Although subtle discourse declines in people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have been reported, heterogeneous measures and tasks among the MCI discourse studies have yielded widely varying outcomes. The present study aimed to first, identify discourse measures that aid the differentiation among people with amnestic MCI (aMCI), people with non-amnestic MCI (naMCI), and cognitively healthy control (HC) participants, and second, delineate the cognitive functions related to such discourse measures. Three discourse tasks (an episodic narrative, a planning task, and a picture description) were performed by 30 aMCI, 22 naMCI, and 21 HC participants. Samples were analyzed using six categories of 15 measures, namely coherence, cohesion, proposition, grammaticality, lexicality, and fluency. The statistical analyses included (1) a multivariate analysis of variance for group comparison; (2) binary simple logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic curve analysis for differentiation between two groups; (3) binary multiple logistic regression for being diagnosed with naMCI or aMCI with the minimum number of predictors; and (4) Pearson correlation analysis for identifying the cognitive functions associated with the discourse measures. The proportion of cohesive words and propositional density in aMCI participants were worse than those in naMCI participants. Global coherence, the proportion of cohesive words, and the proportion of dysfluencies and pauses in naMCI participants were lower than those in the HC participants. Global and local coherence and the proportion of cohesive words, cohesive ties per utterances, propositional density, and dysfluencies and pauses in aMCI participants were worse than those in the HC participants. The aforementioned measures were demonstrated to be effective predictors for classifying groups by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. In addition, the proportions of cohesive words and pauses were common discourse measures for differentiation between naMCI and HC participants or between aMCI and HC participants using binary multiple logistic regression. According to the correlation analysis, memory and executive functions are needed for coherent, cohesive, and efficient discourse productions in MCI. The detailed description of discourse performances in this study will aid the characterization of the declined language abilities of MCI participants and also the understanding of the cognitive functions involved in discourse performance in MCI.
BackgroundRecently, the number of people interested in health in South Korea has increased, and the rate of dietary supplement use is rising. Researchers have hypothesized that the rate of practicing healthy habits is higher among those who use dietary supplements than those who do not. Therefore, this study aimed to discover the association between taking dietary supplements and practicing various healthy habits in the Korean, adult population.MethodsThe sample included 15,789 adults over 19 years old who participated in the fifth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The user group was defined as those taking dietary supplements for more than 2 weeks during the previous year or once during the past month. Measures for the seven healthy habits were based on those included in the Alameda study and were analyzed accounting for the complex sampling design.ResultsThe rate of taking dietary supplements was significantly higher in women, middle aged participants, urban residents, those with a higher income, those with a higher education level, and nonsmokers as well as among women with a moderate subjective health status, women who limited their alcohol content, and women with dyslipidemia. In the adjusted analysis, the rate of performing three of the 'Alameda 7' habits—eating breakfast regularly, restricting snacking, and limiting drinking—was higher in the female dietary supplement user group than in the other groups. Women practiced more healthy habits and had a higher dietary supplement intake rate than men.ConclusionWe found that taking dietary supplements in Korean adults is highly associated with demographic and social factors. Taking dietary supplements had a relationship with dietary habits, and there was no significant association between dietary supplement and other healthy habits. Thus in the health clinic, we suggest that taking dietary supplements complements a patient's healthy habits, with the exception of dietary habits, for health promotion.
Objectives: Subjective language complaints (SLCs) are frequently reported among the elderly. However, SLCs and their relationship with various language functions have not been extensively investigated. The purpose of this study was two-fold: to explore whether SLCs can be related to performance in various objective language tests and to determine which demographic variables are associated with SLCs. Methods: This study gathered responses from 376 elderly participants (mean age, 74.21 ± 6.56 years) to two questions regarding SLCs and demographic information. We also analyzed the relationship between SLCs and verbal fluency, sentence comprehension, and naming ability (15-item Korean version of the Boston Naming Test [K-BNT-15]) with multiple regression analysis. Results: The data revealed that SLCs are associated with K-BNT-15 performance. Such demographic variables as age, education, depressive symptoms, and job status were related to SLCs. Conclusion:The results indicate that SLCs reflect a difficulty in word retrieval, which is one of the most frequently reported language complaints of the elderly; however, varying linguistic exposure and social interaction through education and employment may reduce the perceived language decline.
Rearing honey bee larvae in vitro is an ideal method to study honey bee larval diseases or the toxicity of pesticides on honey bee larvae under standardized conditions. However, recent studies reported that a horizontal position may cause the deformation of emerged bees. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the emergence and deformation rates of honey bee (Apis mellifera ligustica) larvae reared in horizontal and vertical positions. The study was conducted under the same laboratory conditions with three experimental groups, non-capped or capped horizontal plates and capped vertical plates. However, our results demonstrated that the exhibited adult deformation rates of the horizontal plates were significantly higher (27.8% and 26.1%) than those of the vertical plates (11.9%). In particular, the most common symptoms were deformed wings and an abnormal abdomen in the horizontal plates. Additionally, adults reared on horizontal plates were substantially smaller (10.88 and 10.82 mm) than those on vertical plates (11.55 mm). Considering these conclusions, we suggest that a vertical rearing method is more suitable when considering the deformation rates of the control groups to verify the sublethal effects of pesticides on honey bees.
Purpose:In general, aging factor or neurological disease degrades a function of working memory, leading poor word fluency. The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of word fluency in healthy aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Methods: Nineteen healthy older adults, sixteen mild AD and twelve moderate AD subjects performed semantic and phonemic word fluency tasks. A series of cognitive-linguistic assessments were also administered to index working memory capacity, confrontation naming, attention, processing speed, and executive function as correlates of word fluency performance. Results: Findings indicated that the performances of word fluency differed significantly among three groups. In particular, all groups had better performances in semantic word fluency task. Mild and moderate AD groups had significant differences in performances of semantic and phonemic word fluency. Word fluency were also significantly correlated with most cognitive-linguistic abilities in all groups. Executive function and working memory capacity were found to be the best predictors of word fluency. Conclusion: These results demonstrate that the performances of word fluency differed according to neurological aspects and severity of AD. In addition, the primary role of executive function and working memory capacity suggests the clinical usefulness of word fluency tasks in healthy aging and AD.
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