Challenging behavior, shown by people with severe dementia, can be experiences as stressful for the nursing staff, family caregivers, volunteers and it also has a negative impact on the quality of...Show moreChallenging behavior, shown by people with severe dementia, can be experiences as stressful for the nursing staff, family caregivers, volunteers and it also has a negative impact on the quality of life of the person with dementia. The Namaste Care Family (NCF) program is a person-centered, multisensory intervention which makes use of palliative care methodologies and emphasizes the involvement of family carers and volunteers. The aim of this study is to examine the effects of the NCF program on challenging behavior in people with severe dementia (N = 231). This longitudinal study is part of a large cluster-randomized controlled trial that examines the effects of the NCF program. In this study, 19 nursing homes from across the Netherlands participated of which 10 nursing homes implemented the NCF program (n = 116) and 9 nursing homes served as control group (n = 115). The implementation of the NCF program started after the baseline assessment in the nursing homes. The follow-up assessments were after 1 month, 3, 6 and 12 months. Challenging behaviors were measured using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire. Mixed models were used to analyze the overall effect of the intervention on 12 symptoms of challenging behavior and three clusters. The False Discovery Rate was used to correct for multiple testing. The intervention group showed more depressive symptoms in the follow-up assessments than the control group on average. The depressive symptoms showed a significant difference if controlled for confounders of 0.33, p = 0.001, with a 95% Confidence Interval of [0.16, 0.50]. The NCF program had no significant effect on 10 of the 12 symptoms. The results for the three clusters were also not significant. To conclude, challenging behavior did not reduce as a result of the NCF program. Depressive symptoms were shown more in the intervention group after receiving NCF. Therefore, it is important to do more research into the NCF program to clarify if and which components of the Namaste sessions have a possible positive or negative effect on symptoms of challenging behavior in order to specify the NCF program.Show less
A stroke is a worldwide health-care issue, yet rehabilitation methods for the motor disabilities that are common after a stroke remain limited. This paper explores the possibility of using music...Show moreA stroke is a worldwide health-care issue, yet rehabilitation methods for the motor disabilities that are common after a stroke remain limited. This paper explores the possibility of using music therapy to fill in this gap, taking a deeper look into which musical predictors have influence on the urge to move. In the paper we will specifically look at the influence of repetition and musical preference on the urge to move in healthy participants. Based on literature it was predicted that both predictors would have a positive influence on the shown urge to move. The study contained 41 healthy participants. Participants listened to rhythms varying on repetition and syncopation, after listening to the rhythm they had to rate them on scales regarding; familiarity, urge to move, beat clarity and preference of a rhythm. The goal of the first hypothesis was to study the influence of repetition on urge to move. This was tested by comparing the urge to move for repetitive and non-repetitive rhythms by using a paired t-test. The results suggested that repetition has a significant positive influence on the amount of reported urge to move. The goal of the second hypothesis was to study the influence personal preference for a rhythm had on the urge to move. This was tested by using a mixed model analysis to compare preference on a personal level to the reported urge to move. The results suggested that when a participant heard a rhythm, he/she liked, they were more inclined to report a higher urge to move. Future research should focus on applying the results of this paper into the actual patient group. This way it will become clear if the results are generalizable and possibly applicable into rehabilitation. Besides this, the experiment could be conducted with a movement task to replace the urge to move scale to gain a more objective view of the results.Show less
Stress is known to negatively affect an individual’s health. Music interventions are used to manage stress on both physiological and psychological stress outcomes. If we have a better understanding...Show moreStress is known to negatively affect an individual’s health. Music interventions are used to manage stress on both physiological and psychological stress outcomes. If we have a better understanding of the role of preference, the effect of positive feelings in the context of music therapy can be better evaluated. To examine the difference between self-selected preferred and non-preferred music on the human stress response, 11 participants were assigned to three conditions. Two conditions consisted of music listening, both listening to self -selected preferred or non-preferred music. The other condition was a positive control condition, where participants were exposed to a Cold Pressure Test (CPT), consisting of keeping both feet in cold water of three degrees for two minutes. As the control condition was intended to always cause a physiological response in a stressful situation. During the experiment, the electrocardiogram was measured continuously with the variables heart rate and heart rate variability, and self-rated valence of the participant’s emotional state before and after the music or CPT. The results showed a statistically significant increase in heart rate for the CPT condition, compared to both conditions with music listening. In addition, in the condition with preferred music, there was an indication of lower heart rates and higher valence after listening to self-selected preferred music. However, these results were not significant. Together these results may suggest that listening to music is an effective way of affecting physiological measure of stress (in particular heart rate) and valence, where self-selected preferred music is more effective. Nevertheless, this cannot be said with certainty, because the study has yet to be completed with, for example, more participants and other measures.Show less
