1,721,067 research outputs found
La psicologia e la psicopatologia dell'invecchiamento e dell'età senile: un contributo alla ridefinizione dell'arco di vita
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Sleep-dependent memory consolidation in patients with sleep disorders
No full textSleep can improve the off-line memory consolidation of new items of declarative and non-declarative information in healthy subjects, whereas acute sleep loss, as well as sleep restriction and fragmentation, impair consolidation. This suggests that, by modifying the amount and/or architecture of sleep, chronic sleep disorders may also lead to a lower gain in off-line consolidation, which in turn may be responsible for the varying levels of impaired performance at memory tasks usually observed in sleep-disordered patients. The experimental studies conducted to date have shown specific impairments of sleep-dependent consolidation overall for verbal and visual declarative information in patients with primary insomnia, for verbal declarative information in patients with obstructive sleep apnoeas, and for visual procedural skills in patients with narcolepsy-cataplexy. These findings corroborate the hypothesis that impaired consolidation is a consequence of the chronically altered organization of sleep. Moreover, they raise several novel questions as to: a) the reversibility of consolidation impairment in the case of effective treatment, b) the possible negative influence of altered prior sleep also on the encoding of new information, and c) the relationships between altered sleep and memory impairment in patients with other (medical, psychiatric or neurological) diseases associated with quantitative and/or qualitative changes of sleep architecture
Comunicare con e per l’anziano: Introduzione allo studio delle sue competenze comunicative e relazionali.
No full textLa comunicazione , in quanto caratteristica costitutiva delle relazioni umane, varia notevolmente nelle modalità e nei contesti a seconda della fase dell’arco di vita dei singoli individui. Per gli anziani, alcune fonti di variabilità hanno assunto rilevanza solo di recente, come l’impatto delle nuove tecniche di comunicazione e le modalità di comunicazione interculturale, a seguito dei fenomeni migratori. Per altre fonti di variabilità (come le disfunzioni sensoriali e i disturbi cognitivi coinvolti nelle patologie del linguaggio), la valutazione dell’influenza sull’efficacia dei messaggi verbali e non verbali rappresenta un ambito di studio di consolidata rilevanza nella psicogerontologia e nella psicogeriatria. Particolare importanza stanno assumendo anche gli studi, di cui vengono delineate le indicazioni principali, sul mantenimento delle funzioni comunicative con familiari ed operatori sanitari nei quadri di deterioramento cognitivo avanzato
DREAM EXPERIENCE DURING REM AND NREM SLEEP OF PATIENTS WITH COMPLEX PARTIAL SEIZURES
No full textThis study examined the effectiveness of the cognitive processes underlying dreaming in patients with complex partial seizures (CPS), by assessing the frequency of recall and the structural organization of dreams reported after awakenings provoked alternately during REM and stage 2 NREM sleep on 12 cognitively unimpaired CPS-patients (six with epileptic focus in the right hemisphere and six in the left one). Each patient was recorded for three consecutive nights, respectively, for adaptation to the sleep laboratory context, for polysomnography and for dream collection. The frequency of dream recall was lower after stage 2 NREM sleep than REM sleep, regardless of the side of epileptic focus, while the length and structural organization of dreams did not significantly differ in REM and NREM sleep. However, the length of story-like dreams was influenced by global cognitive functioning during REM sleep. These findings indicate that in CPSs-patients the elaboration of dream experience is maintained in both REM and NREM sleep, while the access to information for conversion into dream contents and the consolidation of dream contents is much less effective during NREM rather than during REM sleep. Further studies may distinguish between these two possibilities and enlighten us as to whether the impaired memory functioning during NREM sleep is a side effect of anticonvulsant treatment
Overnight distribution and motor characteristics of REM sleep behaviour disorder episodes in patients with narcolepsy-cataplexy
No full textOBJECTIVE: The study aimed to examine the temporal distribution of episodes of REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) over the night and their motor and polysomnographic (PSG) characteristics in patients with narcolepsy-cataplexy (NC).
