Non-pharmacological interventions for Lewy body dementia: a systematic review.

Lewy body dementia (consisting of dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson's disease dementia) is a common neurodegenerative disease characterised by visual hallucinations, fluctuating attention, motor disturbances, falls, and sensitivity to antipsychotics. This combination of features presents challenges for pharmacological management. Given this, we sought to review evidence for non-pharmacological interventions with patients with Lewy body dementia and their carers. Bibliographic databases were searched using a wide range of search terms and no restrictions were placed on study design, language, or clinical setting. Two reviewers independently assessed papers for inclusion, rated study quality, and extracted data. The search identified 21 studies including two randomised controlled trials with available subgroup data, seven case series, and 12 case studies. Most studies reported beneficial effects of the interventions used, though the only sizeable study was on dysphagia, showing a benefit of honey-thickened liquids. Given the heterogeneity of interventions and poor quality of the studies overall, no quantitative synthesis was possible. Overall, identified studies suggested possible benefits of non-pharmacological interventions in Lewy body dementia, but the small sample sizes and low quality of studies mean no definite recommendations can be offered. Our findings underscore the clear and urgent need for future research on this topic

Development of an online food frequency questionnaire and estimation of misreporting of energy intake during the COVID-19 pandemic among young adults in Peru

Background: The Young Lives longitudinal study switched to remote data collection methods including the adaptation of dietary intake assessment to online modes due to the physical contact restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to describe the adaptation process and validation of an online quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) for Peruvian young adults. Methods: A previously validated face-to-face FFQ for the adult Peruvian population was adapted to be administered through an online self-administered questionnaire using a multi-stage process. Questionnaire development was informed by experts’ opinions and pilot surveys. FFQ validity was assessed by estimating misreporting of energy intake (EI) using the McCrory method, and the FFQ reliability with Cronbach alpha. Logistic regressions were used to examine associations of misreporting with sociodemographic, body mass index (BMI), and physical activity covariates. Results: The FFQ was completed by 426 Peruvian young adults from urban and rural areas, among whom 31% were classified as misreporters, with most of them (16.2%) overreporting daily EI. Men had a lower risk of under-reporting and a higher risk of over-reporting (OR = 0.28 and 1.89). Participants without a higher education degree had a lower risk of under-reporting and a higher risk of over-reporting (OR = 2.18 and 0.36, respectively). No major difference in misreporting was found across age groups, areas, studying as the main activity, being physically active or sedentary, or BMI. Results showed good internal reliability for the overall FFQ (Cronbach alpha = 0.82). Conclusion: Misreporting of EI was mostly explained by education level and sex across participants. Other sociodemographic characteristics, physical activity, sedentary behavior, and BMI did not explain the differences in EI misreporting. The adapted online FFQ proved to be reliable and valid for assessing dietary intakes among Peruvian young adults during the COVID pandemic. Further studies should aim at using and validating innovative dietary intake data collection methods, such as those described, for informing public health policies targeting malnutrition in different contexts after the COVID-19 pandemic

Audio-visual influence on speech perception: A comparison of speech and singing

The importance of visual cues in speech perception is illustrated by the McGurk effect, whereby incongruent visual cues affect the perception speech sounds. It is unclear whether similar effects occur for sung materials. In Experiment 1, participants heard sequences of syllables (la-la-la-ba, la-la-la-ga) that were spoken or sung. Sung stimuli were ascending triads (do-mi-so) that returned to the tonic (do). Incongruent stimuli were created by combining an auditory /ba/ with a visual /ga/. Participants reported the final syllable. Results revealed overwhelming auditory dominance for spoken and for sung conditions. In Experiment 2, background noise was added to increase attention to visual cues. Auditory dominance prevailed in quiet but visual dominance prevailed in noise. In Experiment 3 the target syllable was isolated. As before, participants exhibited auditory dominance, but they had greater difficulty detecting sung syllables than spoken syllables that were presented in isolation. The contributions of visual and auditory cues from the preceding context are discussed.M.A

The role of acoustical cues in decoding emotion from performance expression and compositional structure

Emotional meaning can be communicated through performance expression and compositional structure. In this study, we assessed the capacity of musicians to communicate emotions through both these channels separately as well as combined. Three expressive conditions were created: performed only, composed only and performed and composed. To assess the role of performance expression, eight musicians performed emotionally neutral compositions with the intention to express the emotions of anger, fear, happiness, sadness, tenderness and neutral. They then composed melodies with the intention to express the same six emotions, controlling the number of notes. These melodies were put into MIDI format to create stimuli with neutral performance expression where only pitch and rhythm cues were available. Finally, musicians performed their own compositions. Performances were presented to 42 listeners who made forced choice judgements of the emotion conveyed. An acoustic analysis on the musical stimuli was conducted to identify the attributes used by musicians to convey emotion and by listeners to identify emotion. Results indicated that emotional decoding was dependent on emotion and expressive condition. The acoustic analysis confirmed that compositional structure and performance expression access somewhat different emotional cues.4 page(s

Composing by listening : a computer-assisted system for creating emotional music

Most people communicate emotion through their voice, facial expressions, and gestures. However, it is assumed that only "experts" can communicate emotions in music. The authors have developed a computer-based system that enables musically untrained users to select relevant acoustic attributes to compose emotional melodies. Nonmusicians (Experiment 1) and musicians (Experiment 3) were progressively presented with pairs of melodies that each differed in an acoustic attribute (e.g., intensity - loud vs. soft). For each pair, participants chose the melody that most strongly conveyed a target emotion (anger, fear, happiness, sadness or tenderness). Once all decisions were made, a final melody containing all choices was generated. The system allowed both untrained and trained participants to compose a range of emotional melodies. New listeners successfully decoded the emotional melodies of nonmusicians (Experiment 2) and musicians (Experiment 4). Results indicate that human-computer interaction can facilitate the composition of emotional music by musically untrained and trained individuals.20 page(s