Publications by authors named "Sharon Simon"

Married individuals and those in committed romantic relationships generally report having better mental health outcomes than their single or divorced counterparts. However, studies of romantic relationships for adults with mental illness have often ignored rewarding aspects of romantic relationships and have focused primarily on relationship difficulties. In this study, 23 adults with serious mental illness in long-term romantic relationships described their relationship strengths and struggles in small focus group discussions.

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The relationship between tau deposition and cognitive decline in cognitively healthy older adults is still unclear. The tau PET tracer F-MK-6240 has shown favorable imaging characteristics to identify early tau deposition in aging. We evaluated the relationship between in vivo tau levels (F-MK-6240) and retrospective cognitive change over 5 years in episodic memory, processing speed, and reasoning.

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Introduction: The Brazilian population in the United States (U.S.), a Latinx subgroup, is rapidly growing and aging but remains underrepresented in U.

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The study of an Ischemic stroke infarction allows verifying how the lesion produces alterations in the neuronal networks resulting in cognitive deficits. It also allows the verification of adaptive and maladaptive cerebral reorganization related to the injury. In our previous fMRI study, we found that patients without ischemic vascular lesions in left inferior frontal gyrus showed an efficient compensation mechanism during the associative encoding of face name pairs, by the increased activation of ventrolateral and dorsolateral areas of contralesional hemisphere associated with better memory performance.

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Objective: to analyze trends in mortality rates due to Alzheimer's disease in Brazil and its macro-regions by age and sex, from 2000 to 2019.

Methods: this was a time-series study on mortality from Alzheimer's disease in Brazil and its macro-regions by age and sex; data were obtained from the Mortality Information System; a Prais-Winsten model was used to analyze trends.

Results: there were 211,658 deaths in the period analyzed, with an increasing trend in Alzheimer's disease mortality in Brazil in elderly people aged 60-69 years (APC = 4.

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Introduction: The often-cited mechanism linking brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) to cognitive health has received limited experimental study. There is evidence that cognitive training, physical exercise, and mindfulness meditation may improve cognition. Here, we investigated whether improvements in cognition after these three types of structured interventions are facilitated by increases in BDNF.

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This retrospective study examined the relationships among 10 academic predictors and first-time success on the NCLEX-RN in a sample of 92 bachelor of science in nursing minority and culturally diverse generic/traditional students at a large minority-serving, urban, public university. Predictors included the Test of Essential Academic Skills (overall, science, and reading), science grade point average (GPA), cumulative GPA, and scores on various standardized exams: Kaplan, HESI, and ATI. Discriminant analysis found science GPA of >3.

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Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are critical in health-related decision-making, and are considered the gold standard in research synthesis methods. However, with new trials being regularly published and with the development of increasingly rigorous standards of data synthesis, systematic reviews often require much expertise and long periods of time to be completed. Automation of some of the steps of evidence synthesis productions is a promising improvement in the field, capable of reducing the time and costs associated with the process.

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Introduction: Hispanic women are affected by HIV. "Love, Sex & Choices" (LSC) is an innovative 12-episode urban soap opera video series targeting young adult Black women streamed to smartphones. This study purpose was to determine whether LSC is an acceptable HIV prevention intervention for female Hispanic college students in South Florida.

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Introduction: Mnemonic strategy training (MST) has been shown to improve cognitive performance and increase brain activation in those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). However, little is known regarding the effects of MST on functional connectivity (FC) at rest. The aim of the present study was to investigate the MST focused on face-name associations effect on resting-state FC in those with MCI.

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Background: In 2010, the World Health Organization issued a clarion call for action on interprofessional education and collaboration. This call came forty years after the concept of interprofessional collaboration (IPC) was introduced.

Aim: To conduct an integrative review of interprofessional collaboration in health care education in order to evaluate evidence and build the case for university support and resources and faculty engagement, and propose evidence-based implications and recommendations.

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Prospectively acquired Canadian cerebrospinal fluid samples were used to assess the performance characteristics of three ante-mortem tests commonly used to support diagnoses of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The utility of the end-point quaking-induced conversion assay as a test for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease diagnoses was compared to that of immunoassays designed to detect increased amounts of the surrogate markers 14-3-3γ and hTau. The positive predictive values of the end-point quaking-induced conversion, 14-3-3γ, and hTau tests conducted at the Prion Diseases Section of the Public Health Agency of Canada were 96%, 68%, and 66%, respectively.