METHODS: Full-night video-PSG recordings of a continuous series of 37 drug-naïve NC patients with clinically-documented RBD were examined to detect the occurrences of RBD episodes (disclosed in 27 patients) and to classify their related PSG and motor behaviour features.
RESULTS: RBD episodes occurred with comparable frequency in REM sleep periods of the first and second halves of the night, regardless of the length of REM periods, patients' age or disease duration. Vocalisations and pantomimes occurred in comparable proportions of RBD episodes in the two halves of the night, while aggressive-violent movements were significantly more frequent in RBD episodes of the second half of the night. No sleep parameter significantly differed in patients with RBD occurring in the first/second/neither half of the night.
CONCLUSIONS: RBD episodes (a) are not an every night phenomenon in NC patients with clinically documented RBD, regardless of their age or disease duration; (b) can occur in any period of REM sleep, regardless of length; and (c) display less violent-aggressive motor features when they occur in the first half of the night. Multi-night studies with dream-report collection may disclose whether this overnight variation in the violent-aggressive features in RBD episodes of NC patients is associated with a time-of-night-related variation in dream content
DREAM RECALL FREQUENCY IN EPILEPSY PATIENTS WITH PARTIAL AND GENERALIZED EPILEPSY: A DREAM DIARY STUDY
No full textPURPOSE:
The frequency of dream recall (DR) in patients with brain diseases has proved to be indicative of the relation between sleep disturbances and the functioning of cognitive processes during sleep. In this study we attempted to ascertain whether DR frequency in patients with complex partial seizures (CPSs) is higher than that in those with generalized seizures.
METHODS:
DR frequency was assessed by means of a 60-day dream diary in patients with CPSs, whose epileptic focus was in the right (n = 12) or left temporal lobe (n = 28), and with idiopathic generalized seizures (n = 21). The patients enrolled in the study were not impaired in global cognitive and memory functioning.
RESULTS:
The ability to recall dreams was established in nearly all patients with either CPSs or generalized seizures. DR frequency resulted significantly higher (about twice) in patients with CPSs, regardless of (a) the side of the epileptic focus, (b) the presence of a cerebral lesion detectable on a computed tomography (CT) scan, or (c) the occurrence of seizures in the previous day.
CONCLUSIONS:
These findings indicate that overall, DR occurs in medicated epilepsy patients with CPSs more frequently than reported in previous studies. The high DR frequency observed in these patients, regardless of the side of the epileptic focus, is in agreement with the assumption that tempoparietal areas of both hemispheres are involved in the production and recall of the dream experienc
Dream recall frequency in epilepsy patients with partial and generalized seizures: A dream diary study
No full textPurpose: The frequency of dream recall (DR) in patients with brain diseases has proved to be indicative of the relation between sleep disturbances and the functioning of cognitive processes during sleep. In this study we attempted to ascertain whether DR frequency in patients with complex partial seizures (CPSs) is higher than that in those with generalized seizures. Methods: DR frequency was assessed by means of a 60-day dream diary in patients with CPSs, whose epileptic focus was in the right (n = 12) or left temporal lobe (n = 28), and with idiopathic generalized seizures (n = 21). The patients enrolled in the study were not impaired in global cognitive and memory functioning. Results: The ability to recall dreams was established in nearly all patients with either CPSs or generalized seizures. DR frequency resulted significantly higher (about twice) in patients with CPSs, regardless of (a) the side of the epileptic focus, (b) the presence of a cerebral lesion detectable on a computed tomography (CT) scan, or (c) the occurrence of seizures in the previous day. Conclusions: These findings indicate that overall, DR occurs in medicated epilepsy patients with CPSs more frequently than reported in previous studies. The high DR frequency observed in these patients, regardless of the side of the epileptic focus, is in agreement with the assumption that tempoparietal areas of both hemispheres are involved in the production and recall of the dream experience
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