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In recent years, there has been growing interest in the pedagogical use of ChatGPT within arts education, including literature, drama, music, and painting. This research investigates the beliefs of primary and secondary school teachers who teach arts regarding the pedagogical use of ChatGPT, exploring potential use, expected benefits or risks, support or rejection from the educational community, and possible barriers or facilitators, based on Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior. A qualitative study was conducted with a sample of 67 teachers familiar with or having used ChatGPT in education. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed thematically based on behavioral, normative, and control beliefs. Teachers identified expected benefits such as increased student interest, creativity, and critical thinking, as well as the facilitation of research and support for students with special needs. Concerns included copying, misinformation, and reduced critical thinking and creativity. They expressed ambivalence and skepticism toward ChatGPT’s pedagogical use, being optimistic about educational benefits and community support but concerned about future challenges. Finally, they emphasized the need for training and adequate technological infrastructure. The findings highlight the importance of equipping teachers with the necessary skills and institutional support to ensure the responsible and effective integration of AI in arts education.

Background Responses to stressful circumstances have psychological and physiological dimensions, and are related to anxiety symptoms and mental disorders such as depression. Nonetheless, the relationship between subclinical stress and anxiety symptoms is still elusive. Methods To explore possible associations between stress and anxiety symptoms, patients with major depression ( N  = 77) and mentally healthy individuals of different age clusters and occupations ( N  = 412) were enrolled into the study. Stress was assessed with the new subclinical stress symptom questionnaire (SSQ-25). Anxiety was studied with the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), mainly focusing on clinical anxiety, whilst anxiety as a personality trait was assessed with the trait aspect of the State Τrait Αnxiety Ιnventory Y (STAI Y). Statistical analyses included ANOVA, Scheffe test, linear regression models and a two-step cluster analysis using Log-Likelihood Distance measure and fixed number of two clusters. Results Age, stress symptoms and BAI scores differed significantly between among groups ( P  < 0.001), whilst STAI Y scores did not. Stress levels were found to be related to clinical anxiety ( P  < 0.001), while neither group identity nor age exerted any influence on anxiety levels ( P  > 0.05). The two Step Cluster analysis classified 76 out of 77 participants with milder stress (subclinical) symptoms into the cluster with moderate anxiety, as indicated by BAI scores, and all individuals with more severe stress into the severe anxiety cluster. Conclusions The observed associations between stress and anxiety shed light on the interrelations between even very mild (subclinical) stress and anxiety symptoms and may point to the potential of mild stress to serve as a target for early interventions aiming to prevent anxiety morbidity.

The main objective of the study was to validate the findings of previous cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) proteomic studies for the differentiation between Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia and physiological ageing. The most consistently significant proteins in the separation between AD dementia versus normal controls using CSF proteomics were identified in the literature. The classification performance of the four pre-selected proteins was explored in 92 controls, 149 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 69 patients with AD dementia. Heart-type fatty acid binding protein (hFABP) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) CSF concentrations distinguished between healthy controls and patients with AD dementia with a sensitivity and specificity of 57 and 35 %, and 76 and 84 %, respectively. The optimal classification was achieved by a combination of the two additional CSF biomarker candidates in conjunction with the three established markers Amyloid-β (Aβ) 1–42 , total-Tau (tTau), and phosphorylated-Tau (pTau) 181 , which resulted in a sensitivity of 83 % and a specificity of 86 %. hFABP also predicted the progression from MCI to AD dementia. The present study provides evidence in support of hFABP and VEGF in CSF as AD biomarker candidates to be used in combination with the established markers Aβ 1–42 , tTau, and pTau 181 .

