.

A Prototype for the Voice Analysis Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease.

Background: Speech variations enable us to map the performance of cognitive processes of syntactic, semantic, phonological, and articulatory planning and execution. Speaking is one of the first functions to be affected by neurodegenerative complaints such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), which makes the speech a highly promising biomarker for detecting the illness before the first preclinical symptoms appear.

Objective: This paper has sought to develop and validate a technological prototype that adopts an automated approach to speech analysis among older people.

Sentence Context and Word-Picture Cued-Recall Paired-Associate Learning Procedure Boosts Recall in Normal and Mild Alzheimer's Disease Patients.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to employ the word-picture paradigm to examine the effectiveness of combined pictorial illustrations and sentences as strong contextual cues. The experiment details the performance of word recall in healthy older adults (HOA) and mild Alzheimer's disease (AD). The researchers enhanced the words' recall with word-picture condition and when the pair was associated with a sentence contextualizing the two items.

Molecular Cloning and Characterization of Carotenoid Pathway Genes and Carotenoid Content in Ixeris dentata var. albiflora.

var. is considered as a potential therapeutic agent against mithridatism, calculous, indigestion, pneumonia, hepatitis, and tumors as well as good seasoned vegetable in Far East countries. Phytoene synthase (PSY), phytoene desaturase (PDS) ξ-carotene desaturase (ZDS), lycopene β-cyclase (LCYB), lycopene ε-cyclase (LCYE), ε-ring carotene hydroxylase (CHXB), and zeaxanthin epoxidase (ZDS) are vital enzymes in the carotenoid biosynthesis pathway.

Relations between Sensorimotor Integration and Speech Disorders in Parkinson's Disease.

Background: Sensorimotor integration mechanisms can be affected by many factors, among which are those involving neuromuscular disorders. Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by well-known motor symptoms, among which lately have been included motor speech deficits. Measurement of the acoustic startle reflex (ASR) and its modulations (prepulse inhibition and prepulse facilitation, PPI and PPF respectively) represent a simple and quantifiable tool to assess sensorimotor function.

Voice Markers of Lexical Access in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease.

Background: Recent studies have identified the correlation between dementia and certain vocal features, such as voice and speech changes. Vocal features may act as early markers of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Despite being present in non-pathological senescence and Mild Cognitive Impairment, especially in its amnesic subtype (aMCI), these voice- and speech-related symptoms are the first signs of AD.

Speech rhythm alterations in Spanish-speaking individuals with Alzheimer's disease.

Rhythm is the speech property related to the temporal organization of sounds. Considerable evidence is now available for suggesting that dementia of Alzheimer's type is associated with impairments in speech rhythm. The aim of this study is to assess the use of an automatic computerized system for measuring speech rhythm characteristics in an oral reading task performed by 45 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) compared with those same characteristics among 82 healthy older adults without a diagnosis of dementia, and matched by age, sex and cultural background.

Speech rate in Parkinson's disease: A controlled study.

Introduction: Speech disturbances will affect most patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) over the course of the disease. The origin and severity of these symptoms are of clinical and diagnostic interest.

Purpose: To evaluate the clinical pattern of speech impairment in PD patients and identify significant differences in speech rate and articulation compared to control subjects.

Improvement of encoding and retrieval in normal and pathological aging with word-picture paradigm.

Objectives: During the aging process, there is a progressive deficit in the encoding of new information and its retrieval. Different strategies are used in order to maintain, optimize or diminish these deficits in people with and without dementia. One of the classic techniques is paired-associate learning (PAL), which is based on improving the encoding of memories, but it has yet to be used to its full potential in people with dementia.

Speech in Alzheimer's disease: can temporal and acoustic parameters discriminate dementia?

Aims: The study explores how speech measures may be linked to language profiles in participants with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and how these profiles could distinguish AD from changes associated with normal aging.

Methods: We analysed simple sentences spoken by older adults with and without AD. Spectrographic analysis of temporal and acoustic characteristics was carried out using the Praat software.

Oral reading fluency analysis in patients with Alzheimer disease and asymptomatic control subjects.

Introduction: Many studies highlight that an impaired ability to communicate is one of the key clinical features of Alzheimer disease (AD).

Objective: To study temporal organisation of speech in an oral reading task in patients with AD and in matched healthy controls using a semi-automatic method, and evaluate that method's ability to discriminate between the 2 groups.

Subjects And Methods: A test with an oral reading task was administered to 70 subjects, comprising 35 AD patients and 35 controls.

Acoustic markers associated with impairment in language processing in Alzheimer's Disease.

This study broaches in a novel way the analysis of cognitive impairment characteristic of the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Specifically, we attempt to determine the acoustic speech parameters that are sensitive to the onset of the disease, and their association with the language deficit characteristic of AD. Speech analysis was carried out on 21 elderly patients with AD using Praat software, which analyzes the acoustic components of speech.

The effect of personality variables in the prediction of the execution of different prospective memory tasks in the laboratory.

The study of prospective memory (ProM), the remembering of the delayed execution of intentions, has been growing in recent years, and we know quite a bit about the cognitive variables that affect it. But the performance of a task depends on personality variables as well as on cognitive ones, and the role of personality variables in ProM has only been partially studied, the results being less conclusive. We sought to address two main objectives: (1) to quantify the joint influence of cognitive and personality variables on three ProM tasks in the laboratory (two based on events and the other on time), and (2) to identify the personality profiles of those who perform well in these three ProM tasks as opposed to those who do not.

Motivational versus volitional mediation of passivity in institutionalized older people.

The relationship between perceived loss of control and passivity in social activities in a non-handicapped institutionalized elderly population was assessed. Perceived loss of control was assessed from three different types of expectancies: low action-outcome expectancies, high situation-outcome expectancies, and low efficacy expectancies. Passivity scores were reported by the staff.