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  • Publication
    Cognitive Interventions for Older Adults: Does Approach Matter?
    (Elsevier, 2014) Williams, Kristine; Herman, Ruth E.; Smith, Erin Kate
    Assisted living (AL) is the fastest growing option for residential care that is designed to provide older adults with needed supports while promoting independence1. Nevertheless, AL residents typically experience progressive decline in cognitive ability and self-care that necessitates more intensive nursing care, and typically, most AL residents will transfer to a nursing home (NH) within one to three years1–4. Older adults require a variety of cognitive abilities to meet every day self-care challenges needed to remain in AL. Cognitive decline is key predictor of disability and NH placement for AL residents 5. Someone in the US is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) every 68 seconds, and the number of dementia sufferers will double by 2050, reaching 16 million6. Therefore, the development of new interventions to decrease cognitive decline is critical. Cognitive training programs are gaining popularity based on the notion that “use it or lose it” applies to cognition7,8. Research demonstrates that training in specific cognitive skills can improve memory, cognitive processing speed, spatial orientation, reasoning, and executive function in community dwelling older adults 7,9. Cognitive training can also benefit persons with dementia and mild cognitive decline. A meta-analysis of cognitive training research involving persons with early-stage AD reported overall effect sizes of 0.47 for interventions targeting learning, memory, and executive function, with improvements in activities of daily living (ADLs), problem solving, depression, and self-rated functioning10. A cognitive training intervention called Reasoning Exercises in Assisted Living (REAL) was developed to teach reasoning and problem solving skills to AL residents who are at risk for cognitive and functional decline. The intervention was modeled after the inductive reasoning skills found to improve cognition and maintain self-care over 5 years in healthy, independent older adults11. The REAL program includes six, hour-long, sessions in which providers work individually with AL residents12. The goal of this intervention is to improve older adults’ everyday problem-solving skills so they can maintain their ability to care for themselves and “age in place” in AL. REAL successfully improved problem solving scores of AL residents in a preliminary study12. Results from a subsequent cluster randomized clinical trial (reported elsewhere) also show potential for this intervention13. REAL is provided to AL residents in a one-to-one format. This approach has been successful. However, having adequate interventionists to provide REAL to individual AL residents is a challenge and is costly. Considering that cost is one predictor of successful dissemination of interventions in real-world settings, more efficient ways to provide REAL to large numbers of AL residents are needed14. Thus, the purpose of this pilot study was to examine feasibility and compare costs and outcomes for REAL provided in individual versus small group formats.
  • Publication
    Academic Chemistry Inputs and Outcomes Data
    (2015-07-17) Rosenbloom, Joshua L.; Ginther, Donna K.; Juhl, Ted P.; Heppert, Joseph A.
  • Publication
    A Cell-Based High-Throughput Screen for Novel Chemical Inducers of Fetal Hemoglobin for Treatment of Hemoglobinopathies
    (Public Library of Science, 2014-09-16) Peterson, Kenneth R.; Costa, Flávia C.; Fedosyuk, Halyna; Neades, Renee Y.; Chazelle, Allen M.; Zelenchuk, Lesya; Fonteles, Andrea H.; Dalal, Parmita; Roy, Anuradha; Chaguturu, Rathnam; Li, Biaoru; Pace, Betty S.
    Decades of research have established that the most effective treatment for sickle cell disease (SCD) is increased fetal hemoglobin (HbF). Identification of a drug specific for inducing c-globin expression in pediatric and adult patients, with minimal off-target effects, continues to be an elusive goal. One hurdle has been an assay amenable to a high-throughput screen (HTS) of chemicals that displays a robust c-globin off-on switch to identify potential lead compounds. Assay systems developed in our labs to understand the mechanisms underlying the c- to b-globin gene expression switch during development has allowed us to generate a cell-based assay that was adapted for a HTS of 121,035 compounds. Using chemical inducer of dimerization (CID)-dependent bone marrow cells (BMCs) derived from human c-globin promoter-firefly luciferase b-globin promoter-Renilla luciferase b-globin yeast artificial chromosome (c-luc b-luc b-YAC) transgenic mice, we were able to identify 232 lead chemical compounds that induced c-globin 2-fold or higher, with minimal or no b-globin induction, minimal cytotoxicity and that did not directly influence the luciferase enzyme. Secondary assays in CIDdependentwild-type b-YAC BMCs and human primary erythroid progenitor cells confirmed the induction profiles of sevenof the 232 hits that were cherry-picked for further analysis.
  • Publication
    Minimal regularity conditions for the end-point estimate of bilinear Calderón-Zygmund operators
    (American Mathematical Society, 2014-01-09) Perez, Carlos; Torres, Rodolfo H.
    Minimal regularity conditions on the kernels of bilinear operators are identified and shown to be sufficient for the existence of end-point estimates within the context of the bilinear Calderón-Zygmund theory.
  • Publication
    Final Report of the University of Kansas Initiative in Ethics Education in Science and Engineering
    (Office of Research and Graduate Studies, the University of Kansas, 2010-10) Bernstein, Dan; De George, Richard; May, Douglas; Rosenbloom, Joshua L.; Starrett, Steven; Anderegg, Andy; Luth, Matthew Travis
  • Publication
    Ethics in the University: Reflections on Responsible Scholarship
    (Office of Research and Graduate Studies, the University of Kansas, 2010-04) Rosenbloom, Joshua L.