Hearing impairment in older people is a significant risk factor for cognitive decline and dementia, while it is a source of bias in the diagnostic workup of cognitive complaints. Early detection and intervention are critical, yet audiometric equipment is often unavailable in primary healthcare- and/or community care-, as well as in low-resource settings across the globe. This study aims (i) to develop brief accurate instruments for capturing hearing loss severity based on items of the 25-item Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly (HHIE) and its counterpart the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the communication partner (HHIE-SP) and (ii) to compare their usefulness as well as that of the 10-item screening version of HHIE (HHIE-S) in detecting hearing loss severity in people with dementia and hearing loss to HHIE and HHIE-SP. The study relies on screening- and baseline data of the Sense-Cog Trial, being a European, multi-center, observer-blind, 36-week long, randomized controlled trial (RCT) of people with dementia with sensory impairment and their companions. An exploratory data analysis was utilized to provide a comprehensive understanding of the data structure and the characteristics of the sample. Eight different proportional odds logistic regression models were computed to study the relationship between the pure-tone audiometry screen results and different versions of the HHIE, with or without consideration of demographic data of the person with dementia and his/her communication partner. Stratified repeated random subsampling was employed to create two new HHIE models. All models were assessed by calculating the Mean Squared Deviation (MSE) over 1,000 splits into 90% training and 10% test set. Two separate HHIE-mini models were developed. HHIE-2 includes one item of the HHIE and one item of the HHIE-SP. HHIE-8 includes three items of the HHIE and five items of the HHIE-SP. The model including HHIE-S and demographic data demonstrated the highest performance (MSE = 6.818), followed by the model including HHIE-SP and demographic data (MSE = 7.065) and the HHIE-2 model which included age (MSE = 7.254) but not country of residence. The HHIE-8 model was less effective (MSE = 7.740), and the model including HHIE and no demographic data was the least reliable (MSE = 9.220). HHIE-S and HHIE-2 combined with demographic data are practical and more efficient tools for assessing hearing loss severity in people with dementia and hearing impairment compared to HHIE, HHIE-S and HHIE-SP in different European countries. They both address the specific challenges associated with dementia-related hearing assessments by limiting the cognitive load of the evaluation process. Particularly the ultra-brief HHIE-2 may be feasible for use in primary and community healthcare settings in different countries, since in a European cohort it is not affected by the country of residence of the individuals with dementia.

Background Recently, cognitive deficits occurring in rheumatic diseases have attracted scientific attention. Cognitive symptoms in patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Systemic Sclerosis (SSc) have not been thoroughly studied. This study aimed to assess cognitive function and its relationship with depressive symptoms in RA and SSc and compare it to mild neurocognitive disorder due to Alzheimer’s disease (MiND) and to individuals without cognitive impairment. Methods Cognitive function and depressive symptoms were tapped with the Cognitive Telephone Screening Instrument plus (COGTEL+), the Serial Seven Test (SST), the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Geriatric Depression scale-15 (GDS), respectively. Statistical analyses included between groups-, correlation- and regression analyses. Demographic characteristics were considered in the regression models. Results The study included 30 individuals with RA, 24 with SSc, 26 adults without cognitive impairment and 33 individuals with MiND. Lower performance in verbal short-term memory, concentration/attention, verbal fluency and MMSE in patients with RA compared to individuals without cognitive impairment was detected. Of note, performance on verbal fluency, concentration/attention, inductive reasoning and MMSE was lower in RA compared to MiND. Individuals with SSc performed worse in verbal fluency and in MMSE in comparison to adults without cognitive deficits. Verbal fluency deficits in SSc exceeded that in MiND. Performance on MMSE, COGTEL+, prospective memory, working memory, verbal fluency and concentration/attention was related to GDS scores, which did not vary across the groups. Conclusions Patients with RA and SSc encountered cognitive dysfunction, which partially pertains to depressive symptoms. Of note, the severity of cognitive dysfunction in many cases exceeded that of MiND.

Background Detecting impaired naming capacity is valuable in diagnosing neurocognitive disorders (ND). A. clinical practice- oriented overview of naming tests validated in ND is not available yet. Here, features of naming tests with validated utility in ND which are open access or available for purchase are succinctly presented and compared. Methods Searches were carried out across Pubmed, Medline and Google Scholar. Additional studies were identified by searching reference lists. Only peer-reviewed journal articles were eligible. A narrative- and tabullar synthesis was used to summarize different aspects of the naming assessment instruments used in patients with ND such as stimuli type, administration time, assessment parameters and accessibility. Based on computational word frequency calculations, the tests were compared in terms of the average frequency of their linguistic content. Results Twelve naming tests, relying either on visual or auditory stimuli have been validated in ND. Their content and administration time vary between three and 60 items and one and 20 minutes, respectively. The average frequency of the words of each considered test was two or lower, pointing to low frequency of most items. In all but one test, scoring systems are exclusively based on correctly named items. Seven instruments are open access and four are available in more than one language. Conclusions Gaining insights into naming tests’ characteristics may catalyze the wide incorporation of those with short administration time but high diagnostic accuracy into the diagnostic workup of ND at primary healthcare and of extensive, visual or auditory ones into the diagnostic endeavors of memory clinics, as well as of secondary and tertiary brain healthcare settings.

