Health-related quality of life in Parkinson's disease patients in northeastern Sicily, Italy An ecological perspective

Parkinson＇s disease has a negative impact on health-related quality of life in Parkinson＇s disease patients. Depression, cognitive impairment, coping strategies, dyskinesia, gait disorders and complications of dopaminergic drugs are the variables that most affect health-related quality of life. The ecological model of human development focuses attention on both individual and social environmental factors as targets for health interventions. From this perspective, the aim of this cross-sectional survey was to evaluate the influence of gender, family size and perceived autonomy on health-related quality of life in Parkinson＇s disease patients in nOrtheastern Sicily, Italy. Ninety Parkinson＇s disease patients, attending the Movement Disorders Clinic at IRCCS Centro Neurolesi ＂Bonino-Pulejo＂ （Messina）, were consecutively enrolled. The Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale motor subscale （UPDRS-Ⅲ） scores, the Parkinson Disease Questionnaire-39 Item scores （as a disease-specific measure of health-related quality of life）, scores on the Short Form （36） Health Survey Questionnaire （as a generic measure）, and answers to a brief checklist were recorded. A total of 85 Parkinson＇s disease patients （49% males and 51% females; mean age 70.8 ± 8.6 years mean UPDRS-Ⅲ 24.15 ± 6.55; mean disease duration 5.52 ± 4.65 years） completed the booklet of questionnaires. In the multivariate regression analysis, we included clinical and social variables as independent predictors of health-related quality of life. Our results suggest a potential compounding effect of ecological intrapersonal and interpersonal levels on health-related quality of life outcomes. Gender, self-evaluated autonomy and family size significantly impacted health-related quality of life. If quality of life is used as an indicator of treatment outcomes, an ecological perspective of the case history will be important to disclose relevant prognostic information and trigger personalized health care interventions.

AN ACOUSTIC MODELING STUDY OF FRICATION LEVELS OF HIGH VOWELS IN CHINESE

Frication of high vowels has three levels in auditory impression,including non-frication,low frication,and high frication.The aim of this study was to study the acoustic characteristics and social variability of the three levels via the method of multivariate statistical modeling.We estimated the weighting of each parameter by fitting the model of Boosted Logistic Regression to obtain the optimal parametric set.Pattern recognition then quantified the social variability with the optimal set.It showed that the acoustic characteristics of the vowel frication are mainly reflected in the formants,of which the second bandwidth (B2) plays the most prominent role in distinguishing the three levels.Three dimensional diagrams further illustrated that the high frication group has the greatest B2 value,with the smallest first formant (F1) and skewness,while the non-frication group is completely the opposite.Results of pattern recognition showed that the degrees of variation in age and gender are both close to 19%,where the higher the frication level is,the greater the variability is.This paper thus suggested that low frication variants should be treated as fricative approximants,instead of fricative vowels as reported in the literature.