One hundred middle-aged and elderly spinal-cord-injured persons were interviewed an average of 20 years after the disability occurred. Respondents answered questions concerning perceived control, attributions of blame, and the nature of the social comparisons they made. Three existing standardized instruments were used to measure adjustment: Index of Psychological Well-Being, Life Satisfaction Index, and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. For all three outcome measures, respondents reported levels of well-being only slightly lower than population means of nondisabled persons of similar age. Controlling for health status and current income, we found that persons who have high levels of social support, who are satisfied with their social contacts, and who feel they have high levels of perceived control report high levels of well-being. Self-blame and the perceived avoidability of the cause of the disability correlated only moderately with the three measures of adjustment, suggesting that there are important differences between coping successfully immediately after a traumatic event has occurred and coping successfully many years later.
Olfactory learning in insects has been used extensively for studies on the neurobiology, genetics, and molecular biology of learning and memory. We show here that the ability of the cockroach Leucophaea maderae to acquire olfactory memories is regulated by the circadian system. We investigated the effect of training and testing at different circadian phases on performance in an odordiscrimination test administered 30 min after training (short-term memory) or 48 h after training (long-term memory). When odor preference was tested by allowing animals to choose between two odors (peppermint and vanilla), untrained cockroaches showed a clear preference for vanilla at all circadian phases, indicating that there was no circadian modulation of initial odor preference or ability to discriminate between odors. After differential conditioning, in which peppermint odor was associated with a positive unconditioned stimulus of sucrose solution and vanilla odor was associated with a negative unconditioned stimulus of saline solution, cockroaches conditioned in the early subjective night showed a strong preference for peppermint and retained the memory for at least 2 days. Animals trained and tested at other circadian phases showed significant deficits in performance for both short-and long-term memory. Performance depended on the circadian time (CT) of training, not the CT of testing, and results indicate that memory acquisition rather than retention or recall is modulated by the circadian system. The data suggest that the circadian system can have profound effects on olfactory learning in insects.biological rhythms ͉ cockroach ͉ differential conditioning ͉ memory I n view of the widespread effects of circadian regulation on behavior and physiology, the possibility that learning and memory processes may be subject to modulation by the circadian system has long been recognized (1). Studies on this problem have suggested that the influence of the circadian system may take several forms. In some instances, the circadian phase may function as a context for learning (time stamping) so that recall and performance are better at 24-h intervals after learning (1-4). In other cases, performance may be modulated by the circadian phase independent of the phase of learning (5), and there have been several recent reports that memory acquisition or consolidation may depend on the circadian phase of training in mollusks (6-8), rodents (9, 10), and humans (11). Finally, there have been reports that disruption of the circadian system by phase shifting (jet lag) can impair memory (12, 13). Although these studies suggest that the circadian system may have widespread effects on various aspects of learning and memory, including acquisition, retention, and recall, there is virtually no information on the mechanisms by which the circadian system regulates these processes.Olfactory learning is an excellent model for exploration of the neural basis of learning and memory because of the remarkable similarity in the organization of olfactory systems acr...
The emphasis of much of the existing research on social support‐health relationships has been on the availability and impact of support on the recipient, but social psychologists have paid little attention to the costs to the caregiver of providing that support. In an earlier study (Schulz & Decker, 1985), we found that the long‐term coping of individuals experiencing chronic disability as a result of spinal‐cord injury was facilitated by the availability of a primary support person, or caregiver. In this study we examined the determinants of well‐being of the primary caregiver of the middle‐aged and elderly spinal‐cord‐injured persons. Psychological well‐being, life satisfaction, and depression were the dependent measures. The availability of social support, social contact, and feelings of control over one's life were important determinants of caregiver well‐being, even after controlling for health and income. In addition, the amount of time spent each day assisting the disabled person was a strong independent correlate of depression, and the extent to which the caregiver felt burdened by the victim was significantly and negatively related to life satisfaction. These results are discussed in the context of a comprehensive stress‐coping model. Since data were available from both disabled individuals and their primary support persons, we had the unique opportunity to compare the perspectives of both those giving and receiving daily care. We found no relationship in levels of psychological well‐being and depression reported by the disabled person and caregiver; however, caregivers attributed to the victims affective levels similar to their own.
Advances in health care science allow more people with spinal cord injuries to live to old age. The purpose of this study was to determine those factors that contribute to the well-being of middle-aged and elderly spinal cord-injured people. One hundred spinal cord-injured people, ranging in age from 40 to 73 years, completed an extensive structured interview. In general, respondents reported a degree of well-being on the same measures of satisfaction and depression that was slightly lower than that of similarly aged nondisabled people. Pearson correlations indicated that people experiencing high levels of well-being reported high levels of perceived control, had higher levels of social support, and judged their health status to be good. These people also viewed their disability more favorably, tended to have higher incomes and more education, were employed, and were more religious than those indicating lower levels of well-being. The severity of the spinal cord injury was not correlated highly with subjective well-being, although there was a tendency for those with greater disability to report lower levels of well-being. People who were younger, who incurred their disability at a younger age, and who blamed themselves and felt they could have avoided the injury also tended to report higher levels of well-being.
The purpose of this study was to assess the self-perceived needs of primary caregivers of terminally ill home-hospice clients. A home interview was conducted using an instrument based on the Neuman Systems Model. Data were analyzed in relation to intrapersonal stressors (within the individual), interpersonal stressors (between the individual and others), and extrapersonal stressors (between the individual and the environment). Five community nursing diagnoses (Porter, 1987) were identified: (a) Population at risk for health problems, (b) population at risk for role constriction/role fatigue, (c) population at risk for insufficient support, (d) population at potential risk for lack of information, and (e) population at potential risk for lack of service coordination. Early attention to limiting the impact of stressors on the caregiver can improve the caregiver's ability to care for the hospice client.
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