Caregiver Burden in Parkinson Disease: A Critical Review of Recent Literature.

Burden is a negative psychological state induced in caregivers by the demands of providing care to a person with an illness or a disability. Managing caregiver burden in Parkinson disease (PD) is significant because informal caregivers make a substantial contribution to the well-being of persons with PD, incurring financial, social, and personal losses. Failure to recognize and manage caregiver burden may lead to burnout and premature institutionalization of the person with PD.

Top-down control and directed attention in self-reference effects: Goal-directed movements and the SAN.

We focus on Humphreys and Sui's postulations that self-reference effects are not necessarily pre-attentive, and the self and top-down attention interact in the SAN. If so, top-down factors (goal-relevance, directed attention) should interact with self-reference effects. Our pilot data from unspeeded reach-to-grasp actions show differences in trajectories when reaching toward self- or other-relevant objects.