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H.M. revisited: relations between language comprehension, memory, and the hippocampal system.

Three studies tested the claim that H.M. exhibits a "pure memory deficit" that has left his ability to comprehend language unimpaired relative to memory-normal controls. In Study 1, H.M. and memory-normal controls of comparable intelligence, education, and age indicated whether sentences were ambiguous or unambiguous, and H. M. detected ambiguities significantly less often than controls. In Study 2, participants identified the two meanings of visually presented sentences that they knew were ambiguous, and relative to controls, H.M. rarely discovered the ambiguities without help and had difficulty understanding the first meanings, experimenter requests, and his own output. Study 3 replicated these results and showed that they were not due to brain damage per se or to cohort effects: Unlike H.M., a patient with bilateral frontal lobe damage detected the ambiguities as readily as young and same-cohort older controls. These results bear on two general classes of theories in use within a wide range of neurosciences and cognitive sciences: The data favor "distributed-memory theories" that ascribe H.M.'s deficit to semantic-level binding processes that are inherent to both language comprehension and memory, over "stages-of-processing theories," where H.M.'s defective storage processes have no effect on language comprehension.

Adult↗

Comprehensive tuberculosis control for patients at high risk for noncompliance.

The current tuberculosis epidemic in the United States is marked, in many areas, by high rates of noncompliance with antituberculous regimens. In response to this, a comprehensive program of medical, nursing, social services, and supervised therapy was developed at Bellevue Hospital. Most patients were referred to the on-site directly observed therapy program (DOT) located in the hospital. Patients on DOT received daily or twice weekly therapy, and were given incentives to enhance compliance. Outreach was used to track patients who missed appointments. From November 1992 through July 1993, 113 patients were referred. HIV infection, homelessness, illicit drug use, and alcoholism were common. Follow-up revealed that 11 patients were noncompliant and completely lost to follow-up; of the remaining 102, 99% achieved bacteriologic cure. Of the 102 patients who received therapy, 74 attended the Bellevue DOT clinic, 16 attended other DOT programs in the city or received medication at home, and three died of HIV-related, nontuberculous illness. Nine patients were self-medicated and judged treatment successes. We conclude that a comprehensive hospital-based tuberculosis control program is capable of achieving a high degree of success, even in a population at high risk for noncompliance.

Adult↗

Antipsychotic-induced weight gain: a comprehensive research synthesis.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to estimate and compare the effects of antipsychotics-both the newer ones and the conventional ones-on body weight. METHOD: A comprehensive literature search identified 81 English- and non-English-language articles that included data on weight change in antipsychotic-treated patients. For each agent, a meta-analysis and random effects metaregression estimated the weight change after 10 weeks of treatment at a standard dose. A comprehensive narrative review was also conducted on all articles that did not yield quantitative information but did yield important qualitative information. RESULTS: Placebo was associated with a mean weight reduction of 0.74 kg. Among conventional agents, mean weight change ranged from a reduction of 0.39 kg with molindone to an increase of 3.19 kg with thioridazine. Among newer antipsychotic agents, mean increases were as follows: clozapine, 4.45 kg; olanzapine, 4.15 kg; sertindole, 2.92 kg; risperidone, 2.10 kg; and ziprasidone, 0.04 kg. Insufficient data were available to evaluate quetiapine at 10 weeks. CONCLUSIONS: Both conventional and newer antipsychotics are associated with weight gain. Among the newer agents, clozapine appears to have the greatest potential to induce weight gain, and ziprasidone the least. The differences among newer agents may affect compliance with medication and health risk.

Antipsychotic Agents↗

Comprehensive case management in the private sector for patients with severe mental illness.

Intensive case management for severely psychiatrically ill patients is a relatively new phenomenon in the private sector. The authors describe a comprehensive case management program designed at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts to meet the needs of the most severely ill psychiatric patients in a private managed care environment. The case management program emphasizes involvement of patients in creating comprehensive treatment plans; development of a relationship between case managers, patients and their families, and providers; and clinical coordination between the public and private sectors to create individualized treatment plans. The program's case managers are able to flex the benefit limitations of a managed care or indemnity plan to integrate public and private services and can enlist providers outside a managed care network. The paper describes service utilization by the first 33 patients who participated in the program for one year.

Adolescent↗

A comprehensive screening method for detecting organic acidurias and other metabolic diseases in acutely sick infants and children.

