An Evaluation of Dog-Assisted Therapy for Residents of Aged Care Facilities with Dementia

ABSTRACT

Although some research suggests that dog-assisted therapy may be beneficial for people with dementia living in residential aged care facilities, the intervention has not been adequately investigated. To address this shortcoming, we conducted a randomized controlled trial of dog-assisted therapy versus a human-therapist-only intervention for this population. Fifty-five residents with mild to moderate dementia living in three Australian residential aged care facilities completed an 11-week trial of the interventions. Allocation to the intervention was random and participants completed validated measures of mood, psychosocial functioning, and quality of life (QOL), both prior to and following the intervention. No adverse events were associated with the dog-assisted intervention, and following it participants who had worse baseline depression scores demonstrated significantly improved depression scores relative to participants in the human-therapist-only intervention. Participants in the dog-assisted intervention also showed significant improvements on a measure of QOL in one facility compared with those in the human-therapist-only group (although worse in another facility that had been affected by an outbreak of gastroenteritis). This study provides some evidence that dog-assisted therapy may be beneficial for some residents of aged care facilities with dementia.     

Middle-class residential mobility in Mexico City: Toward a cross-cultural theory

Few social-psychological theories of intraurban residential mobility have been offered, despite a number of empirical studies of personal motives. A complete explanation of residential mobility would interrelate macroscopic economic factors with household preferences. A cross-cultural socio-psychological model is presented as a step toward a comprehensive theory. Data from an exploratory study of middle-class Mexico City residents are used to test the model. Results suggest that middle-class Mexicans decide to move because of space needs accompanying life-cycle changes, desire for home ownership, and environmental reasons. Home selection was primarily a function of availability, cost, and terms. Unlike North Americans, suburban Mexicans were uninterested in community activities and maintained close contact with relatives; central-city respondents enjoyed living in the city despite dissatisfaction with residence or neighborhood. Most would avoid the suburbs because of communication problems and distance from relatives. Results support the model and justify further testing and development.I am grateful to the University of Alabama Research Grants Committee and Center for International Studies for financial support to carry out this study.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Society in New York, August 1976.     

Present status of Medical Physics practice in Mexico: An occupational analysis

PurposeTo present an overview of the status of Medical Physics practice in Mexico, promote the legal recognition of Medical Physics high-end training, and provide information that will potentially improve the Mexican healthcare system.MethodsFor the purpose of this research, the concept of “Medical Physics Professional/s” (MPP) is introduced to refer to any person/s executing the role of a clinical medical physicist (cMP) in whole or in part independent of academic profile, training or experience. A database of MPP in Mexico was built from official sources and personal communication with peers. Database records included the following fields: employer/s, specialty, academic profile, and annual income (when available).Results133 centers in Mexico employ MPP, 49% of which are public institutions. 360 positions involving cMP roles were identified at the National Healthcare System (occupied by 283 MPP), 77% of which corresponded to radiation therapy. Public healthcare services hold 65% of the reported positions. Only 40% of MPP hold a graduate degree in Medical Physics, 46% of whom were located in the most densely populated region of Mexico. Of all MPP, 32% were women.ConclusionsThis work allowed to clearly identify the current challenges of Medical Physics practice in Mexico, such as: insufficiency and uneven geographical distribution of qualified manpower, gender imparity, multishifting and wage gap. The products derived from this work could be used to guide the efforts to improve the Mexican healthcare system.     

“Social Jetlag” in Morning-Type College Students Living On Campus: Implications for Physical and Psychological Well-being

