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Methods of Information in Medicine Dec 2022In recent years, researchers have used many computerized interventions to reduce medical errors, the third cause of death in developed countries. One of such...
BACKGROUND
In recent years, researchers have used many computerized interventions to reduce medical errors, the third cause of death in developed countries. One of such interventions is using differential diagnosis generators in primary care, where physicians may encounter initial symptoms without any diagnostic presuppositions. These systems generate multiple diagnoses, ranked by their likelihood. As such, these reports' accuracy can be determined by the location of the correct diagnosis in the list.
OBJECTIVE
This study aimed to design and evaluate a novel practical web-based differential diagnosis generator solution in primary care.
METHODS
In this research, a new online clinical decision support system, called DxGenerator, was designed to improve diagnostic accuracy; to this end, an attempt was made to converge a semantic database with the unified medical language system (UMLS) knowledge base, using MetaMap tool and natural language processing. In this regard, 120 diseases of gastrointestinal organs causing abdominal pain were modeled into the database. After designing an inference engine and a pseudo-free-text interactive interface, 172 patient vignettes were inputted into DxGenerator and ISABEL, the most accurate similar system. The Wilcoxon signed ranked test was used to compare the position of correct diagnoses in DxGenerator and ISABEL. The α level was defined as 0.05.
RESULTS
On a total of 172 vignettes, the mean and standard deviation of correct diagnosis positions improved from 4.2 ± 5.3 in ISABEL to 3.2 ± 3.9 in DxGenerator. This improvement was significant in the subgroup of uncommon diseases (-value < 0.05).
CONCLUSION
Using UMLS knowledge base and MetaMap Tools can improve the accuracy of diagnostic systems in which terms are entered in a free text manner. Applying these new methods will help the medical community accept medical diagnostic systems better.
Topics: Humans; Semantics; Diagnosis, Differential; Unified Medical Language System; Natural Language Processing; Primary Health Care
PubMed: 35858654
DOI: 10.1055/a-1905-5639 -
Current Issues in Personality Psychology 2021The main research question of the article is how the perception of help and the style of interpersonal relations are connected. In a broad sense, the question refers to...
BACKGROUND
The main research question of the article is how the perception of help and the style of interpersonal relations are connected. In a broad sense, the question refers to the problem of constant and situational variables of prosocial activity. The main methodological framework is Vygotsky's cultural-historical psychology, in particular, the mechanism of interiorization and the interaction of interpsychological and intrapsychological processes.
PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE
Over 215 participants (students attending school and university, living in Ukraine, aged from 12 to 22 years) took part in our experiment, but because not all of them completed all the necessary forms correctly, only 193 participants' answers were further analyzed. Our two research techniques were Leary's Interpersonal Behavior Circle Personal Inventory and the semantic differential ( = 193).
RESULTS
Each disposition from Leary's questionnaire had at least one significant correlation with the way Ukrainian adolescents perceive help. The semantic aspects of perceiving help were investigated with the help of ranking the qualities of the semantic differential for the words "help the other".
CONCLUSIONS
The identified correlations contribute to the psychological analysis of the detailed characteristics of perceiving help concerning personal dispositions. Personal, communicational and semantic aspects of help are interconnected and their further research can bring rich insights.
PubMed: 38013700
DOI: 10.5114/cipp.2021.104594 -
Journal of Communication Disorders 2020Language decline has been associated with healthy aging and with various neurodegenerative conditions, making it challenging to differentiate among these conditions....
PURPOSE
Language decline has been associated with healthy aging and with various neurodegenerative conditions, making it challenging to differentiate among these conditions. This study examined the utility of linguistic measures derived from a short narrative language sample for 1) identifying language characteristics and cut-off scores to differentiate between healthy aging, Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer's dementia (AD); and 2) differentiating among PPA variants in which language is the primary impairment.
