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Biomedical subjects

G S Waters

Publications and source records attributed to G S Waters.

29 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

On the nature of the phonological output planning processes involved in verbal rehearsal: evidence from aphasia.

This paper describes the performance of an aphasic patient, R.W., in producing the sounds of words and in verbal rehearsal. R.W. showed evidence of retained abilities to access aspects of the forms of spoken words but made numerous phonemic paraphasias in single word production tasks. He did not show features of dysarthria or apraxia of speech. This pattern indicates that his deficit affected a process that plans the phonological forms of spoken words. R.W.'s performances in short-term memory and metalinguistic tasks involving single words were consistent with impaired rehearsal functions. The pattern of results indicates that rehearsal requires planning of the phonological forms of spoken items and suggests that activating entries in the phonological output lexicon is not adequate to permit rehearsal to proceed normally.

Aphasia↗

Sentence comprehension in patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Twenty-three early-stage dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) patients and twenty-three control subjects were tested on a sentence-picture matching test containing nine different sentence types representing different levels of syntactic complexity. Subjects chose between drawings depicting a target sentence and a syntactic foil. Results indicated that DAT patients differed from control subjects on four of the nine sentence types. Performance of the patients was not poorer for sentences that were syntactically more complex, but was poorer for sentences that had two propositions as compared to one. Results are discussed in terms of a post-interpretative processing impairment in sentence comprehension in DAT.

Aged↗

Articulatory and phonological determinants of word length effects in span tasks.

Several previous studies have shown that memory span is greater for short words than for long words. This effect is claimed to occur even when the short and long words are matched for the number of syllables and phonemes and so to provide evidence for subvocal articulation as being one mechanism that underlies memory span (Baddeley, Thomson, & Buchanan, 1975). The three experiments reported in this paper further investigate the articulatory determinants of word length effects on span tasks. Experiment 1 replicated Baddeley et al.'s finding of an effect of word length on auditory and visual span when the stimuli consist of words that differ in terms of the number of syllables. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the effects of word length are eliminated when the words in the span task are matched for the number of syllables and phonemes but differ with respect to the duration and/or complexity of their articulatory gestures. These results indicate that it is the phonological structure of a word and not features of its actual articulation that determines the magnitude of the word length effect in span tasks.

Aged↗

Long-term studies of mental health after the Greenville gastric bypass operation for morbid obesity.

From February 1, 1980, to May 1, 1989, 462 patients underwent the Greenville gastric bypass at the East Carolina University School of Medicine. The operation effectively maintained satisfactory weight loss after 9 years (mean weight preoperatively, 293 lbs; at 24 months, 179 lbs; at 96 months, 194 lbs). The gastric bypass favorably affected non-insulin-dependent diabetes, hypertension, and physical and role functioning. In the most recent 157 patients, our studies were extended to study the effects of the gastric bypass on mental health. The significant improvements in mental health indices that were observed 6 and 12 months after surgery eroded by the end of 2 years. This return of the mental health indices to the preoperative status, plus the late occurrence of 3 suicides and 2 deaths from alcohol abuse among the total 462 patients, suggest that long-term follow-up and continued emotional support are essential ingredients for successful bariatric surgery.

Adult↗

Ototoxicity due to cis-diamminedichloroplatinum in the treatment of ovarian cancer: influence of dosage and schedule of administration.

Ototoxicity associated with administration of cisplatin was assessed in four groups of patients suffering from advanced ovarian carcinoma. The purpose was to determine the influence of dosage, schedule of administration, and long-term treatment on pure-tone thresholds and other auditory parameters. One hundred and forty-five serial audiograms were obtained in 60 patients and compared with baseline audiograms. The treatment protocol consisted of two different dosages (low--50 mg/m2 and high--100 mg/m2) and three different schedules of administration (short--6 months, extended--12 months, and treatment in blocks--intervening months in which cisplatin was withheld). Using a conservative definition of auditory toxicity and statistical analyses of pure-tone threshold differences between groups, the results indicated that the low dose-short treatment regimens with either monthly administration of cisplatin, or administration in blocks, were the least ototoxic. Ototoxicity was found to increase with increasing cumulative dosages. Hearing loss was primarily in the high frequencies. The most severe ototoxic effects, which include tinnitus and hearing loss in the speech frequency range, were associated with the administration of high dosages over a short period of time. Individual variability in susceptibility to ototoxicity necessitates systematic audiometric monitoring throughout therapy.

Adult↗

The role of linguistic and visual information in spelling: a developmental study.

This study investigated the processes that elementary school children use for spelling. Good and poor spellers in grades 3 through 6 spelled words and nonwords that differed in the types of information (phonological, orthographic, morphological, or visual) that could be used to produce their correct spelling. A multiple choice spelling recognition task was also administered. Error rates on words and nonwords were related to the type of information that could be used to determine the correct spelling. Words that could be spelled on the basis of linguistic information were easier than words that could be spelled only on the basis of visual information. While children were sensitive to the linguistic properties of the stimuli, their use and knowledge of various sources of linguistic information was not uniformly developed. Children had the most difficulty with spellings based on morphological information and the least difficulty with those based on invariant sound-spelling relationships. On the dictation and the nonword tasks, younger children and poorer spellers differed from older children and better spellers in the overall level of their knowledge, but all children showed a similar pattern of results suggesting that they did not use different processes to spell words. However, the data from the recognition task suggested that poor spellers may rely more on visual information than good spellers.

Achievement↗

[Ileoanal reservoir: new concepts and current results].

More than 1,800 ileoanal pouches have been performed at the Mayo Clinic since 1981 and results have been satisfactory in more than 90% of the patients. However, we continue to search for alternatives to improve postoperative results and avoid the complications that currently occur in a minority of patients. During the last two years new concepts and surgical techniques for the construction of the ileoanal reservoir have been described. Herein we present those innovations and compare them to our current institutional practice.

Adenomatous Polyposis Coli↗