Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by impairments in social interaction and reciprocal communication. ASD affects about 1% of the general population and is associated with substantial disability and economic loss. A variety of approaches to improve the core deficits and lives of people with ASD have been developed, including behavioral, developmental, educational, and medical interventions. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a neuro-psychomotor approach in children affected by ASD. Methods: The sample consisted of 84 children (66 males, mean age 56.9 ± 15.8 months) affected by ASD assessed between September 2020 to March 2021. The trained therapist was asked to complete the ASD behavior inventory (ASDBI) test at baseline (T0) (September 2020) and after six months (T1) (March 2021) to assess the child’s evolution over the observational period. The study was carried out in southern Italy (Campania Region). Results: ASD children showed a significant improvement for AUTISM composite after 6 months of neuro-psychomotor treatment (T1) compared to baseline (65.4 ± 12.2 vs. 75.8 ± 11.5, p < 0.0001). In particular, significant changes were observed for such domains as the problems of excitability (ECCIT), aggression (AGG), behaviors in social relations (RELSOC), expressive (all p < 0.001), sense/perceptual contact modes (SENS) (p = 0.0007), ritualisms/resistance to changes (RIT) (p = 0.0002), pragmatic/social problems (PPSOC) (p = 0.0009), specific fears (FEARS) (p = 0.01), and learning and memory (AMLR) (p = 0.0007). No differences for the domains Semantic/pragmatic problems (PPSEM) and language (LESP) were found. Conclusions: Our preliminary results suggest the usefulness of the neuro-psychomotor treatment in children with ASD. Although promising, these findings need to be tested further to better understand the long-term effects of this specific type of approach.
Objective: to analyze the epidemiological and occupational profile of health workers notified for COVID-19 in Brazil, in the years 2020 and 2021. Method: this is an ecological study, which used data from the Information System of Notifiable Diseases (SINAN) and the Annual Social Information List (RAIS), from the years 2020 and 2021. Sociodemographic and occupational variables were analyzed. The prevalence rates of COVID-19 in health workers were calculated, modeled by Poisson regression in the Stata 14 software. Results: in 2020 and 2021, 35,545 health workers were affected by COVID-19. A higher prevalence of the disease was observed in females (79.0%), between 30 and 49 years (65.5%) and in blacks and browns (41.4%). Higher rates were observed in women (793.9/100,000 in 2020), young workers (839.9/100,000 in 2020), non-whites (1,497.4/100,000 in 2020) and in northern Brazil, with 1,688.1 cases per 100,000 workers in 2020. Nursing professionals, physicians and physical therapists had the highest rates of the disease in 2020 and 2021. Conclusion: there was a difference between the sexes, as well as social, racial and occupational inequities that reflect the need to expand health surveillance measures in order to ensure greater prevention, protection and assistance to health workers.
IntroductionClinical studies on cognitive effects of second generation antipsychotics produced disappointing findings probably due to the heterogeneity of the clinical populations under investigation, as well as to poor sensitivity of neurocognitive indices. Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) provide a functional measure of electrical brain activity time-locked to discrete stages of information processing. They have been widely used as putative biological markers of cognitive abnormalities in schizophrenia and represent useful indices in the investigation of the cognitive effects of psychotropic drugs.ObjectivesThe present study investigated the effect of risperidone, haloperidol and placebo on N1 and P3 in male healthy subjects.MethodsERPs were recorded during a three-tone oddball task in which target, standard and rare-nontarget tones were randomly presented. Subjects had to press a button when hearing a target tone. Amplitude and topography of the ERP component maps at peak latencies were compared across conditions. If a significant drug effect was obtained, changes in the cortical sources of the corresponding ERP component were analyzed using Low-Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography (LORETA).ResultsThe amplitude of N1 for attended stimuli and of P3 for rare-nontargets (P3a) was significantly increased only by risperidone. No significant change was observed in overall topographic features and in LORETA cortical sources of the same components. No significant drug effect was demonstrated for the latency of all the investigated components and for P3b amplitude.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that risperidone has a favorable effect on early attention processes and automatic attention allocation.
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