Search results for "PERFORMANCE"
showing 10 items of 4457 documents
Effects of the Breathe Right Nasal Strips on Nasal Ventilation
1997
The Breathe Right nasal strips are more and more commonly used, mainly by athletes, who hope to enhance their physical performance in competition and training. The effect of the device in such situations is uncertain and perhaps somewhat controversial. To investigate the effects of the nasal strips on nasal ventilation, 20 Caucasian individuals were objectively assessed using anterior rhinomanometry and acoustic rhinometry. The results showed a significant increase in all subjects of transnasal airflow and in the average cross-sectional area of the nasal cavity that quantifies objectively the subjective impression of improved nasal breathing. In such patients where an improvement in nasal …
Neural dynamics of learning sound-action associations.
2008
A motor component is pre-requisite to any communicative act as one must inherently move to communicate. To learn to make a communicative act, the brain must be able to dynamically associate arbitrary percepts to the neural substrate underlying the pre-requisite motor activity. We aimed to investigate whether brain regions involved in complex gestures (ventral pre-motor cortex, Brodmann Area 44) were involved in mediating association between novel abstract auditory stimuli and novel gestural movements. In a functional resonance imaging (fMRI) study we asked participants to learn associations between previously unrelated novel sounds and meaningless gestures inside the scanner. We use functio…
Factors related to cognitive reserve among caregivers of severe acquired brain injury.
2020
Stroke is one of the severe cause of motor and cognitive disabilities. These type of disabilities occurred a strong impact on whole family system. Caregiver burden may determine in relatives of patients with brain injury a decreasement of mental and physical health. The present study aims to better clarify the mechanism through which chronic stress influence caregivers' cognitive functioning and how the psychological and cognitive resources may represent as a predictive factor. Caregivers were submitted to neuropsychological tests that evaluated level of mental health ad level of burden. Our results showed a significant correlation between cognitive reserve and self-efficacy skills in healt…
Differences in psychomotor reaction time in male monozygotic twins discordant for lifetime cigarette smoking.
1996
The effects of long-term cigarette smoking on psychomotor reaction time were investigated among 8 pairs of monozygotic male twins highly discordant for lifetime smoking (means 32.4 versus 0.6 pack-years). The men had no diagnosed cardiovascular disease or other major diseases, musculoskeletal complaints, or vision problems that might interfere with reaction time testing. The twins had similar education, work, and exercise histories; alcohol and coffee consumption and exposure to solvents were examined as possible confounds. Direct comparison of cotwins also controlled for age, genetics, and possible early environmental factors. Simple and choice reaction time were measured in the dominant h…
Schizophrenic patients who smoke have a faster finger tapping rate than non-smokers
2002
The increased rate of smoking in schizophrenia patients remains unexplained and may reflect attempts at self-treatment. The effect sought from smoking may be related to nicotine's stimulating action. We tested this hypothesis by examining the relationship between smoking status and finger tapping rate, a measure of central processing, in schizophrenia patients treated with atypical antipsychotics. Smokers showed significantly faster finger tapping rates than non-smokers. This was not related to clinical state, illness chronicity, medication side-effects, antipsychotic dose or plasma concentrations. Nicotine can improve central processing in medicated schizophrenia patients and this may cons…
Intensified job demands and job performance: does SOC strategy use make a difference?
2019
We examined intensified job demands (IJDs) and selecting-optimizing-compensating (SOC) strategies as predictors of job performance (task performance, organizational citizenship behavior). We also investigated SOC strategy use as a moderator in the linkages between IJDs and performance. We sampled three disparate occupational groups (N=4,582). We found that certain dimensions of IJDs showed significant associations with the indicators of job performance but there were also scale-based variations in these linkages, depending on the type of performance and on the sub-scale of IJDs. Specifically, some dimensions of IJDs (e.g., work intensification) related to poorer task performance whereas som…
Physical and psychosocial prerequisites of functioning in relation to work ability and general subjective well-being among office workers
2002
Objectives The purpose of the study was to investigate the physical and psychological prerequisites of functioning, as well as the social environment at work and personal factors, in relation to work ability and general subjective well-being in a group of office workers. Methods The study was a descriptive cross-sectional investigation, using path analysis, of office workers. The subjects comprised 88 volunteers, 24 men and 64 women, from the same workplace [mean age 45.7 (SD 8.6) years]. The independent variables were measured using psychosocial and physical questionnaires and physical measurements. The first dependent variable, work ability, was measured by a work ability index. The secon…
Irinotecan (CPT-11) and Mitomycin-C (MMC) as Second-Line Therapy in Advanced Gastric Cancer
2005
Objective The aim of this study was to evaluate the activity and toxicity of a combination regimen of CPT-11 and mitomycin-c as second-line chemotherapy for pretreated patients with advanced, metastatic, or both, gastric adenocarcinoma. Materials and methods Patients with pretreated metastatic disease or early relapsed after adjuvant chemotherapy were enrolled. Entry criteria included histologic/cytologic diagnosis of gastric adenocarcinoma, age 18 to 75 years, performance status > or =70 (Karnofsky scale), bi-dimensionally measurable disease. Patients received CPT-11 and mitomycin-c at the dosage of 150 mg/m2 on days 1 and 15, and 8 mg/m2 on day 1, respectively, every 4 weeks. The disease …
Chemoradiotherapy of Newly Diagnosed Glioblastoma With Intensified Temozolomide
2009
Purpose To evaluate the toxicity and efficacy of chemoradiotherapy with temozolomide (TMZ) administered in an intensified 1-week on/1-week off schedule plus indomethacin in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma. Patients and Methods A total of 41 adult patients (median Karnofsky performance status, 90%; median age, 56 years) were treated with preirradiation TMZ at 150 mg/m 2 (1 week on/1 week off), involved-field radiotherapy combined with concomitant low-dose TMZ (50 mg/m 2 ), maintenance TMZ starting at 150 mg/m 2 using a 1-week on/1-week off schedule, plus maintenance indomethacin (25 mg twice daily). Results The median follow-up interval was 21.7 months. Grade 4 hematologic toxicit…
Avelumab versus standard second line treatment chemotherapy in metastatic colorectal cancer patients with microsatellite instability: The SAMCO-PRODI…
2021
Abstract Immune checkpoint inhibitors have failed in treating metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) patients except those with dMMR/MSI tumors. However, until very recently we had only non-comparative promising data in this population with anti-programmed cell death 1/ programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD1/PD-L1) antibodies alone or combined with anti- cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA4) antibodies. This comparative phase II trial (NCT 03186326), conducted in more than 100 centers in France, will include dMMR/MSI mCRC patients with progression after a first-line treatment with chemotherapy ± targeted therapies, to evaluate efficacy and safety of the anti-PDL1 Avelumab versus a s…