Responsiveness of mobility, daily living, and instrumental activities of daily living outcome measures for geriatric rehabilitation.

Objectives: To assess and compare the ability of the Timed Up & Go (TUG) and subscales of the Functional Autonomy Measurement System (SMAF) to detect change in people undergoing geriatric rehabilitation in inpatient geriatric rehabilitation units (GRUs) and day hospitals.

Design: Longitudinal design with repeated measures obtained at admission and discharge from rehabilitation and at 2 follow-up interviews.

Setting: Inpatient and outpatient hospital-based settings.

Transitions in the functional status of disabled community-living older adults over a 3-year follow-up period.

The purpose of this study was to investigate transitions over time in the functional status of disabled community-living elderly. The study explored clinical and socio-demographic predictors of functional status decline. Data from the SIPA 3-year longitudinal study were analyzed (n=1164).

Trajectories of cognitive decline and functional status in the frail older adults.

This study investigates the implications of different levels of cognitive decline on functional status in frail older adults. Four cognitive trajectories, including two with catastrophic cognitive decline, were defined in a 3-year study. Participants with complete cognitive and functional status data at baseline, 12 and 36 months of follow-up were included in the study (n=456).

Assembling a toolkit to measure geriatric rehabilitation outcomes.

Objective: To gather and assemble relevant patient-based outcome measures with emphasis placed on the older adults' level of functioning and activity performance.

Design: The study was conducted in two phases. First, a set of relevant measurement instruments was identified, and their was value analyzed according to general characteristics and metrologic criteria.

The psychogeriatric and risk behavior assessment scale (PARBAS): a new measure for use with older adults living in the community.

In the context of decreased access to inpatient mental health care, the assessment of risk behavior in older adults living in the community is a growing concern. The purpose of the study was to develop a risk behavior screening tool to help community practitioners plan early intervention for frail older adults with severe mental illness (SMI) referred to community health and social service centers. The initial instrument development involved discussion-based work among practitioners and researchers.

Interaction of morphological structure and prefix transparency in the processing of Bulgarian aspectual verb forms.

This study investigates the processing of polymorphemic words in a highly inflected language, Bulgarian. The roles of semantic transparency, aspect, and bound or free root status in the recognition of aspectual verb forms were probed in the visual modality in a simple lexical decision and a masked priming experiment at a short SOA. Results from the two experiments yielded effects of semantic transparency and morphological complexity, demonstrating that both factors influence the recognition of prefixed aspectual forms in Bulgarian and pointing toward different access procedures.