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P135: Electroencephalography-Based Neuro-emotional Responses during interactive scenario therapy in the person with dementia – case study
- Marlene C. Neves Rosa, Sr., Dara Pincegher, Emanuel Silva, Susana L. Lopes, Natalia Martins Martins, Filipa Ribeiro, Mariline Ferreira, Duarte Fernandes, Mariana Moreira, Rui Martins, Rui Pedro Jesus, Sr., Alice Gabriel, Rafael Pinheiro
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- Journal:
- International Psychogeriatrics / Volume 35 / Issue S1 / December 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 02 February 2024, p. 136
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Background:
Immersive technologies have the potential to control cognitive and behavioural symptoms in people with dementia. A safe environment can be designed through a specific interactive scenario, according to the preferences and experiences of each user.
Objective:Mapping neuro-emotional responses during the interactive scenario therapy experience in a case study, with dementia, using electroencephalography (EEG).
Methods:A participant, 78 years old and diagnosed with moderate to severe Alzheimer's disease (female; Mini Mental State Examination score of 17 points; frontal assessment battery score of 8 points), underwent EEG analysis (EMOTIV EPOC X) using a protocol with interactive scenarios tailored to the participant's needs and preferences, the scenarios were designed from reminiscence strategies. The protocol included a stimulus that alternated between motor and cognitive activities (3 minutes), and breath-centered relaxation (1 minute). The scenarios used in this study were: setting up a living room; composing a cake recipe; shopping in the market to make a cake; looking for objects in the park; organizing a birthday party. These variables are provided, on a scale of 0 to 100, after processing by the algorithms of the EmotivPRO v3.0 software.
Results:The values found in the EEG analysis will be described without stimulus and with stimulus respectively. Thus, engagement (68.57 to 71.86); arousal (57.86 to 49.86), focus (61.57 to 57.00), interest (54.86 to 49.57), relaxation (33.86 to 30.86), and stress (53.71 to 43.00). The EEG data showed an increase in engagement when the patient was stimulated (68.57 to 71.86). Relaxation also increased (30.86 to 33.86) when the stimulus was removed. The stress level, as analysed by the EEG, was also higher in the period without stimulus and reduced in the period with the stimulus (53.71 to 43).
Conclusion:During a stimulus period in interactive therapy, there was an increase in engagement, which was related to an increasing focus during the stimulus. Lower values were observed compared to the period without stimulus, indicating a period of recovery after a period of concentration/arousal. Therefore, therapy with an interactive and familiar scenario, using a circuit of stimulus-breathing exercises, promotes a positive and adequate neuro-emotional response in a person with dementia.
9 - Trade union mobilisation, resistance and political action of social workers in Portugal
- Edited by Vasilios Ioakimidis, University of Essex, Aaron Wyllie, University of Essex
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- Book:
- Social Work's Histories of Complicity and Resistance
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 20 January 2024
- Print publication:
- 14 June 2023, pp 134-147
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Summary
Introduction
In Portugal, the institutionalisation of social work took place in the 1930s under the veil of the Estado Novo (New State), a right-wing conservative dictatorship. In that context, social workers were expected to act within the ideological and political boundaries of the authoritarian regime. Portuguese social workers were, then, instrumental to the dictatorship's authority and, as such, served the regime's moral order while acting as agents of social conformity and control (Martins, 2010). However, from the 1960s onwards, signs of rupture began to be noticed, corresponding to an increasing involvement of social work professionals, students and educators in political movements, often engaging in oppositional, resistance and subversive activities against the regime (Martins, 2017).
The profession, framed in the context of a fascist-prone corporativist state, was deemed to serve its purposes and was collectively represented, from the 1950s, by a single professional trade union. The leadership of the union, as in many other corporativist organisations, was occupied by high-profile senior social workers trusted by the regime (Ferreira et al 1992; Pimentel, 2001). It remained like that until 1970, when younger social workers pulled the union away from the Estado Novo's political power (Martins, 2017; Silva, 2019b; Matos-Silveira et al, 2020).
This chapter revolves around this process of renovation, steered from the inside of the profession in direct connection with the social and political mobilisations against the dictatorship that were happening outside of the ranks of social work. The changes observed in the Portuguese social workers’ trade union at this time show a process of renovation taking place within the profession at a time when collective action and civil liberties were severely limited and violently repressed.
