Assessment and treatment of sleep disorders in older adults: A review for rehabilitation psychologists.

Recent research has led to significant progress in the assessment and treatment of sleep disturbance in older adults. Similar advances have been made with sleep disorders secondary to age-related chronic illness. The assessment and treatment of sleep disorders encompasses numerous behavioral aspects. Thus, rehabilitation psychologists are ideally positioned to help apply these new advances to the growing number of older adult patients in the rehabilitation setting. The authors provide an overview of age and disease-related sleep disorders. They provide details for implementation of behavioral treatments for geriatric insomnia that is comorbid with chronic illness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dissociation of processes in belief: Source recollection, statement familiarity, and the illusion of truth.

Reports 4 experiments concerning the effect of repetition on rated truth (the illusory-truth effect). Statements were paired with differentially credible sources (true vs false). Old trues would be rated true on 2 bases, source recollection and statement familiarity. Old falses, however, would be rated false if sources were recollected, leaving the unintentional influence of familiarity as their only basis for being rated true. Even so, falses were rated truer than new statements unless sources were especially memorable. Estimates showed the contributions of the 2 influences to be independent; the intentional influence of recollection was reduced if control was impaired, but the unintentional influence of familiarity remained constant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exercise in the treatment of obesity: Effects of four interventions on body composition, resting energy expenditure, appetite, and mood.

This study investigated changes in body composition, resting energy expenditure (REE), appetite, and mood in 128 obese women who were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 treatment conditions: diet alone, diet plus aerobic training, diet plus strength training, or diet combined with aerobic and strength training (i.e., combined training). All women received the same 48-week group behavioral program and were prescribed the same diet. Exercising participants were provided 3 supervised exercise sessions per week for the 1st 28 weeks and 2 sessions weekly thereafter. Participants across the 4 conditions achieved a mean weight loss of 16.5 ±6.8 kg at Week 24, which decreased to 15.1 ±8.4 kg and Week 48. There were no significant differences among conditions at any time in changes in weight or body composition. Women who received aerobic training displayed significantly smaller reductions in REE at Week 24 than did those who received strength training. There were no other significant differences among conditions at any time on this variable or in changes in appetite or mood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Welfare Regimes,Social Values and Homelessness: Comparing Responses to Marginalised Groups in Six European Countries

This paper examines the exposure to homelessness of socially marginalised groups to understand better the applicability of, and limits to, welfare regime analysis. A vignette methodology is deployed in six European countries to interrogate and compare responses to marginalised groups at high risk of homelessness, including people with substance misuse problems, ex-offenders, young people excluded from the family home, migrants and women fleeing domestic violence. Evidence suggests that a range of values embedded in national political cultures—including familialism, social cohesion, individuality, personal responsibility and personal liberty, as well as egalitarianism—impact on models of intervention and outcomes for specific marginalised groups in ways which cannot be straightforwardly predicted from conventional welfare regime analysis.     

Plant food supplement (PFS) market structure in EC Member States, methods and techniques for the assessment of individual PFS intake

The popularity of herbal products, especially plant food supplements (PFS) and herbal medicine is on the rise in Europe and other parts of the world, with increased use in the general population as well as among specific subgroups encompassing children, women or those suffering from diseases such as cancer. The aim of this paper is to examine the PFS market structures in European Community (EC) Member States as well as to examine issues addressing methodologies and consumption data relating to PFS use in Europe. A revision of recent reports on market data, trends and main distribution channels, in addition an example of the consumption of PFS in Spain, is presented. An overview of the methods and administration techniques used to assess individual food consumption as a starting point, including their uses and limitations, as well as some examples of studies that collect Food Supplement (FS) information, including herbal/botanical/plant-derived products are also discussed. Additionally, the intake estimation process of food nutrients is described and used to propose the PFS ingredients intake estimation process. Nationally representative PFS consumption data is scarce in Europe. The majority of studies have been conducted in Scandinavia and the UK. However the heterogeneity of definitions, study design and objectives make it difficult to compare results and extrapolate conclusions.     

Digestion and absorption of free and esterified fish oil fatty acids in rats

This study was designed to test the hypotheses that digestibility and post-absorption metabolism of fish oil are influenced by impaired lipolysis and by the stereospecific composition of its triacylglycerols. Male Wistar rats were fed nonpurified diets containing one of the following fat sources: 9% native fish oil (NFO), 9% autorandomized fish oil (RFO), 8.1% fish oil-derived free fatty acids (FO-FFA) plus 0.9% glycerol, or 9% soybean oil (SO) as a reference fat. In a 24-day balance study, apparent digestibility of total dietary fat averaged 93.1% in the SO, NFO and RFO groups, and 90.9% in the FO-FFA group. Randomization of fish oil had no effect on apparent digestibility of individual fatty acids. In rats fed FO-FFA, apparent absorption of saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids was lower when compared to the NFO and RFO groups. Feeding the FO-FFA diet tended to increase plasma triglyceride content. The hypocholesterolemic effect of polyunsaturated n−3 fatty acids was not influenced by the dietary source. Similar effects on fatty acid profiles of plasma and liver phospholipids were caused by the NFO, RFO and the FO-FFA diets. We conclude that once polyunsaturated n−3 fatty acids are absorbed, their effect on lipid metabolism is not determined by the dietary source.     

Chemical denaturation and modification of ovalbumin alters its dependence on ubiquitin conjugation for class I antigen presentation

Class I presentation of microinjected native OVA by a temperature-sensitive ubiquitin conjugation mutant, ts85, but not wild-type murine cells, was markedly inhibited following incubation at a nonpermissive temperature. In contrast, the nonpermissive temperature did not affect class I presentation of a minimal OVA peptide expressed in the cytosol. Therefore, these results provide a second example in which a temperature sensitive mutation in the ubiquitin conjugation pathway inhibits MHC class I presentation of native OVA. Surprisingly, incubation at the nonpermissive temperature did not inhibit class I presentation of chemically denatured and alkylated OVA microinjected into the cytosol of mutant cells. Similarly, the presentation of endogenously synthesized OVA (which is expressed from a recombinant vaccinia virus and, presumably, is misfolded in the cytosol) was also not inhibited in both mutant cell lines. Methylation of the lysine groups in denatured OVA, which blocks ubiquitin conjugation, reduced but did not eliminate the presentation of denatured OVA, providing evidence for both ubiquitin-dependent and ubiquitin-independent pathways for class I presentation. In contrast, a proteasome inhibitor blocked class I presentation of all forms of OVA, while a control peptide aldehyde was not inhibitory. These results indicate that modification of the structure of a protein can influence its requirements for ubiquitin conjugation for efficient class I presentation, with the key alteration possibly being the loss of proper conformation. However, regardless of the form of the Ag, the proteasome appears to be required for generating peptides from both endogenously synthesized and microinjected OVA for class I presentation.     

Crisis Communications Management on the Web: How Internet‐Based Technologies are Changing the Way Public Relations Professionals Handle Business Crises

This article analyses how Internet‐based technologies can help companies to: monitor their business environment online in search of potentially conflictive issues that need to be managed (issues management); to prepare a crisis communications plan that considers the Internet side of today's business landscape (crisis communications planning); to respond adequately to crises should they arise by using all available online tools (crisis response); and to establish appropriate Internet‐based actions once the crisis dies down (post‐crisis). The article also questions whether the traditional one‐way corporate approach and tone is still suitable in the new, more participative, online business environment, or whether companies should use a different tone, language, and attitude when engaging with their audiences on the Internet in a crisis situation.