Supporting family caregivers (FCs) is a critical core function of palliative care. Brief, reliable tools suitable for busy clinical work in Taiwan are needed to assess bereavement risk factors accurately. The aim is to develop and evaluate a brief bereavement scale completed by FCs and applicable to medical staff.

This study adopted convenience sampling. Participants were approached through an intentional sampling of patients’ FCs at 1 palliative care center in Taiwan. This cross-sectional study referred to 4 theories to generate the initial version of the Hospice Foundation of Taiwan Bereavement Assessment Scale (HFT-BAS). A 9-item questionnaire was initially developed by 12 palliative care experts through Delphi and verified by content validity. A combination of exploratory factor analysis (EFA), reliability measures including items analysis, Cronbach’s alpha and inter-subscale correlations, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed to test its psychometric properties.

Two hundred seventy-eight participants conducted the questionnaire. Three dimensions were subsequently extracted by EFA: “Intimate relationship,” “Existential meaning,” and “Disorganization.” The Cronbach’s alpha of the HFT-BAS scale was 0.70, while the 3 dimensions were all significantly correlated with total scores. CFA was the measurement model: chi-squared/degrees of freedom ratio = 1.9, Goodness of Fit Index = 0.93, Comparative Fit Index = 0.92, root mean square error of approximation = 0.08. CFA confirmed the scale’s construct validity with a good model fit.

This study developed an HFT-BAS and assessed its psychometric properties. The scale can evaluate the bereavement risk factors of FCs in clinical palliative care.

Stroke is a common neurological disease, the main pathological feature of which is cerebral ischemia or bleeding caused by sudden blockage or rupture of cerebral vessels. Impaired upper limb motor control after stroke severely affects patients’ quality of life and ability to perform daily activities. Traditional rehabilitation methods mainly rely on physical therapy and drug therapy, but there are limited effects.

It is to explore the clinical effect of motor imagery therapy in the study of upper limb motor control after stroke. Fifty patients with stroke and the influence of upper limb movement were selected as experimental subjects, 25 as an experimental group and 25 as a control group. The experimental group received six months of rehabilitation training using motor imagery therapy, and the control group received six months of rehabilitation training using traditional drug alteplase.

The experimental results were evaluated by SPSS23.0 system. P<0.05 indicated that the difference was statistically significant, and the upper limb motor function and muscle strength of 20 patients in the experimental group were significantly improved after half a year, More than 80 percent have recovered, with significant differences (P<0.05).

After the motor imagination therapy is integrated into stroke patients, it can promote the reorganization of brain nerves, enhance the motor memory of muscles, improve the patients’ attention and concentration on sports, and help them recover the motor function of the upper limbs.

2021 Shanghai Society of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Community Medicine and Health Management Research Project (No. 2021-117); 2022 Shanghai Jing’an District Medical Research Fund Project (No. 2022QT05).

To analyse the comparative clinical outcomes and clinicopathological significance of vocal fold leukoplakia lesions treated by appearance classification and traditional methods.

A total of 1442 vocal fold leukoplakia patients were enrolled. Group A patients were treated according to appearance classification and Group B patients were treated according to traditional methods.

In Group A, 24.4, 14.9 and 60.6 per cent of patients had grade I, II and III dysplasia, respectively. Grade I dysplasia (63.4 per cent) was more than twice as frequent in Group B patients than in Group A patients, while grade II dysplasia (20.4 per cent) and grade III dysplasia (16.2 per cent) were significantly less frequent in Group B patients than in Group A patients (p = 0.000). There was a significant correlation between vocal fold leukoplakia appearance and the degree of dysplasia (p = 0.000). The recurrence and malignant transformation rates (17.6 and 31 per cent, respectively) in Group B were significantly greater than those in Group A (10.8 and 25.9 per cent, respectively) (p = 0.000).

Vocal fold leukoplakia appearance classification is useful for guiding treatment decision-making and could help to improve therapeutic accuracy.

Emotional dysregulation (ED) is a common characteristic of both attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and major depressive disorder (MDD), especially in adolescents. However, whether ADHD and MDD may share the specific ED-related neural networks remains unknown.

In total, 43 adolescents with clinical ED (22 adolescents with ADHD and 21 with MDD) were recruited; in addition, 29 sex- and age-matched healthy controls (HCs) were included. Resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) analysis, voxel-based morphometry, and diffusion tensor imaging analysis were performed for each patient. In addition, we determined the significant regions of interest in patients with ED due to ADHD and MDD as compared with HCs and tested their correlations with clinical rating scale scores.

Compared with HCs, patients with ED had greater RSFC in the cerebellum and supramarginal gyrus (SMG), especially between vermis VI and the SMG in the attention networks, and lower RSFC between the right supplementary motor area and right lateral parietal area. Lower gray matter (GM) volume in the SMG was also found. RSFC was significantly correlated with clinical rating scale scores for all patients with ED due to ADHD or MDD. GM change was correlated with ED and MDD rating scale scores.

The cerebellum and attention networks might play major roles in ED pathophysiology in adolescents with ADHD and MDD. Increased connectivity of the vermis to the SMG serves as a possible underlying neural network.

Depressive symptoms and cognitive impairment often coexisted in the elderly. This study investigates the effect of late-life depressive symptoms on risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

A total of 14,231 dementia- and MCI free participants aged 60+ from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe were followed-up for 10 years to detect incident MCI. MCI was defined as 1.5 standard deviation (SD) below the mean of the standardized global cognition score. Depressive symptoms were assessed by a 12-item Europe-depression scale (EURO-D). Severity of depressive symptoms was grouped as: no/minimal (score 0–3), moderate (score 4–5), and severe (score 6–12). Significant depressive symptoms (SDSs) were defined as EURO-D score ≥ 4.

During an average of 8.2 (SD = 2.4)-year follow-up, 1,352 (9.50%) incident MCI cases were identified. SDSs were related to higher MCI risk (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.26, 95% confidence intervals [CI]: 1.10–1.44) in total population, individuals aged 70+ (HR = 1.35, 95% CI: 1.14–1.61) and women (HR = 1.28, 95% CI: 1.08–1.51) in Cox proportional hazard model adjusting for confounders. In addition, there was a dose–response association between the severity of depressive symptoms and MCI incidence in total population, people aged ≥70 years and women (p-trend <0.001).

Significant depressive symptoms were associated with higher incidence of MCI in a dose–response fashion, especially among people aged 70+ years and women. Treating depressive symptoms targeting older population and women may be effective in preventing MCI.

This study examined the relationships between social capital, perceived neighborhood environment, and depressive symptoms among older adults living in rural China, and the moderating effect of self-rated health (SRH) in these relationships.

A quota sampling method was applied to recruit 447 participants aged 60 years and older in rural communities in Jilin province, China in 2019.

Depressive symptoms were measured by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. Structural equation modeling was used to build latent constructs of social capital and test the proposed model. Multiple group analysis was used to test the moderation effects.

Cognitive social capital and structural social capital were both associated with depressive symptoms controlling for participants’ demographics, socioeconomic status, and health status. After adding perceived environment variables in the model, the relationship between cognitive social capital and depressive symptoms became nonsignificant, while structural social capital remained became a significant factor (β = −.168, p < .01). Satisfaction with health care was significantly associated with depressive symptoms among those with poor SRH (β = −.272, p < .01), whereas satisfaction with security and transportation were strongly associated with depressive symptoms among those with good SRH (security: β = −.148, p < .01; transportation: β = −.174, p < .01).

Study findings highlighted the importance of social capital and neighborhood environment as potential protective factors of depressive symptoms in later life. Policy and intervention implications were also discussed.