Publications by authors named "Morgan J Schaeffer"

Objective: Associations have been found between five-factor model (FFM) personality traits and risk of developing specific predementia syndromes such as subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The aims of this study were to: 1) Compare baseline FFM traits between participants who transitioned from healthy cognition or SCD to amnestic MCI (aMCI) versus non-amnestic MCI (naMCI); and 2) Determine the relationship between FFM traits and risk of transition between predementia cognitive states.

Methods: Participants were 562 older adults from the Einstein Aging Study, 378 of which had at least one follow-up assessment.

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Objectives: Determine whether levels of anxiety and depression, cognitive ability, and self-quarantining during and prior to the pandemic predict decreases in perceived functional ability.

Design And Setting: Longitudinal data collected from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) COVID-19 Questionnaire Study (2020) and core CLSA study (Follow-Up 1; 2014-2018).

Participants: 17 541 CLSA participants.

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Introduction: Transient ischaemic attack (TIA) is associated with increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia as early as one-year post-event. Regional brain atrophy measurements may predict future cognitive decline. 1) To determine whether Medial Temporal Atrophy (MTA) scores and interseptal distance (ISD) measurements are greater in patients with TIA compared to controls; and 2) To determine whether MTA and ISD predicts cognitive change one year after TIA.

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Objective: Standardized executive functioning (EF) measures do not reliably capture EF-related difficulties reported in daily life. We aim to determine if an ecologically relevant neuropsychological battery is more strongly associated with self-reported everyday EF impairments than classically used tests.

Method: Fifty-nine adults aged 18-49 self-rated their EF abilities using the Barkley Deficits in EF Scale (BDEFS) and were randomly assigned to complete either a test battery composed of EF measures with hypothesized ecological relevance (Six Elements, Zoo Map, Hayling Sentence Completion, Iowa Gambling, and Auditory Startle Tasks) or one composed of traditional EF tasks (Card Sorting, Trail Making, Color-Word Interference, and Verbal Fluency).

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Structural brain changes indicative of dementia occur up to 20 years before the onset of clinical symptoms. Efforts to modify the disease process after the onset of cognitive symptoms have been unsuccessful in recent years. Thus, future trials must begin during the preclinical phases of the disease before symptom onset.

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Objective: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adulthood and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) share many cognitive and noncognitive similarities. The overlapping features between both disorders complicate differential diagnosis. The aim of the current systematic review was to compare patterns of neuropsychological profiles in older adults with ADHD and DLB.

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Background: The percentage of verbal forgetting (VF%) measure of the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) has been proposed to differentiate patients diagnosed clinically with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB).

Objective: To determine if VF% aligns with gold-standard biomarker and autopsy evidence of AD and DLB neuropathology.

Methods: Clinical, cognitive, sociodemographic, and biomarker data were collected from 315 patients with baseline cognitive impairment and 485 normal controls from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI).

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