In spite of declines in working memory and other processes, older adults generally maintain good ability to understand and remember spoken sentences. In part this is due to preserved knowledge of ...linguistic rules and their implementation. Largely overlooked, however, is the support older adults may gain from the presence of sentence prosody (pitch contour, lexical stress, intra-and inter-word timing) as an aid to detecting the structure of a heard sentence.
Twenty-four young and 24 older adults recalled recorded sentences in which the sentence prosody corresponded to the clausal structure of the sentence, when the prosody was in conflict with this structure, or when there was reduced prosody uninformative with regard to the clausal structure. Pupil size was concurrently recorded as a measure of processing effort.
Both young and older adults' recall accuracy was superior for sentences heard with supportive prosody than for sentences with uninformative prosody or for sentences in which the prosodic marking and causal structure were in conflict. The measurement of pupil dilation suggested that the task was generally more effortful for the older adults, but with both groups showing a similar pattern of effort-reducing effects of supportive prosody.
Results demonstrate the influence of prosody on young and older adults' ability to recall accurately multi-clause sentences, and the significant role effective prosody may play in preserving processing effort.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
Objective
To explore the changes perceived by patients in their sexual lives after orchidectomy and radiation therapy of the pelvic and para‐aortic nodes for early‐stage testicular seminoma (ST).
...Patients and methods
A questionnaire mainly based on two self‐completed instruments, previously used to assess the sexual life of patients affected by testicular cancer (the UCLA/RAND sexual module and the Groningen sexual questionnaire) was mailed to a consecutive series of 143 patients treated for ST between 1961 and 1995, and who showed no signs of disease after primary treatment.
Results
Ninety‐eight questionnaires (69%) were returned and were evaluable. The median age of the patients was 48 years (range 26–85) at the time they completed the questionnaire, with the median follow‐up of 123 months (range 15–496). Most of the patients (86%) had been sexually active during the month before completing the questionnaire. Of these patients, 25% reported a low libido and 14% defined their sexual capacity as poor; 14% of the patients avoided sexual contact after treatment because of the disease and/or cancer therapies. After therapy, a minority of the patients found it more difficult to achieve and maintain an erection. Similarly, a few patients reached orgasm less intensely and less frequently. During the period after treatment, 24% reported a low semen volume, 14% premature ejaculation, 2% late ejaculation and 2% an absence of ejaculation. Most of the patients considered the information and counselling given by their physician about the sexual sequelae of therapy to be insufficient. However, the amount of information about the disease and treatment was considered to be good by, respectively, 64% and 61% of the patients. The only variable predictive of sexual adjustment was age at the time of the administration of the questionnaire.
Conclusion
The sexual adjustment of patients treated with orchidectomy and radiation therapy for early‐stage ST is generally good, but a few have negative experiences. Although the main predictive factor is age, communication is an important issue and better information tools could lead to better adjustment.
Purpose: The purpose of this work is to asses the role of Tomotherapy HiART System and to compare it with IMRT conventional Linac techniques used in Brescia and Florence for the treatment of ...mesothelioma. Materials and methods: Four cases of mesothelioma, with same constraints to PTVs and OARs, have been planned using IMRT techniques and Tomotherapy. The results are compared to assess different methods of planning and possible advantages of each one. Results: The preliminary experiences conducted at Brescia and Florence, with IMRT, seem to allow adequate PTVs coverage while sparing sensitive organs. From the DVH analysis, Tomotherapy seems to allow a better coverage and uniformity of dose to PTV and a similar saving for lung (mean dose < 8Gy) and cord, while the ipsilateral kidney (mean dose <20Gy vs 35Gy) and liver (mean dose <30Gy vs 35Gy) are more spared with Tomotherapy. Treatment setup verification, immobilization devices and technology limitations (max beam size) observable with IMRT techniques, maximum gantry rotation and QA of large volume treated are currently under discussion. Conclusions: Both techniques are adequate for the treatment of mesothelioma, but Tomotherapy seems to offer some clinical and physical advantages. Particularly, treatment time, better coverage and dose uniformity to PTV, better savings of some critical organs by Tomotherapy suggest further studies and discussion.
In two experiments, we used an interruption-and-recall (IAR) task to explore listeners’ ability to monitor the capacity of working memory as new information arrived in real time. In this task, ...listeners heard recorded word lists with instructions to interrupt the input at the maximum point that would still allow for perfect recall. Experiment
1
demonstrated that the most commonly selected segment size closely matched participants’ memory span, as measured in a baseline span test. Experiment
2
showed that reducing the sound level of presented word lists to a suprathreshold but effortful listening level disrupted the accuracy of matching selected segment sizes with participants’ memory spans. The results are discussed in terms of whether online capacity monitoring may be subsumed under other, already enumerated working memory executive functions (inhibition, set shifting, and memory updating).