METHOD
Participants were 25 neurologically healthy English speakers, 20 individuals with MCI, 20 with AD, and 26 with PPA (non-fluent/agrammatic N = 10, logopenic N = 9, semantic N = 7). Narrative language samples of the Cookie Theft Picture of persons with healthy aging, MCI and AD were retrospectively obtained from the DementiaBank database (https://talkbank.org/DementiaBank/) and PPA samples were obtained from an ongoing research study. The language samples were analyzed for fluency, word retrieval success, grammatical accuracy, and errors using automated and manual analysis methods. The sensitivity and specificity of various language measures was computed.
RESULTS
Participants with PPA scored lower than neurologically healthy and MCI groups on fluency (words per minute and disfluencies), word retrieval (Correct Information Units and number of errors), and sentence grammaticality. PPA and AD groups did not differ on language measures. Agrammatic PPA participants scored lower than logopenic and semantic PPA groups on several measures, while logopenic and semantic PPA did not differ on any measures.
CONCLUSION
Measures derived from brief language samples and analyzed using mostly automated methods are clinically useful in differentiating PPA from healthy aging and MCI, and agrammatic PPA from other variants. The sensitivity and specificity of these measures is modest and can be improved when coupled with clinical presentation.
Topics: Aged; Alzheimer Disease; Aphasia, Primary Progressive; Cognitive Dysfunction; Diagnosis, Differential; Humans; Language; Middle Aged; Neurodegenerative Diseases; Retrospective Studies
PubMed: 32388191
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2020.105994 -
Psychiatria Danubina Dec 2021The review outlines the importance of understanding speech and language difficulties that occur among the first symptoms of frontotemporal dementia, as well as the role...
The review outlines the importance of understanding speech and language difficulties that occur among the first symptoms of frontotemporal dementia, as well as the role of speech therapists in the management of people with frontotemporal dementia. Frontotemporal dementia is one of the most common types of dementia in adults under the age of 65. The main variations of frontotemporal dementia are behavioral, progressive nonfluent aphasia, semantic dementia, and logopenic progressive aphasia. Speech and language difficulties are often among the first indicative signs of frontotemporal dementia, and their proper recognition and understanding play a significant role in the differential diagnosis. Speech and language therapists have to be involved both in the diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia and its treatment to provide the highest quality services to people with dementia and their carers.
Topics: Adult; Aphasia, Primary Progressive; Cognition; Diagnosis, Differential; Frontotemporal Dementia; Humans; Speech
PubMed: 35150484
DOI: No ID Found -
Journal of Voice : Official Journal of... Oct 2022Glottal fry is an increasingly prevalent voice type in young female speakers. The purpose of this study was to identify employers' perceptions toward young female...
PURPOSE
Glottal fry is an increasingly prevalent voice type in young female speakers. The purpose of this study was to identify employers' perceptions toward young female speakers presenting with glottal fry and the impact on hirability.
METHODS
Sixty employers responsible for hiring at their business in the Southeast region of the United States completed a survey developed to capture employers' perceptions toward young women using glottal fry. Employers listened to three voice samples of young women with varying levels of glottal fry and rated the voice on 14 semantic differential items. The semantic differential items were derived from the hiring constructs literature to capture perceptions related to mental capability, personality tendencies, and applied social skills. Additionally, questions related to hirability were captured at the end of the survey.
RESULTS
Employers were able to identify continuous glottal fry compared to nonglottal fry voice samples. Employers rated voice samples with glottal fry more negatively (eg, less trustworthy, less competent, less educated) compared to nonglottal fry voice samples and were less likely to hire female speakers with continuous glottal fry.
CONCLUSION
This study highlights the impact of negative perceptions toward glottal fry on hirability of young female speakers. Such information can provide insight to increase awareness of the impact of a voice type on listener perceptions and communication among young female speakers.
PubMed: 36229279
DOI: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2022.09.007 -
BioRxiv : the Preprint Server For... Jan 2023Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative syndrome characterized by progressive language deficits. There are three main variants of PPA - semantic...
Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative syndrome characterized by progressive language deficits. There are three main variants of PPA - semantic (svPPA), logopenic (lvPPA), and nonfluent (nfvPPA) - that can be challenging to distinguish. Limb praxis may also be affected in PPA, but it is unclear whether different variants of PPA are associated with differences in gesture production. Prior research with neurotypical individuals indicates that the left temporal lobe is a critical locus of manipulable object and hand posture representations. Moreover, when imitating gestures, individuals whose strokes include the left temporal lobe show reduced benefit of gesture meaning and disproportionate impairment in hand posture as compared to arm kinematics. We tested the hypothesis that svPPA - who typically exhibit primarily temporal lobe atrophy - would differentially show these expected patterns of gesture imitation performance. Nineteen participants with PPA completed meaningful and meaningless gesture imitation tasks, and performance was scored for hand posture and arm kinematics accuracy. Generalized logistic mixed-effect regression models controlling for dementia severity showed overall benefits from gesture meaning, and greater impairments in hand posture than arm kinematics. We also found that svPPA participants were the most impaired in gesture imitation overall. Critically, there was also a significant three-way interaction of group, meaning, and gesture component: only svPPA participants showed relative impairments of hand posture for meaningful gestures as well as meaningless gestures. Thus, unlike lvPPA and nfvPPA, the hand postures of svPPA failed to benefit from gesture meaning. This research extends prior findings on the role of the temporal lobe in hand posture representations associated with manipulable objects, and is the first to indicate that there may be distinct gesture imitation patterns as a function of PPA variant. Characterizing componential gesture deficits in PPA may help to inform differential diagnosis, compensatory communication strategies, and cognitive praxis models of PPA.
PubMed: 36711535
DOI: 10.1101/2023.01.19.524719 -
Behavioral Sciences (Basel, Switzerland) May 2022This scientific work studies brand placement in the press conferences of soccer coaches and evaluates their communicative effectiveness through the measurement of their...
This scientific work studies brand placement in the press conferences of soccer coaches and evaluates their communicative effectiveness through the measurement of their cognitive and affective effects on the viewers. In this research, we established the following objectives: (1) to examine the characteristics of the practice of brand placement in football press conferences: the diffusion times of brands, space occupied on the screen, and categories of brands placed; (2) to evaluate the behaviour of the human eye when viewing press conferences, in terms of continuous movements (saccades) and fixations (fixations) on brands; (3) to gauge the spontaneous and assisted recall of brands by subjects; (4) to verify the correlation between the persistence of visual fixations and recall/recognition; (5) to investigate the changes in subjects' attitudes towards brands viewed in the experimental context. An exploratory observation was made that enabled a more in-depth knowledge and implementation of brand placement at sports conferences. For the experimental observation, a 2 × 2 factorial design of independent groups with total randomization was defined in order to perceive the influence of the variables "time" and "quantity" on the communicative effectiveness of the placed tags. In order to collect the data, a combination of several tested and validated tools was used, namely the screen division grid in surface units, as advocated by Bravo (1995); the technology of eye-tracking as an instrument for the recognition of the ocular movements of subjects in the observation space; surveys tested for cognitive gauging; and a semantic differential scale to assess attitudes toward the brand. The results indicate that the subjects recall in a spontaneous and suggested way the brands placed at the press conferences and develop positive attitudes about them. The recall is influenced by the diffusion time of the stimulus, and above all, the type of placement on the screen is decisive. It was not found that the brands to which subjects develop more positive attitudes were the most remembered. Finally, the face of the soccer coach is the main focus of attention of the subjects, and the areas surrounding this interlocutor are the ones that arouse the most interest in terms of the placement of brands.
PubMed: 35621448
DOI: 10.3390/bs12050151 -
Alzheimer's Research & Therapy Oct 2021Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) is a neuropathological construct with multiple clinical presentations, including the behavioural variant of frontotemporal...
BACKGROUND
Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) is a neuropathological construct with multiple clinical presentations, including the behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), primary progressive aphasia-both non-fluent variant (nfvPPA) and semantic variant (svPPA)-progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and corticobasal syndrome (CBS), characterised by the deposition of abnormal tau protein in the brain. A major challenge for treating FTLD is early diagnosis and accurate discrimination among different syndromes. The main goal here was to investigate the cortical architecture of FTLD syndromes using cortical diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) analysis and to test its power to discriminate between different clinical presentations.
