{"id":20177,"date":"2017-04-13T13:00:11","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T19:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/?p=20177"},"modified":"2017-04-12T09:32:43","modified_gmt":"2017-04-12T15:32:43","slug":"a-program-rehabilitates-the-ability-of-alzheimers-patients-to-recognize-emotions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/a-program-rehabilitates-the-ability-of-alzheimers-patients-to-recognize-emotions\/","title":{"rendered":"A program rehabilitates the ability of Alzheimer’s patients to recognize emotions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Researchers from the Iberian Institute of Psychology (IBIP) of the INTRAS Foundation in Zamora, in coordination with the University of Salamanca and the Institute of Health Sciences Studies of Castilla y Le\u00f3n (IECSYL), have developed a specific treatment can rehabilitate the ability of people with Alzheimer’s to read facial expression of emotions<\/strong>, according to a study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As we age we lose some ability to recognize negative emotions through facial expression, such as fear, anger, and sadness. In the case of people with Alzheimer’s, this deterioration is much greater<\/strong>, especially for low-intensity emotions, and is associated with the deterioration of cognitive functions caused by the disease, explains first author Jesus Antonio Garcia Casal.<\/p>\n

For this reason, scientists decided to investigate whether the ability to recognize emotions can be rehabilitated through a specific treatment program. The study focused on six basic emotions: joy, sadness, anger, disgust, fear and surprise, plus a neutral expression<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The 36 patients who participated were divided into three groups, an experimental group that received 20 sessions of rehabilitation of emotion recognition and 20 sessions of cognitive stimulation therapy (CST), a control group that received 40 sessions of CST, and a treatment as usual group (TAU). After 20 sessions of 90 minutes, in which they used a program with a touch screen interface with photos and dramatic activities, the experimental group improved in its capacity to recognize emotions and they did this process faster, in comparison to the other participants<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Specifically, “the emotions most sensitive to treatment were disgust, surprise and neutral expression<\/strong>,”<\/em> says the researcher. In addition, the improvement was maintained one month after the end of the treatment<\/strong>. “This is the first time that a rehabilitation treatment of the recognition of emotions in people with Alzheimer’s has been reported and the results open a new line of intervention<\/em>,” he says.<\/p>\n

If these findings are confirmed in later clinical trials, this type of rehabilitation can have important benefits for patients’ quality of life<\/strong>. “The difficulty in recognizing emotions can lead to alterations in interpersonal relationships, as it is key to non-verbal communication and modulates interaction with the social environment<\/em>,” says Garcia Casal.<\/p>\n

In addition, the misinterpretation of facial expressions of emotions can lead to errors in communication, deepening the isolation and mistrust of the people with this deficit<\/strong>. So, experts believe that this line of work could lead to an improvement in the interpersonal relationships of those affected.<\/p>\n

Positive effects on cognitive functions<\/h3>\n

Studies with people with schizophrenia have shown that the rehabilitation of the recognition of emotions can have positive effects on the general cognitive functions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

“Some of the brain areas involved in recognizing emotions also support executive functions: language, memory and attention<\/em>,” says the IBIP researcher. “This could explain why the rehabilitation of the ability to recognize emotions also affects these functions<\/em>,” he adds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: <\/strong>Agencia SINC<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researchers from the Iberian Institute of Psychology (IBIP) of the INTRAS Foundation in Zamora, in coordination with the University of Salamanca and the Institute of Health Sciences Studies of Castilla y Le\u00f3n (IECSYL), have developed a specific treatment can rehabilitate the ability of people with Alzheimer’s to read facial expression of emotions, according to a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":20215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-20177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actualidad-en-la-salud","tag-casalud","cat-3-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20177"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20216,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20177\/revisions\/20216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}