A fundamental question in psycholinguistic theory is whether equivalent success in sentence comprehension may come about by different underlying operations. Of special interest is whether adult ...aging, especially when accompanied by reduced hearing acuity, may shift the balance of reliance on formal syntax vs. plausibility in determining sentence meaning. In two experiments participants were asked to identify the thematic roles in grammatical sentences that contained either plausible or implausible semantic relations. Comprehension of sentence meanings was indexed by the ability to correctly name the agent or the recipient of an action represented in the sentence. In Experiment 1 young and older adults' comprehension was tested for plausible and implausible sentences with the meaning expressed with either an active-declarative or a passive syntactic form. In Experiment 2 comprehension performance was examined for young adults with age-normal hearing, older adults with good hearing acuity, and age-matched older adults with mild-to-moderate hearing loss for plausible or implausible sentences with meaning expressed with either a subject-relative (SR) or an object-relative (OR) syntactic structure. Experiment 1 showed that the likelihood of interpreting a sentence according to its literal meaning was reduced when that meaning expressed an implausible relationship. Experiment 2 showed that this likelihood was further decreased for OR as compared to SR sentences, and especially so for older adults whose hearing impairment added to the perceptual challenge. Experiment 2 also showed that working memory capacity as measured with a letter-number sequencing task contributed to the likelihood that listeners would base their comprehension responses on the literal syntax even when this processing scheme yielded an implausible meaning. Taken together, the results of both experiments support the postulate that listeners may use more than a single uniform processing strategy for successful sentence comprehension, with the existence of these alternative solutions only revealed when literal syntax and plausibility do not coincide.
Fluconazole is recommended in the prophylaxis of oropharyngeal candidiasis (OPC) in patients undergoing radiotherapy for head‐neck tumours; however, the actual effectiveness of fluconazole in this ...setting remains unclear. Adult patients with cervico‐cephalic carcinoma submitted to radical or adjuvant radiotherapy were randomized to 100 mg fluconazole (n = 138) or matched placebo (n = 132) oral suspension once daily from the sixth session of radiotherapy up to the end of treatment. The final analysis of the investigation showed a higher rate of the OPC outbreak‐free survival in the fluconazole compared with placebo (P = 0.008 in the log‐rank test). The mean time (95% CI) to OPC outbreak was 56 (53–59) days in the fluconazole group and 47 (43–51) days with placebo. The mean duration of radiotherapy was 43.5 and 39.9 days, respectively in the two groups (P = 0.027). Adverse effects were reported in 70.3% of patients in the fluconazole group and in 67.4% with placebo. The results showed prophylaxis with fluconazole given in irradiated patients with head‐neck tumours significantly reduces the rate and the time to development of OPC compared with placebo.
To evaluate feasibility, tolerability and cosmetic outcome of intra-operative radiation therapy (IORT) as an exclusive post-surgery treatment of early stage breast cancer.
From October 2008 to ...October 2009 30 patients underwent wide breast cancer excision or quadrantectomy followed by IORT on tumor bed with accelerated electrons at the dose of 21Gy. The characteristics of the patients were: ductal breast cancer or invasive lobular cT1, cT2 ≤ 2,5 cm, cN0, G1-2, age over 35 years, M0.
The average age was 51.7 (range 38 - 75) with an average follow up of 11.7 months (range 6 - 18). The pathologic stage of the lesions resulted pT1 in 29 cases (96,6%), in particular: one case pT1a (3,3%), 21 cases pT1b (70,0%) and 7 cases pT1c (23,3%). One case (3,3%) was pT2 with a diameter of 2.5 cm. The grading was G2 in 20 cases (66,6%) and G1 in 10 cases (33,3%). The toxicity, evaluated according to the EORTC-RTOG criteria, was G0 (33.3%) in 10 cases, G1 (63,3%) in 19 cases, G2 in one case (3,4%); there was no G3 toxicity. The time needed for a complete healing of the wound was less than 10 days in 96,7% of the cases, with one case of limphocele (3,3%). There were no infections of the surgical wound nor any mastitis, neither in the treated quadrant nor in the other ones. We observed a light fibrosis in 5 cases (16,6%), moderate in 2 cases (6,6%) but never severe. Cosmetics, evaluated in four levels, according to Danoff et al., was excellent in 3 cases (43,3%), good in 15 cases (50%), sufficient in 2 cases (6,7%), never insufficient. As regards local control, there was no local relapse. The global survival was 100%.
The IORT in early breast cancer, at the doses used in this study, proved itself as a secure technique, repeatable, with limited complications. The advantages of its use are the possibility of a direct control, by the surgeon and the radiotherapist, of the structures to treat and those to protect; the absence of time needed for cellular repopulation between surgery and radiotherapy; a good cosmetic outcome; and logistic advantages. It is necessary to have a long term follow up to evaluate the efficacy in terms of long term cosmetic and local control.
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