Major Nutritional Metabolic Alterations Influencing the Reproductive System of Postpartum Dairy Cows

Early successful conception of postpartum dairy cows is crucial in determining the optimum reproductive efficiency and profitability in modern dairy farming. Due to the inherent high production potential of modern dairy cows, the extra stress burden of peri-parturient events, and associated endocrine and metabolic changes causes negative energy balance (NEBAL) in postpartum cows. The occurrence of NEBAL is associated with excessive fat mobilization in the form of non-esterified fatty acids (NEFAs). The phenomenon of NEFA mobilization furthers with occurrence of ketosis and fatty liver in postpartum dairy cows. High NEFAs and ketones are negatively associated with health and reproductive processes. An additional burden of hypocalcemia, ruminal acidosis, and high protein metabolism in postpartum cows presents further consequences for health and reproductive performance of postpartum dairy cows. This review intends to comprehend these major nutritional metabolic alterations, their mechanisms of influence on the reproduction process, and relevant mitigation strategies.

Interventions for QoL and Other Outcomes Among Caregivers of Older Adults With Visual Impairments

Unpaid family caregivers play a critical role in the care of older adults with visual impairments (VI). Caring for older adults with VI requires much time and energy, often resulting in psychological stress and reduced quality of life (QoL). However, there is a paucity of data on the impact of caregiving on QoL and related outcomes among these caregivers. The purpose of this study was to conduct a scoping review examining issues of QoL, health, stress, burden, and barriers among unpaid caregivers of older adults (i.e. aged 60 years or more) with VI. The study aimed to summarize interventions for addressing these issues. This study followed the Arksey and O’Malley (2005) five stage approach for scoping reviews. We performed a search of published peer-reviewed articles available in PubMed, CINAHL Complete, and PsycINFO to identify relevant studies. Two reviewers conducted the screening of titles, abstracts, and full-texts. Of the 452 records identified, 24 were eligible for full-text screening and five articles met the final inclusion criteria. The following four themes were identified: (1) prevalence of QoL-related barriers among unpaid caregivers of older adults with VI; (2) adverse events among unpaid caregivers of older adults with VI; (3) interventions for unpaid caregivers of older adults with VI; and (4) potential impacts of intervention on unpaid caregivers of older adults with VI. These findings reveal a lack of interventions for unpaid caregivers of older adults with VI, despite the prevalence of QoL-related barriers and adverse events. Research addressing these issues are urgently needed.

Pivoting during the pandemic: A case study of the Senior Companion Program Plus

Introduction Growing research supports the use of older volunteers to provide respite and community-based assistance to persons with ADRD and their caregivers. This study explores the impact of COVID-19 on a face-to-face, peer-led psychoeducational intervention for African American ADRD family caregivers, the Senior Companion Program Plus (SCP-Plus), and its subsequent need to ‘pivot’ during the pandemic. Method: The SCP-Plus was a randomized control trial across three states that assessed program impact on ADRD family caregiver stress/burden, coping, and social support. In spring 2020, the SCP-Plus intervention was halted because of the potential risk to participants due to COVID-19 (n = 20 enrolled dyads). In an effort to maintain rapport and trust, critical to retention in research studies, team members began weekly (March-April) and then bi-weekly calls (May-December) for the purpose of providing a social check-in and to provide updates on the status of the intervention. Results A total of 396 calls lasting approximately 10 minutes each were completed. Participants shared concerns around safety, access to food/supplies/masks/testing, feelings of stress and loss, concern for others, and the importance of technology as a means of social connection. Although the intervention aspect of the SCP-Plus ultimately ended due to COVID-19, information gleaned from these check-ins were used to pivot the study. The study moved forward by using a descriptive phenomenological approach to capture dyads’ lived experiences during COVID-19. Discussion Overall, purposeful participant engagement through weekly/bi-weekly phone calls suggests that this is a promising strategy for participant retention as well as for pivoting research.

