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The current dissertation examined older widowers' constructed experiences regarding post-bereavement events. This study used naturalistic inquiry methods within a constructivist perspective to study these experiences. Previous research suggests that older men face difficult challenges after the loss of their wives. These challenges include higher rates of suicide, depression, health problems, and mortality than widows. Furthermore, widowers often face this transition with fewer social resources and poorer coping styles. Despite these concerns, older widowers have been studied much less frequently than older widows. The occurrence of “experiencing” a deceased spouse is frequently referred to in the popular media, but has been rarely studied. The term “post-bereavement experiences,” was used in reference to sense of presence experiences and perceptual experiences regarding the deceased. The participants were six widowers between the ages of 63 and 86, had reported at least one post-bereavement experience, and had been widowed for more than 14 months. The participants were interviewed several times in regards to their constructions of their post-bereavement experiences. Based on each participant's answers to initial overview questions, follow-up questions were asked of all the widowers. This allowed for in-depth exploration of themes that the participants originally described. A brief biographical sketch was provided for each participant. The themes regarding post-bereavement events as described by the widowers were also presented. The results suggest that there are a wide variety of descriptions of post-bereavement experiences. Additionally, the widowers' explanations of their post-bereavement experiences generally matched their religious/spiritual worldview. The participants used both internal and external sources of their post-bereavement events to explain their experiences. The constructions of post-bereavement experiences are discussed in relation to two theories regarding grief including continued attachment and attachment theory. Finally, the implications of the study and suggestions for future research are presented.

The relationship between a religious orientation known as quest and attitudes toward seeking counseling were investigated. Other variables including age, gender, interest in religion, religious identification, and previous counseling experience were examined in relation to the two primary constructs. One-hundred twenty-seven college students completed the twelve-item Quest Scale (Batson & Schoenrade, 1991a, 1991b) and the short form of the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale (Fischer & Farina, 1995). A Pearson correlation found no relationship between the Quest Scale and Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale. Multiple analysis of variance found no relationship between the demographic variables and the two constructs except a significant relationship between gender and attitudes toward seeking help.

Background Cognitive training is recognized as an efficient approach to improve cognition in older adults at risk for dementia. Real‐world interventions that are more globally stimulating could have a greater impact on cognition than typical cognitive training programs — particularly for individuals with lower levels of education, a key risk factor for dementia. Team 10 of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging developed ENGAGE. ENGAGE is a 4‐month multifaceted program combining memory and attentional training with stimulating leisure activities. This study aimed to assess its efficacy in older adults with subjective cognitive decline or mild cognitive impairment. Method This was a randomized controlled preference trial (trial #alz104957). One hundred and twenty‐eight participants were enrolled in two sites, CRIUGM (Montreal) and Baycrest (Toronto). There were two consecutive randomizations: a) randomization to ENGAGE‐MUSIC/SPANISH intervention vs. an active control intervention (ENGAGE‐DISCOVERY); b) randomization to SPANISH vs. MUSIC. The MUSIC and SPANISH conditions combined Music or Spanish learning with formal cognitive training. This was a preference trial, so patients could exclude Spanish or Music prior to randomization. A mixed linear model assessed PRE vs. POST changes on composite scores of memory and attention, cognition in everyday life, and use of memory strategies. Secondary analyses examined whether there were different intervention effects when comparing the MUSIC and SPANISH groups to the control intervention separately. Result The composite score of attention and the use of memory strategies in daily life showed larger pre‐post‐training effects in the ENGAGE‐MUSIC/SPANISH intervention group than in the active control intervention, yielding a significant Intervention x Time interaction. The composite score of memory and the test of cognition in everyday life improved with time, but there was no significant interaction with intervention. Secondary analyses of the two leisure groups only identified differences in the attention composite, where SPANISH participants had a greater beneficial effect than the MUSIC participants. Conclusion The ENGAGE program significantly improved attention and everyday memory strategy use, with differential effects of Spanish and Music. This indicates that interventions combining leisure activities with formal cognitive training have the potential for mitigating cognitive decline and reducing dementia risk.

Textual performance interfaces in laptop ensemble contexts are examined. Although many text-based performance environments do support collaboration, most current systems are challenging to use with ensembles of more than a few musicians.

