BACKGROUND Congestive heart failure (CHF) is associated with cognitive deficits, particularly of memory and attention. The present study aims to clarify whether clinical treatment can reverse the attentional deficits of patients with CHF. METHODS A convenience sample of 50 patients with CHF functional class IV and 30 elderly controls were recruited from a teaching hospital in Brazil. Particip...

OBJECTIVE To explore neuropsychological performance in untreated Brazilian adolescents suffering from attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). METHOD We assessed 30 untreated adolescents with ADHD and 60 healthy control subjects, aged 12 to 16 years, using a neuropsychological battery including the Wisconsin Card-Sorting Test (WCST), the Stroop Test (ST), the Digit Span, and the Word ...

Two experiments which require subjects to hold a digit span while solving an equation and then recall the digit span are performed. The size of the memory span and the complexity of the equation are manipulated as well as whether the subject is required to substitute items from the digit span for constants in the equation. As either task (digit span recall or equation solving) gets more complex...

In the widely used Corsi Block Test and Wechsler Spatial Span Tests, participants must reproduce sequences of blocks in the order touched by the examiner until two trials are missed at the same sequence length. The examiner records either the maximum number of blocks correctly reported or the total number of correct lists. Here, we describe a computerized spatial span test (C-SST) that uses psy...

OBJECTIVE Retrograde cerebral perfusion (RCP) is used as an adjunctive method to hypothermic circulatory arrest to enhance cerebral protection in patients undergoing thoracic aortic surgery. It remains unclear whether RCP provides improved neurological and neuropsychological outcome. METHODS Forty-six patients undergoing thoracic aortic surgery using RCP, and 28 undergoing coronary artery byp...

Abstract Objective To see how strongly performance on a computerized visual digit span task correlates with non-computerized subtests. Method The data were chosen from de-identified database. Undiagnosed adult volunteers (n = 105) took the WAIS-IV Digit Span and TMB Demographic characteristics as follows: Age (M 28.5, SD 11.2), education 16.2, 1.9), gender (60% Female), race (69.8% White). A Pe...

The measure "mu", proposed as an index of the ability to coordinate concurrent box-crossing (BC) and digit-span (DS) tasks in the dual task (DT), should reflect the capacity of the executive component of the working memory system. We investigated the effect of practice in BC and of a change in the digit span on mu by adding previous practice trials in BC and diminishing, maintaining or increasi...