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Introduction: Cognitive decline and dementia significantly affect independence and quality of life in older adults; therefore, it is critical to identify effective cognition-oriented treatments (COTs; eg, cognitive training, rehabilitation) that can help maintain or enhance cognitive functioning in older adults, as well as reduce dementia risk or alleviate symptoms associated with pathological processes.

Methods: The Cognitive Intervention Design Evaluation and Reporting (CIDER), a working group from the Non-Pharmacological Interventions Professional Interest Area (NPI-PIA) of the Alzheimer's Association conducted as survey in 2017 with experts in COTs worldwide. The survey's aims were three-fold: (1) determine the common attitudes, beliefs, and practices of experts involved in the COTs research targeting older people; (2) identify areas of relative agreement and disagreement among experts in the field; and (3) offer a critical review of the literature, including recommendations for future research.

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Objective: Personality and cognitive abilities have been previously linked. However, there are inconsistencies regarding whether this relationship varies as a function of age, and a lack of evidence on whether gender contributes to this relation, particularly across the adulthood. Therefore, this study investigated the association between personality and cognition across the adult life span, accounting for age and gender.

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Introduction: Personality is associated with cognitive, emotional, and social functioning, and can play a role in age-related cognitive decline and dementia risk; however, little is known about the brain dynamics underlying personality characteristics, and whether they are moderated by age.

Methods: We investigated the associations between personality and resting-state functional MRI data from 365 individuals across the adult lifespan (20-80 years). Participants completed the 50-item International Personality Item Pool and a resting-state imaging protocol on a 3T MRI scanner.

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Memory dysfunction is one of the main cognitive impairments caused by stroke, especially associative memory. Therefore, cognitive training, such as face-name mnemonic strategy training, could be an important intervention for this group of patients. The goal of this study was to evaluate the behavioral effects of face-name mnemonic strategy training, along with the neural substrate behind these effects, in the left frontoparietal lobe stroke patients.

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Prior work has revealed that mnemonic strategy training (MST) can enhance memory for specific content and engages regions in the frontoparietal cognitive control network. Evidence of transfer to novel content is less clear. Here, we provide secondary analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data acquired during a randomized controlled trial that compared MST to an active education control condition in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (a-MCI).

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Background: Previous reviews have generally reported cognitive//behavioral improvements after cognitively oriented treatments (COTs) in persons with MCI. However, comparatively little is known about the neural mechanisms associated with such cognitive improvement.

Objective: The primary aim of the current review was to examine neurophysiological changes measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and possible cognitive changes following COTs in those with MCI.

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Face-name association is a relevant ability for social interactions and involves the ventral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, particularly in the left hemisphere, bilateral hippocampal, fusiform gyrus and occipital regions. Previous studies demonstrated the primary role of the hippocampus for this ability in healthy subjects. However, no study has examined the participation of the left inferior frontal area, specially the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) in patients with ischemic vascular lesions.

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Mnemonic strategy training (MST) has been shown to improve cognitive performance in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (a-MCI), however, several questions remain unresolved. The goal of the present study was to replicate earlier pilot study findings using a randomized controlled design and to evaluate transfer effects and changes in brain activation. Thirty patients with a-MCI were randomized into MST or education program.

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Objective: Alzheimer's disease occurs at a higher prevalence and an earlier age in individuals with Down syndrome (DS) than typically developing individuals. However, diagnosing dementia in individuals with intellectual disability remains a challenge due to pre-existing cognitive deficits. The aim of this study was to investigate the validity and reliability of the Brazilian version of the Cambridge Examination for Mental Disorders of Older People with Down's syndrome and Others with Intellectual Disabilities (CAMDEX-DS) for individuals with DS.

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Background: Developing effective interventions to attenuate age-related cognitive decline and prevent or delay the onset of dementia are major public health goals. Computerized cognitive training (CCT) has been marketed increasingly to older adults, but its efficacy remains unclear. Working memory (WM), a key determinant of higher order cognitive abilities, is susceptible to age-related decline and a relevant target for CCT in elders.

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