Biomedical subjects

K E Cherry

Publications and source records attributed to K E Cherry.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1997

Psychopathology in older adults with severe and profound mental retardation.

The prevalence of psychopathology in younger and older adults with severe and profound mental retardation was examined. Participants were evaluated by direct-care staff using the Diagnostic Assessment for the Severely Handicapped (DASH), which measures the frequency, duration, and severity of symptoms associated with 13 major psychiatric disorders derived from the DSM-III-R. The frequency of disorders was comparable for younger and older adults. Age group differences favoring the older adults were revealed in the analyses of duration and severity on 4 of the DASH subscales. Implications of these findings for research and practice were discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1995

Implicit learning of a nonverbal sequence in younger and older adults.

Two experiments examined age-related differences in implicit serial learning using the M. J. Nissen and P. Bullemer (1987) task. Younger adults and 2 samples of older adults who differed in educational attainment, occupational status, and verbal ability were given a 10-trial repeating sequence embedded in 100-trial blocks. On each trial, participants pressed a key that matched a designated spatial location. Implicit learning was inferred from the difference in RT between a random sequence trial block and the immediately preceding block with the repeating sequence. Results indicated that negative transfer effects were comparable for the younger and higher ability older adults, but lower ability older adults showed less evidence of implicit learning. On an explicit task, younger and higher ability older adults were more accurate than the lower ability older adults. The implications of these findings for current views on implicit learning in adulthood are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1993

Individual difference and contextual variables influence spatial memory in younger and older adults.

This study examined the influence of individual difference and contextual variables on the magnitude of age differences in memory for spatial location. Younger adults and 2 samples of older adults that differed in educational attainment, verbal intelligence, and working memory ability were compared. Ss studied and later recreated an arrangement of small objects that were placed on a plain map or a visually distinctive model. The objects were either unrelated or categorically related items. The results indicated that distinctive context enhanced spatial memory, and the magnitude of the benefit was generally comparable across age groups and stimulus sets. Hierarchical regression analyses confirmed that working memory resources accounted for a sizable proportion of age-related variance in memory for spatial location. The implications of these results for current views on age-related differences in memory for spatial location are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1993

The effect of verbal elaborations on memory in young and older adults.

The Stein paradigm was used to examine the circumstances under which verbal elaborations enhance memory in young and older adults. Subjects studied target adjectives that were embedded in one of three sentence contexts that varied in elaboration of the subject-adjective relationship: (1) nonelaborated base sentences; (2) base sentences with semantically consistent, but arbitrary verbal, elaborations; and (3) base sentences with explanatory verbal elaborations that clarified the significance of the subject-adjective relationship. The presence of the elaborations was varied at encoding and retrieval, and cued recall of the target adjectives was tested with incidental and intentional learning procedures. In Experiments 1A and 1B, explanatory elaborations at encoding and retrieval yielded the largest memorial facilitation for both young and older adults, and the benefit was comparable for the incidental and intentional learning measures. In Experiment 2, age-related differences in recall were minimal with explanatory elaborations at encoding and retrieval, but larger age differences occurred in the nonelaborated comparison conditions. In Experiment 3, explanatory elaborations present at encoding but not at retrieval enhanced recall when the original Stein stimuli were used, but not with the present stimuli. The implications of these results with regard to the mnemonic efficacy of verbal elaborations for young and older adults are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Effects of distinctive context on memory for objects and their locations in young and elderly adults.

Sharps and Gollin (1987, 1988) reported that older adults' memory for both objects and their spatial location is more facilitated than that of young adults when items are studied in a distinctive visual context. They also reported that age differences in spatial memory and item memory can be ameliorated if the items are studied in a distinctive context. The goal of this study was to verify and extend these findings by examining memory for everyday objects when the objects were studied on a (a) plain surface, (b) black-and-white schematic map, or (c) colored model. In Experiment 1, item memory was examined, and in Experiment 2, spatial memory was studied. The results indicated that spatial memory improved with the addition of distinctive context but item memory did not. Moreover, there was no evidence that elderly adults were more facilitated by the distinctive context than were the young.

Age Factors↗

PubMed1989

Age-related differences in three-dimensional spatial memory.