A protocol is described for the comprehensive screening of acutely ill neonates and infants for inherited metabolic diseases, with particular reference to the organic acidurias. A group of simple initial tests provide positive pointers to metabolic disorders, leading to comprehensive screening tests for the aminoacidopathies and organic acidurias. Specimen chromatograms of urinary organic acids in the normal neonate, infant, and child, obtained using the methods described, are given and compared with that from the urine of a child with previously unreported 2-hydroxyglutaric aciduria. The place of the scheme in the management of inherited metabolic disease in the perinatal period and its relationship to other screening programmes are discussed. It is estimated that use of the protocol would allow the detection of about one-half of the known inborn errors of metabolism, including the aminoacidopathies, the organic acidurias, the hyperammonaemias, and several disorders of carbohydrate metabolism, many of which present acutely in the neonate and infant.

Amino Acids↗

Reading comprehension instruction: summarization and self-monitoring training for students with learning disabilities.

Forty-five middle-school students with learning disabilities were randomly assigned to one of three reading-comprehension training conditions: (a) summarization training, (b) summarization training with a self-monitoring component, or (c) traditional instruction. All students were interviewed before and after training regarding the strategies they typically employ during reading comprehension; during one training session, "think aloud" protocols were collected. Results indicated that students with learning disabilities trained in summarization procedures performed statistically higher on all dependent measures. In addition, on some transfer measures, students who were trained in the monitoring component statistically outperformed those with only the summarization training.

Adolescent↗

Retrieval, automaticity, vocabulary elaboration, orthography (RAVE-O): a comprehensive, fluency-based reading intervention program.

The most important implication of the double-deficit hypothesis (Wolf & Bowers, in this issue) concerns a new emphasis on fluency and automaticity in intervention for children with developmental reading disabilities. The RAVE-O (Retrieval, Automaticity, Vocabulary Elaboration, Orthography) program is an experimental, fluency-based approach to reading intervention that is designed to accompany a phonological analysis program. In an effort to address multiple possible sources of dysfluency in readers with disabilities, the program involves comprehensive emphases both on fluency in word attack, word identification, and comprehension and on automaticity in underlying componential processes (e.g., phonological, orthographic, semantic, and lexical retrieval skills). The goals, theoretical principles, and applied activities of the RAVE-O curriculum are described with particular stress on facilitating the development of rapid orthographic pattern recognition and on changing children's attitudes toward language.

Automation↗

Coherence: the comprehension and production abilities of college writers who are normally achieving, learning disabled, and underprepared.

The ability to understand and produce coherent text structure was assessed across three groups of college writers, normally achieving, learning disabled, and underprepared. It was found that college writers with learning disabilities were more like the normally achieving writers on an assessment of comprehension of text structure. On the production of a coherent text, normally achieving writers performed better than either of the other groups, but the writers with learning disabilities (LD) performed better than the underprepared writers. These results suggest that the writers with LD demonstrate greater discrepancies between their comprehension and production of written form than either of the other groups. The writers with LD appear to understand text structure like normally achieving writers but, like the underprepared writers, they experience difficulty in the production processes.

Achievement↗

Improving the reading comprehension of children with dysphonetic and dyseidetic dyslexia using story grammar.

Five 8- to 10-year-old children with dysphonetic and dyseidetic dyslexia were given instruction in reading comprehension using a story grammar strategy in which story instruction was differentially designed to match the simultaneous or sequential mental processing strengths of each dyslexia subtype. A multiple baseline, single subject experimental design and statistical analyses indicated that the experimental treatments yielded statistically and clinically significant improvements in the proportion of qualitatively important story elements recalled by the subjects, when compared to baseline traditional remedial instruction. The results suggested that students with dyslexia can increase their reading comprehension with training in metacognitive strategies. The question of whether the results were attributable to the subtype-matched methods per se or to strategy training in general, as well as a number of methodological issues, is being explored in subsequent research.

Child↗

Teaching abstract vocabulary with the keyword method: effects on recall and comprehension.

Twenty-five adolescents with learning disabilities were randomly assigned to either a keyword mnemonic condition or an experimenter-directed rehearsal condition and were individually taught 16 difficult vocabulary words, including 8 concrete and 8 abstract words. After an instructional period, students were given a test of literal recall as well as a comprehension test of their ability to apply newly acquired vocabulary words in a different context. Results indicated that mnemonically trained students outperformed control students on both abstract and concrete words, and on recall tests as well as on comprehension tests. Implications for vocabulary instruction as well as theories of learning disabilities are discussed.