In this chapter, the takeover of the social workers’ union will be recalled and contextualised within the frame of the social, political and ideological transformations occurring in Portugal in the final years of the Estado Novo dictatorship. The processes that underpinned the union's new political engagement, both endogenous and exogenous to the profession, will be examined, focusing, especially, on how this movement of young progressive and politicised social workers turned the only organisation representative of the profession into an instrument of class political action.
Primate conservation in the Arc of Deforestation: a case study of Vieira's titi monkey Plecturocebus vieirai
- Rodrigo Costa-Araújo, Lucas Gonçalves da Silva, Fabiano Rodrigues de Melo, Rogério Vieira Rossi, João Pedro Bottan, Diego Afonso Silva, Fabio Oliveira do Nascimento, Felipe Pessoa da Silva, Gerson Buss, Luan Gabriel Lima-Silva, Luciano Ferreira da Silva, Marcos Fialho, Patrick Ricardo de Lázari, Rafael Suertegaray Rossato, Rafaela Lumi Vendramel, Ravena Fernanda Braga de Mendonça, Ricardo Sampaio, Tomas Hrbek, Raony Macedo de Alencar, José de Sousa e Silva Junior, Gustavo Rodrigues Canale
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Fifty years of deforestation in the Arc of Deforestation have put at risk species survival, ecosystem services and the stability of biogeochemical cycles in Amazonia, with global repercussions. In response, we need to understand the diversity, distribution and abundance of flagship species groups, such as primates, which can serve as umbrella species for broad biodiversity conservation strategies and help mitigate climate change. Here we identify the range, suitable habitat areas and population size of Vieira's titi monkey Plecturocebus vieirai and use it as an emblematic example to discuss biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation in one of the largest deforestation frontiers. Our findings show that deforestation for agriculture and cattle-ranching expansion is the major threat to P. vieirai and is responsible for present (56%) and projected (14%) reductions in habitat area and population size. We also found that human-driven climate change affects the P. vieirai niche negatively, triggering habitat degradation and further population decline even inside protected areas. Primate watching can be a profitable alternative to forest exploitation on private, public or Indigenous lands in the Arc of Deforestation and is a way to shift the traditional, predatory extraction of natural resources from Amazonia towards sustainable land use based on biodiversity conservation at local, regional and global scales, local people's welfare and climate change mitigation. New models of land use and income generation are required to protect the unique natural and human heritages of the Arc of Deforestation and the life-supporting ecosystem services and products provided by Amazonia.
Seric and hepatic NTPDase and 5′ nucleotidase activities of rats experimentally infected by Fasciola hepatica
- PEDRO H. DOLESKI, RICARDO E. MENDES, DANIELA B. R. LEAL, NATHIELI B. BOTTARI, MANOELA M. PIVA, ESTER S. DA SILVA, MATEUS E. GABRIEL, NEUBER J. LUCCA, CLAITON I. SCHWERTZ, PATRÍCIA GIACOMIM, VERA M. MORSCH, MARIA R. C. SCHETINGER, MATHEUS D. BALDISSERA, ALEKSANDRO S. DA SILVA
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- Journal:
- Parasitology / Volume 143 / Issue 5 / April 2016
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 March 2016, pp. 551-556
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The enzymatic activities of NTPDase and 5′nucleotidase are important to regulate the concentration of adenine nucleotides, known molecules involved in many physiological functions. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the activity of NTPDase and 5′nucleotidase in serum and liver tissue of rats infected by Fasciola hepatica. Rats were divided into two groups: uninfected control and infected. NTPDase activity for adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and ADP substrates in the liver was higher compared with the control group at 15 days post-infection (PI), while seric activity was lower. In addition, seric and hepatic samples did not show changes for 5′nucleotidase activity at this time. On the other hand, either NTPDase or 5′nucleotidase activities in liver homogenate and serum were higher at 87 days PI. Early in the infection, low NTPDase activity maintains an increase of ATP in the bloodstream in order to activate host immune response, while in hepatic tissue it decreases extracellular ATP to maintain a low inflammatory response in the tissue. As stated, higher NTPDase and 5′nucleotidase activities 87 days after infection in serum and tissue, probably results on an increased concentration of adenosine molecule which stimulates a Th2 immune response. Thus, it is possible to conclude that F. hepatica infections lead to different levels of nucleotide degradation when considering the two stages of infection studied, which influences the inflammatory and pathological processes developed by the purinergic system.