METHODS
A total of 271 individuals were included in the study: 87 healthy subjects (HS), 31 semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA), 37 behavioural variant (bvFTD), 30 non-fluent/agrammatic variant primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA), 47 PSP Richardson's syndrome (PSP-RS) and 39 CBS cases. 3T MRI T1-weighted images and DTI scans were analysed to extract three cortical DTI derived measures (AngleR, PerpPD and ParlPD) and mean diffusivity (MD), as well as standard volumetric measurements. Whole brain and regional data were extracted. Linear discriminant analysis was used to assess the group discrimination capability of volumetric and DTI measures to differentiate the FTLD syndromes. In addition, in order to further investigate differential diagnosis in CBS and PSP-RS, a subgroup of subjects with autopsy confirmation in the training cohort was used to select features which were then tested in the test cohort. Three different challenges were explored: a binary classification (controls vs all patients), a multiclass classification (HS vs bvFTD vs svPPA vs nfvPPA vs CBS vs PSP-RS) and an additional binary classification to differentiate CBS and PSP-RS using features selected in an autopsy confirmed subcohort.
RESULTS
Linear discriminant analysis revealed that PerpPD was the best feature to distinguish between controls and all patients (ACC 86%). PerpPD regional values were able to classify correctly the different FTLD syndromes with an accuracy of 85.6%. The PerpPD and volumetric values selected to differentiate CBS and PSP-RS patients showed a classification accuracy of 85.2%.
CONCLUSIONS
(I) PerpPD achieved the highest classification power for differentiating healthy controls and FTLD syndromes and FTLD syndromes among themselves. (II) PerpPD regional values could provide an additional marker to differentiate FTD, PSP-RS and CBS.
Topics: Brain; Diffusion Tensor Imaging; Frontotemporal Dementia; Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration; Humans; Supranuclear Palsy, Progressive
PubMed: 34686217
DOI: 10.1186/s13195-021-00914-4 -
Behavioral Sciences (Basel, Switzerland) Oct 2023Relationship satisfaction is at the core of a robust social life and is essential to mental health. The positive and negative semantic dimensions of the relationship...
Relationship satisfaction is at the core of a robust social life and is essential to mental health. The positive and negative semantic dimensions of the relationship satisfaction (PN-SMD) scale is considered in the field of relationship studies to be a reliable tool for assessing the quality of a person's interpersonal relationships. This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the PN-SMD scale by conducting multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) and differential item functioning (DIF) analyses, both of which are emerging assessment methods that focus on individual items. We recruited 511 Chinese undergraduate students for this study. Construct validity, internal consistency, and concurrent validity were assessed, and MIRT and DIF analyses were conducted. Five of the 14 items were found to have gender-based DIF traits, affecting the scale's construct validity. A revised nine-item scale (DIF items excluded) had a significantly better model fit and demonstrated comparable concurrent validity to the original scale. The implications of our results and future research directions are discussed.
PubMed: 37887475
DOI: 10.3390/bs13100825 -
PloS One 2021Semantic memory representations are overall well-maintained in aging whereas semantic control is thought to be more affected. To explain this phenomenon, this study aims...
Semantic memory representations are overall well-maintained in aging whereas semantic control is thought to be more affected. To explain this phenomenon, this study aims to test the predictions of the Compensation Related Utilization of Neural Circuits Hypothesis (CRUNCH) focusing on task demands in aging as a possible framework. The CRUNCH effect would manifest itself in semantic tasks through a compensatory increase in neural activation in semantic control network regions but only up to a certain threshold of task demands. This study will compare 40 young (20-35 years old) with 40 older participants (60-75 years old) in a triad-based semantic judgment task performed in an fMRI scanner while manipulating levels of task demands (low vs. high) through semantic distance. In line with the CRUNCH predictions, differences in neurofunctional activation and behavioral performance (accuracy and response times) are expected in young vs. old participants in the low- vs. high-demand conditions manifested in semantic control Regions of Interest.
Topics: Adult; Age Factors; Aged; Brain; Brain Mapping; Female; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Memory; Memory Disorders; Middle Aged; Psychomotor Performance; Reaction Time; Semantics
PubMed: 34129605
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249948