Cognitive training is recognized as an efficient approach to improve cognition in older adults at risk for dementia. Real-world interventions that are more globally stimulating could have a greater impact on cognition than typical cognitive training programs - particularly for individuals with lower levels of education, a key risk factor for dementia. Team 10 of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging developed ENGAGE. ENGAGE is a 4-month multifaceted program combining memory and attentional training with stimulating leisure activities. This study aimed to assess its efficacy in older adults with subjective cognitive decline or mild cognitive impairment. This was a randomized controlled preference trial (trial #alz104957). One hundred and twenty-eight participants were enrolled in two sites, CRIUGM (Montreal) and Baycrest (Toronto). There were two consecutive randomizations: a) randomization to ENGAGE-MUSIC/SPANISH intervention vs. an active control intervention (ENGAGE-DISCOVERY); b) randomization to SPANISH vs. MUSIC. The MUSIC and SPANISH conditions combined Music or Spanish learning with formal cognitive training. This was a preference trial, so patients could exclude Spanish or Music prior to randomization. A mixed linear model assessed PRE vs. POST changes on composite scores of memory and attention, cognition in everyday life, and use of memory strategies. Secondary analyses examined whether there were different intervention effects when comparing the MUSIC and SPANISH groups to the control intervention separately. The composite score of attention and the use of memory strategies in daily life showed larger pre-post-training effects in the ENGAGE-MUSIC/SPANISH intervention group than in the active control intervention, yielding a significant Intervention x Time interaction. The composite score of memory and the test of cognition in everyday life improved with time, but there was no significant interaction with intervention. Secondary analyses of the two leisure groups only identified differences in the attention composite, where SPANISH participants had a greater beneficial effect than the MUSIC participants. The ENGAGE program significantly improved attention and everyday memory strategy use, with differential effects of Spanish and Music. This indicates that interventions combining leisure activities with formal cognitive training have the potential for mitigating cognitive decline and reducing dementia risk.

Despite the wide application of the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique, there are no widely used standards on naming and describing MRI sequences. The absence of consistent naming conventions presents a major challenge in automating image processing since most MRI software require a priori knowledge of the type of the MRI sequences to be processed. This issue becomes increasingly critical with the current efforts toward open-sharing of MRI data in the neuroscience community. This manuscript reports an MRI sequence detection method using imaging metadata and a supervised machine learning technique. Three datasets from the Brain Center for Ontario Data Exploration (Brain-CODE) data platform, each involving MRI data from multiple research institutes, are used to build and test our model. The preliminary results show that a random forest model can be trained to accurately identify MRI sequence types, and to recognize MRI scans that do not belong to any of the known sequence types. Therefore the proposed approach can be used to automate processing of MRI data that involves a large number of variations in sequence names, and to help standardize sequence naming in ongoing data collections. This study highlights the potential of the machine learning approaches in helping manage health data.

Delivery of biotherapeutics across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a challenge. Many approaches fuse biotherapeutics to platforms that bind the transferrin receptor (TfR), a brain endothelial cell target, to facilitate receptor-mediated transcytosis across the BBB. Here, we characterized the pharmacological behavior of two distinct TfR-targeted platforms fused to iduronate 2-sulfatase (IDS), a lysosomal enzyme deficient in mucopolysaccharidosis type II (MPS II), and compared the relative brain exposures and functional activities of both approaches in mouse models. IDS fused to a moderate-affinity, monovalent TfR binding enzyme transport vehicle (ETV:IDS) resulted in widespread brain exposure, internalization by parenchymal cells, and significant substrate reduction in the CNS of an MPS II mouse model. In contrast, IDS fused to a standard high-affinity bivalent antibody (IgG:IDS) resulted in lower brain uptake, limited biodistribution beyond brain endothelial cells, and reduced brain substrate reduction. These results highlight important features likely to impact the clinical development of TfR-targeting platforms in MPS II and potentially other CNS diseases. Brain delivery, biodistribution and pharmacodynamics of a lysosomal enzyme fused to a moderate-affinity transferrin receptor-directed blood-brain barrier enzyme transport vehicle are superior to a traditional high-affinity anti-TfR monoclonal antibody fusion.