Background: Depressive symptoms and cognitive decline are common in older adults. The aims of this study were (i) to assess the frequency of depressive symptoms and cognitive impairment in users of municipal home care services and (ii) to explore factors that may pertain to seeking in-depth neuropsychiatric diagnostic workup, if recommended. Methods: The study was mainly conducted in low-resource areas of south-western Greece. The Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15), the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Clock Drawing Test (CDT) were employed. The study included the tracking of whether participants sought medical consultation within 12 months after receiving the recommendation for further neuropsychiatric diagnostic workup. Results: The study encompassed 406 individuals. Cognitive deficits were detected in 312 (76.84%) study participants, of whom only 82 (26.28%) had received the diagnosis of a mental or neurological disorder. Depressive symptoms were detected in 236 (58.27%) individuals, of whom only 18 (4%) had received the diagnosis of a mental or neurological disorder. Only just over a third of individuals consulted physicians. Reluctance towards in-depth neuropsychiatric workup mainly derived from a lack of insight and fears related to COVID-19. Previously diagnosed neuropsychiatric disorders slightly correlated with the decision to consult a physician. Conclusions: Developing pragmatic cognitive and mental healthcare services to address the needs of older people with disabling chronic disorders who live in low-resource settings is urgently needed.

Background Even though communities in low-resource areas across the globe are aging, older adult mental and cognitive health services remain mainly embedded in tertiary- or secondary hospital settings, and thus not easily accessible by older adults living in such communities. Here, the iterative development of INTegRated InterveNtion of pSychogerIatric Care (INTRINSIC) services addressing the mental and cognitive healthcare needs of older adults residing in low-resource areas of Greece is depicted. Methods INTRINSIC was developed and piloted in three iterative phases: (i) INTRINSIC initial version conceptualization; (ii) A 5-year field testing in Andros island; and (iii) Extending the services. The INTRINSIC initial version relied on a digital platform enabling videoconferencing, a flexible battery of diagnostic tools, pharmacological treatment and psychosocial support and the active involvement of local communities in service shaping. Results Ιn 61% of the 119 participants of the pilot study, new diagnoses of mental and/or neurocognitive disorders were established. INTRINSIC resulted in a significant reduction in the distance travelled and time spent to visit mental and cognitive healthcare services. Participation was prematurely terminated due to dissatisfaction, lack of interest or insight in 13 cases (11%). Based on feedback and gained experiences, a new digital platform, facilitating e-training of healthcare professionals and public awareness raising, and a risk factor surveillance system were created, while INTRINSIC services were extended to incorporate a standardized sensory assessment and the modified problem adaptation therapy. Conclusion The INTRINSIC model may be a pragmatic strategy to improve access of older adults with mental and cognitive disorders living in low-resource areas to healthcare services.

Despite the health-promoting role of life satisfaction, little is known about its determining factors in older people with mental health problems compared to nonclinical participants. This study provides preliminary data into the role of social support, self-compassion, and meaning in life on older people’s life satisfaction within both clinical and non-clinical populations. In total, 153 older adults (age ≥60) completed the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS), the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ), and questions for relational variables. Hierarchical logistic regression analysis revealed that determinants of life satisfaction were self-kindness (B = 2.036, p = .001) and intimate friends’ network (B = 2.725, p = .021), while family relationships were found to be significant among the clinical group (B = 4.556, p = .024). Findings are discussed in relation to incorporating self-kindness and rapport with family in clinical work with older adults to better promote their well-being.