Adolescent↗

Eye-movement rhythmicity and reading comprehension.

The purpose of these two studies was to examine the rhythmical patterns displayed by subjects with and without reading disabilities while they were reading (Study 1), and to vary rhythmicity through priming and observe the effects on parsing ability using eye-movement and comprehension measures (Study 2). Rhythmicity during silent reading was operationalized by transcribing eye-movement measures into pitch, rhythm, and rests. In Study 1, 17 subjects with reading disabilities and 15 control subjects (M age = 15, male = 60%) parsed 20 flawed and control sentences. In Study 2, 35 control subjects (M age = 21, male = 43%) parsed 9 phrases from familiar songs under one of three rhythm-priming conditions. Results (Study 1) indicated significant differences in rhythm patterns. Subjects with reading disabilities exhibited rhythm variability, unpredictability, and lethargic tempos. In Study 2, significant differences across priming conditions were found, with primed subjects exhibiting improved parsing and comprehension. Rhythm may be an organizational substrate for syntax.

Adolescent↗

Is attribution retraining necessary? Use of self-regulation procedures for enhancing the reading comprehension strategies of children with learning disabilities.

The present study investigates the need to include explicit attribution retraining in a program designed to teach reading comprehension strategies to children with learning disabilities (LD). The program had two versions: (a) self-regulation procedures and (b) self-regulation procedures plus explicit attributional retraining. Sixty children with LD were assigned to two training groups (with and without attributional retraining) and a control group. Twenty normally achieving students served as an additional control group. The effects were assessed via attribution measures and cognitive and metacognitive reading comprehension tests. Results indicated that children from both training groups improved on measures of cognitive strategies, but their gains were very low on metacognitive measures. In addition, regardless of training condition, students from both groups showed equally good attribution profiles.

Behavior Therapy↗

Comprehension of temporal terms by good and poor readers.

Poor beginning readers often have difficulty comprehending spoken sentences with complex syntactic structures. This study attempts to identify the reasons for this difficulty. Second-grade good and poor readers were tested for comprehension of spoken sentences containing the temporal terms before and after. Processing load was varied systematically while holding syntax constant in an effort to determine whether processing factors contribute to poor readers' comprehension problems, or whether poor readers are simply lacking the structural knowledge required to understand sentences containing temporal terms. The poor readers' high level of performance under conditions of reduced processing demands suggests that their misinterpretations in spoken language understanding may be due, in large part, to limitations in verbal working memory.

Attention↗

Maternal comprehension of home-based growth chart in Bahrain.

The objectives of this study were to assess Bahrain mothers' understanding and interpretation of currently used home-based growth monitoring chart, and how their education effects their comprehension of it. A sample of 472 mothers of children who were less than 6 years old were selected from 18 health centres in Bahrain. About 73% brought the growth chart with them during their visits. The education of the mothers had a significant effect on the comprehension of the growth chart. Highly-educated mothers were more likely to read the information in the growth chart (69%) than middle (52%) and low-educated mothers (16%) (P<0.0001). Also highly-educated mothers got more benefit from the growth chart (P<0.0001) and more of them understood the reason for the colour in the chart (P<0.0001) than other groups. The majority of husbands (85%) showed no interest in reading the growth chart. Of the mothers, 42% did not know at which age the growth chart should be used. It is important, therefore, that the current growth chart should be reviewed and the mothers and health workers should be involved in the process of designing the chart. Suggestions for improvement of the growth chart currently used were provided.

Adult↗

Assessment of the effect of a comprehensive diabetes management program on hospital admission rates of children with diabetes mellitus.

Admission records at Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati were reviewed to determine the impact of a comprehensive diabetes management program on selected indicators of health status in children with diabetes mellitus. Two periods were compared: January 1973 through June 1978 (period A), prior to institution of the program, and July 1978 through December 1987 (period B). Although the number of children admitted with a diagnosis of type I diabetes not associated with DKA or other diagnoses increased by 10% during these 10 years, the number of children with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) not associated with other diagnoses fell from 58% in period A to 24% in period B. Similarly, average length of stay for the reported DKA admissions decreased from a mean of 5.84 days in period A to a mean of 4.62 days in period B. This reduction of 1.2 days saved an estimated $342,000 in hospitalization costs. These findings suggest that a comprehensive diabetes management program consisting of medical treatment, education, and psychological support services, has a positive influence on patient outcome and can be cost effective.

