OBJECTIVE:To evaluate the effects of a multidisciplinary rehabilitation program on cognition, quality of life, and neuropsychiatric symptoms in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease.METHOD:The present study was a single-blind, controlled study that was conducted at a university-based day-hospital memory facility. The study included 25 Alzheimer's patients and their caregivers and involved a 12-week stimulation and psychoeducational program. The comparison group consisted of 16 Alzheimer's patients in waiting lists for future intervention.INTERVENTION:Group sessions were provided by a multiprofessional team and included memory training, computer-assisted cognitive stimulation, expressive activities (painting, verbal expression, writing), physiotherapy, and physical training. Treatment was administered twice a week during 6.5-h gatherings.MEASUREMENTS:The assessment battery comprised the following tests: Mini-Mental State Examination, Short Cognitive Test, Quality of Life in Alzheimer's disease, Neuropsychiatric Inventory, and Geriatric Depression Scale. Test scores were evaluated at baseline and the end of the study by raters who were blinded to the group assignments.RESULTS:Measurements of global cognitive function and performance on attention tasks indicated that patients in the experimental group remained stable, whereas controls displayed mild but significant worsening. The intervention was associated with reduced depression symptoms for patients and caregivers and decreased neuropsychiatric symptoms in Alzheimer's subjects. The treatment was also beneficial for the patients' quality of life.CONCLUSION:This multimodal rehabilitation program was associated with cognitive stability and significant improvements in the quality of life for Alzheimer's patients. We also observed a significant decrease in depressive symptoms and caregiver burden. These results support the notion that structured nonpharmacological interventions can yield adjunct and clinically relevant benefits in dementia treatment.

Objective: There are few quantitative studies on art therapy for the treatment of depression. The objective of this study was to evaluate if art therapy is beneficial as an adjuvant treatment for depression in the elderly. Methods: A randomized, controlled, single-blind study was carried out in a sample of elderly women with major depressive disorder (MDD) stable on pharmacotherapy. The experimental group (EG) was assigned to 20 weekly art therapy sessions (90 min/session). The control group (CG) was not subjected to any adjuvant intervention. Patients were evaluated at baseline and after 20 weeks, using the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and cognitive measures. Results: Logistic regression analysis adjusted for age revealed that women in EG (n=31) had significant improvement in GDS (p = 0.007), BDI (p = 0.025), and BAI (p = 0.032) scores as compared with controls (n=25). No difference was found in the cognitive measures. Conclusion: Art therapy as an adjunctive treatment for MDD in the elderly can improve depressive and anxiety symptoms. Clinical trial registration: RBR-2YXY7Z

Here, we consider numerical methods for stationary mean-field games (MFG) and investigate two classes of algorithms. The first one is a gradient-flow method based on the variational characterization of certain MFG. The second one uses monotonicity properties of MFG. We illustrate our methods with various examples, including onedimensional periodic MFG, congestion problems, and higher-dimensional models.

Here, we consider stationary monotone mean-field games (MFGs) and study the existence of weak solutions. First, we introduce a regularized problem that preserves the monotonicity. Next, using variational inequality techniques, we prove the existence of solutions to the regularized problem. Then, using Minty's method, we establish the existence of solutions for the original MFG. Finally, we examine the properties of these weak solutions in several examples. Our methods provide a general framework to construct weak solutions to stationary MFGs with local, nonlocal, or congestion terms.

We propose solutions to two recurring problems in cross-national research: response style differences and language bias. In order to do so, we conduct a methodological comparison of two different response formats-rating and ranking. For rating, we assess the effect of changing the commonly used 5-point Likert scales to 7-point Likert scales. For ranking, we evaluate the validity of presenting respondents with short scenarios for which they need to rank their top 3 solutions. Our results -based on two studies of 1965 undergraduate and 1714 MBA students in 16 different countries -confirm our hypotheses that both solutions reduce response and language bias, but show that ranking generally is a superior solution. These findings allow researchers to have greater confidence in the validity of crossnational differences if these response formats are used, instead of the more traditional 5point Likert scales. In addition, our findings have several practical implications for multinational corporations, relating to issues such as selection interviews, performance appraisals, and cross-cultural training.ß