This study focused on understanding age differences in spatial memory within a framework relating stimulus qualities to performance. It was hypothesized that elderly adults' spatial memory would be more disadvantaged, relative to young adults, with abstract, meaningless objects than with everyday objects. The study examined differences in memory for the horizontal, vertical, and depth dimensional planes of space in a 4 x 4 x 4 plexiglass cube. College students and community-dwelling adults studied and later reconstructed a three-dimensional arrangement of common or abstract objects located in a compartmentalized cube so that relocation errors could be independently measured within the horizontal, vertical, and depth dimensions. The principal findings were that (a) the magnitude of object displacement in the relocation task was greater for older adults; (b) young and elderly adults differed primarily in terms of large rather than small displacement errors; (c) the locations of meaningless items were more difficult to remember for both age groups; and (d) displacement errors in the vertical dimension were greater than the horizontal and depth dimensions, although this effect was only significant with meaningful items.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1989

Drug sensitivity in older adults: the role of physiologic and pharmacokinetic factors.

Age-related changes in physiology and pharmacokinetics (how drugs are used in the body) lead to increased drug sensitivity and potentially harmful drug effects. This report addresses the heightened sensitivity to drug effects seen in older adults. The first section of the report presents three examples of physiologic decline: a) decreased plasma protein binding affects drug distribution, b) declining liver function affects drug metabolism, and c) impaired kidney function delays drug elimination. The next section illustrates by example the risks associated with altered physiology: a) decline in plasma protein binding may result in an intensified effect of the drug Phenytoin, b) altered liver function increases the sedative effects of Diazepam, and c) declining kidney function results in accumulation of the drug Gentamicin, where toxic effects include kidney failure and deafness. The last section is a discussion of some broad considerations for geriatric pharmacology. Adverse drug reactions can largely be avoided by carefully weighing the needs and clinical status of older persons on an individual basis both prior to and throughout the course of a given drug therapy.

Aged↗

PubMedDate not supplied

An analysis of maladaptive behaviors in persons with autism, PDD-NOS, and mental retardation.

In this study, we examined three maladaptive behaviors, self-injurious behavior (SIB), stereotypies, and aggression in adults with autism, pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), and mental retardation. We used a brief functional analysis rating scale. The Questions About Behavioral Functions (QABF), to examine the function of each behavior. Across the three groups, our results indicated that aggression was primarily maintained for attentional reasons and stereotypies for nonsocial reasons. No specific function(s) were found to maintain SIB. These results suggest that the function of a maladaptive behavior may be associated more with the particular maladaptive behavior displayed rather than inclusion in a certain diagnostic group. Implications of findings for assessment and treatment issues are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Adult age differences in spatial memory: effects of structural context and practice.

We examined the effect of structural context on memory for spatial location in young and elderly women in two studies. Subjects studied and later reconstructed an array of visually identical objects that were positioned in a three-dimensional Plexiglas matrix. For half the subjects, small household objects were interspersed in the array to serve as spatial landmark cues during encoding and replacement. All subjects received two study and replacement trials. The results indicated that (a) older women remembered fewer locations than younger women but benefited more from landmark cues to location, (b) performance improved on the second replacement trial for the young but not for the older women, and (c) both age groups appeared to use similar processing strategies that were based on the vertical dimension of space. These results suggest that structural context enhances older adults' retention of three-dimensional spatial information. The implications of these data for the conceptual distinction between structural and organizational aspects of spatial context are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Age-related differences in pictorial implicit memory: role of perceptual and conceptual processes.

This study examined the effects of perceptual and conceptual encoding processes on younger and older adults' implicit and explicit memory for pictures. During acquisition, participants studied simple line drawings under varying encoding task conditions. Half of the participants judged the orientation of the central object, a perceptual encoding task. The other half indicated the taxonomic category to which the object belonged, a conceptual encoding task. Implicit memory measures were priming in picture-fragment and word-fragment completion. Explicit measures were free recall and recognition. Results showed that the magnitude of age differences in primed picture completion varied across encoding task conditions. Age deficits occurred on both explicit tasks. Implications of these results for current views on implicit memory aging are discussed.

Adult↗