Adolescent↗

Pediatric parenteral nutrition management using a comprehensive user-friendly computer program designed for personal computers.

The use of parenteral nutrition is becoming more widespread. The need for individualized parenteral nutrition solutions in pediatric patients makes the ordering and preparation of these solutions more complex and error-prone. A computer program is described which performs comprehensive management of parenteral nutrition by assisting in accurately ordering and preparing parenteral nutrition solutions. It also performs extensive error-checking and provides additional nutritional information. Data base management is also a feature which permits future large scale analysis of parenteral nutrition data for research purposes. This program, designed to run on a personal computer, is very comprehensive, yet flexible and user-friendly.

Adolescent↗

Oxymetholone: I. Evaluation in a comprehensive battery of genetic toxicology and in vitro transformation assays.

Oxymetholone is generally assumed to be a nongenotoxic carcinogen. This assumption is based primarily on the results of an Ames test, existing data in repeat-dose toxicology studies, and the predicted results of a 2-yr National Toxicology Program (NTP) rat carcinogenicity bioassay. To provide a comprehensive assessment of its genotoxicity in a standard battery of mutagenicity assays, oxymetholone was tested in microbial and mammalian cell gene mutation assays, in an in vitro cytogenetics assay (human lymphocytes), and in an in vivo micronucleus assay. Oxymetholone was also tested in an in vitro morphologic transformation model using Syrian hamster embryo (SHE) cells. These studies were initiated and completed prior to the disclosure of the results of the NTP bioassay. Oxymetholone was tested at doses up to 5,000 microg/plate in the bacterial plate incorporation assay using 4 Salmonella strains and the WP2 uvrA (pKM101) strain of Escherichia coil. There was no induction of revertants up to the highest dose levels, which were insoluble as well as toxic. In the L5178Y tk+/- mouse lymphoma assay, doses up to 30 microg/ml reduced relative survival to approximately 30% with no increase in mutants. Male or female human lymphocytes were exposed in vitro to oxymetholone for 24 hr without S9 or 3 hr with S9 and evaluated for the induction of chromosomal aberrations. There was no increase in aberration frequency over control levels and no difference between male and female cells. Peripheral blood from Tg.AC transgenic mice treated dermally for 20 wk with 0, 1.2, 6.0, or 12.0 mg/day of oxymetholone and from p53 transgenic mice treated orally by gavage for 26 wk with 125, 625, or 1,250 mg/kg/day of oxymetholone was evaluated for micronuclei in polychromatic and normochromatic erythrocytes. There was no difference in micronuclei frequency between control and treated animals. These results confirm that oxymetholone is not genotoxic in a comprehensive battery of mutagenicity assays. In the SHE assay, oxymetholone produced a significant increase in morphologically transformed colonies at dose levels of 13-18 microg/ml. The lack of genotoxicity of oxymetholone, the positive response in the in vitro transformation assay, and the results of transgenic mouse carcinogenicity assays will provide an interesting perspective on the results of an on-going NTP rat carcinogenicity bioassay.

Anabolic Agents↗

A comprehensive league table of cost-utility ratios and a sub-table of "panel-worthy" studies.

OBJECTIVES: The authors compiled a comprehensive league table of cost/QALY ratios, and a standardized table of analyses satisfying selected Reference Case criteria from the USPHS Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine. METHODS: They identified 228 cost-utility analyses (CUAs) through literature searches, and abstracted data on methods and cost-utility ratios. The subset of "Panel-worthy" analyses used: a societal or broad health-care perspective, community or patient preference weights, net costs, incremental comparisons, and discounting of costs and QALYs. RESULTS: The 228 CUAs included ratios for 647 interventions, ranging from cost-saving to $52,000,000/QALY (median = $12,000/QALY). The standardized table presents 112 ratios that met the "Panel-worthy" criteria, with articles published in recent years more likely to meet all of the criteria. CONCLUSIONS: The comprehensive league table (available on the Web) provides a useful reference, but ratios may not be comparable because of methodologic variations. The standardized table focuses on studies meeting basic methodologic criteria, potentially allowing for better comparison with future Reference Case analyses. Future studies should investigate the quality of analyses' underlying assumptions in addition to whether certain key procedural protocols were met.

Adolescent↗