Although on-campus residence allows easier access to campus facilities, existing studies showed mixed results regarding the relationship between college residence and students’ well-being indicators, such as sleep behaviors and mood. There was also a lack of studies investigating the role of chronotype in the relationship between on-campus residence and well-being. In particular, the temporal relationships among these factors were unclear. Hence, this longitudinal study aims to fill in these gaps by first reporting the well-being (measured in terms of mood, sleep, and quality of life) among students living on and off campus across two academic semesters. We explored factors predicting students’ dropout in university residences. Although students living on campus differ in their chronotypes, activities in campus residence (if any) are mostly scheduled in the nighttime. We therefore tested if individual differences in chronotype interact with campus residence in affecting well-being. Our final sample consisted of 215 campus residents and 924 off-campus-living students from 10 different universities or colleges in Hong Kong or Macau. Their mean age was 20.2 years (SD?=?2.3); 6.5% of the participants are female. Participants completed self-reported questionnaires online on their sleep duration, sleep quality, chronotype, mood, and physical and psychological quality of life. Across two academic semesters, we assessed if students living on and off campus differed in our well-being measures after we partialed out the effects of demographic information (including age, sex, family income, and parents’ education) and the well-being measures at baseline (T1). The results showed that, campus residents exhibited longer sleep duration, greater sleep efficiency, better sleep quality, and less feeling of stress than off-campus-living students. From one semester to the next, around 10% of campus residents did not continue to live on campus. Logistic regression showed that a morning type was the strongest factor predicting dropout from campus residence. Chronotype significantly moderated the effects of campus residence on participants’ physical and psychological quality of life. Although morning-type off-campus-living students have better well-being than their evening-type peers living off campus, morning-type campus residents had worse well-being than other campus residents and they were more likely to discontinue living on campus after one semester. Our findings bear practical significance to college management that morning-type campus residents are shown to be experiencing deteriorating well-being. The authorities may need to review and revise the room-allocation policy in campus residence in improving the well-being among campus residents.     

An overview of clinical molecular genetics

Clinical molecular genetics has recently become recognized as a diagnostic discipline. This article covers the evolution, structure, and possible forward development of clinical molecular genetics. Topics covered include general test categories, introducing new tests, laboratory facilities, staffing and training, and overview of quality issues.     

Residential density,social overload,and social withdrawal

The effects of residential density were examined in the following study through a comparison of experiences of tenants living in 14-story apartment buildings and those in three-story walkups within the same low-income housing project. It was hypothesized that tenants in the high-rise buildings would come into contact with large numbers of others in the public spaces of their buildings. As these contacts exceeded residents' interaction capacity or ability to process relevant incoming social stimuli tenants would experience social overload. This experience would be manifested by tenants' perceptions of crowding in the building, feelings of less control, safety, and privacy in the immediate residential environment, problematic social relationships among tenants and alienation and dissatisfaction with the residential environment generally. These experiences were not expected to occur for tenants in the low-rise walkups. Interview data supported these hypotheses and revealed, in addition, that high-rise apartment residents were less socially active beyond their building and felt a greater sense of powerlessness in effecting management decisions. Correlational analyses provided further evidence of the vast differences between residents' experiences of the two building types.     

北京市域乡村人居林树冠覆盖及其区域差异分析

乡村人居林建设是落实新农村建设、实施乡村振兴战略和振兴农村生态文明的重要举措。以北京市为对象，基于北京市域2017年0.5m分辨率航空影像与2017年1：10万土地利用（LUCC）图等基础资源，在全市范围内随机选择260个行政村，从研究区域内乡村人居林树冠覆盖率、功能类型、斑块等级和景观格局特征四个层面展开区域差异特征分析。研究结果显示，北京市整体乡村人居林树冠覆盖率为18.32%，其中平原区和山区分别为18.40%和17.83%。在平原区范围内，乡村人居林树冠覆盖率呈近郊区（21.70%） > 远郊区（13.87%） > 延庆盆地区域（16.34%）；在山区内部，乡村人居林树冠覆盖率呈现低山区（24.45%） > 浅山区（16.55%） > 深山区（12.41%），太行山区（20.98%） > 燕山区（14.11%）。在乡村人居林功能类型分布中，片林为各分区最主要类型，在平原区和山区中分别占比55.75%和57.15%。在斑块等级结构方面，乡村人居林斑块总体呈现小而分散的特点，其中小斑块数目在区域中占比达93.03%，而各等级斑块在规模大小方面呈现"平分秋色"的特点。就景观格局指数特点而言，平原区内近郊区，山区内的深山区和燕山区乡村人居林斑块复杂程度、受人为干扰强度和多样性更高。综上特征，究其动因，农村居民点聚落规模、集聚形式和建设类型以及森林资源本底是影响乡村人居林建设条件的重要原因。