Objective: Patients with psychiatric disorders often experience problems with executive functioning, including cognitive flexibility, planning, and working memory. Prior results on healthy subjects...Show moreObjective: Patients with psychiatric disorders often experience problems with executive functioning, including cognitive flexibility, planning, and working memory. Prior results on healthy subjects suggest that a low Socio-Economic Status (SES) might be related to such problems. However, little research has been done regarding the relationship between deficits in executive functioning and SES within psychiatric populations. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate the possible relationships between the SES and three executive functions in patients with psychiatric disorders using a transdiagnostic approach. We also tentatively explored the relationship between SES and executive functions as a function of the different diagnostic groups to evaluate whether this relationship itself is transdiagnostic. Method: A total of 298 patients diagnosed with different psychiatric disorders were included in this study: schizophrenia and psychosis (103), major depressive disorders (100), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (95). The participants’ cognitive flexibility, planning, and working memory was evaluated using the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB). The area-level SES (an index for SES) data were obtained from the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP). Results: Area-level SES was significantly negatively related to cognitive flexibility (β = -.043, p = .007). However, area-level SES was not related to planning (p =.072) nor to working memory (p = .412). The relationship between area-level SES and executive functioning by diagnostic category was non-significant (p = .355). Conclusion: The results of the current study indicated that a high area-level SES was associated with a higher degree of cognitive flexibility. The study also suggests that the relationship between area-level SES and cognitive flexibility cuts across psychiatric disorders and could be considered as a transdiagnostic mechanism. Healthcare providers could use area-level SES to predict which patients might require extra attention regarding deficits in cognitive flexibility. This study can also function as a steppingstone for future research into the relationship between SES and executive functions in psychiatric populations as it provides insight into the pitfalls and possible remedies for applying aggregate (area-level) data at the individual level.Show less
Cancer is a common disease and causes cognitive problems, including memory problems. Regardless of the type of cancer, cognitive impairment is a common outcome. In this study we expected to see the...Show moreCancer is a common disease and causes cognitive problems, including memory problems. Regardless of the type of cancer, cognitive impairment is a common outcome. In this study we expected to see the accelerated aging effect in participants reporting a history of any type of cancer. Research has shown that in addition to age, gender, the APOE ε4 allele and psychiatric diagnoses also influence memory performance after a cancer diagnosis. For this study, the data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA) was used. Memory performance over time was analyzed. The variables were tested via a multilevel analysis, to see if there was any difference in memory function over time between the group of cancer survivors and individuals without a history of cancer. The first hypothesis tested was whether memory decline in older (healthy aging) individuals was accelerated in those with a history of cancer. In this study, no effect of a cancer diagnosis on memory was found over time. The second hypothesis was whether this effect was stronger in female cancer survivors than in male cancer survivors. This research showed that there is indeed a gender effect, in which women have better memory retention, but that this difference does not interact with a cancer diagnosis. As a third hypothesis, this research investigated whether the APOE ε4 allele had an influence on memory decline in individuals with and without a cancer diagnosis. It was found that the APOE ε4 allele appeared to have an influence on the course of memory retention in the group with a history of cancer, but that this result was most likely not reliable due to an analysis on a small sample. The fourth hypothesis tested was the influence of psychiatric diagnoses on memory performance. It was found that depression accelerated memory loss over time, but there was no interaction with other factors. Further research could investigate whether there is a difference between different types of memory performance after cancer treatment. It is also important to investigate this in different types of cancer and their different treatments.Show less