Cumulative Stress Burden and Cognitive Function in African American Adults Living in Low-Income Neighborhoods

African Americans (AA) are more likely to experience stressors due to racial discrimination and segregated neighborhoods, potentially contributing to higher risk for dementia. We investigated the association between stressors and cognitive function in older AA adults through cumulative stress burden (CSB) indices. Stressors and cognitive domains were measured in 253 participants >50 years, recruited from primarily AA neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, PA. CSB included perceived and psychological distress, unfair treatment, post-traumatic stress disorder, and neighborhood-level stressors such as walkability, safety, satisfaction, and social cohesion. Indices were formed by dichotomizing stressor scores and summing. Cognitive domains were z-scores adjusted for age, sex, and education. Adjusted generalized linear models assessed the relation between CSB indices and cognition, and between specific stressors and cognition. Interactions with age were tested. Greater individual-level CSB index was associated with lower language (□= -0.11, p= 0.03) and executive function (□= -0.087, p=0.04). The neighborhood-level CSB index was not associated with any cognitive domain. The combined index was marginally associated with language in adjusted models (□= -0.07, p= 0.05). There were no significant associations between specific stressors and cognition, except for neighborhood safety with 3MS (□= -0.28, p= 0.001) and language (□= -0.16, p= 0.02). Age interactions indicate that findings were stronger for younger participants. Greater cumulative stress is associated with poorer cognitive function in some domains in older AA. A comprehensive assessment of cumulative stress is vital in understanding the dimensionality of racialized stress for older adults potentially experiencing cognitive decline.

Caregiving during the Covid-19 pandemic: Factors associated with caregiver stress and cognition

Caregivers are critical in helping persons with dementia (PWD) live at home longer, but the caregiving experience is associated with increased risk of physical (Vitaliano et al., 2003; Son et al., 2007; Fonareva & Oken, 2014) and cognitive decline among caregivers (Pertle et al., 2015; Lathan et al., 2016; Vitaliano et al., 2017). The present study examined the caregiver experience during the time of the Covid-19 pandemic including factors associated with caregiver stress, burden, and self-reported cognition (i.e., prospective and retrospective memory errors). In a sample of 56 caregivers of PWD, caregiver stress was positively associated with reports of greater life change resulting from Covid-19 and a greater frequency of care recipient depressive and disruptive behaviors; however, caregiver stress was not associated with care recipient memory problems. Additionally, caregiver burden was negatively associated with ratings of preparedness for the pandemic, but not with availability of support services or the amount of time spent caregiving. Further, frequencies of prospective and retrospective memory mistakes were positively associated with perceived stress, but not with caregiver burden. These findings reveal that caregivers of PWD report greater experiences of stress associated with the Covid-19 pandemic and other facets of their caregiving responsibilities (e.g., care recipient depressive and disruptive behaviors, frequency of memory mistakes). This work is a first step in identifying areas in which caregivers need assistance and expanding the literature on caregiver cognition by measuring self-reported everyday memory performance.

Stress Is a Latent Construct: Exploring the Differential Experience of Stress Among Black Older Adults

While evidence highlights the detrimental health consequences of stress exposure for Black Americans, the impact of stress exposure on health varies by the stressor, individual appraisal and coping mechanisms examined. In this study, we aim to explore the differential effects of chronic stress exposure by means of latent class analysis on mental and physical health. Data come from 800 Black older adults ages 52+ from the 2006 Health and Retirement Study. A set of items that include stress exposure, appraisal and coping were used to assess chronic stress burden on anxiety, depressive symptoms and chronic conditions to identify stress and health clusters. Analysis revealed four subgroups, each demonstrated a typological response pattern with the most pronounced health consequences for high stress exposure, appraisal and few or no coping mechanisms. Results show an alternative approach to examining the stress-health link by using a combined person- and variable-centered approach.

Communication Difficulties and their Association with Caregiving Burdens in Aphasic Dementia

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a clinical dementia syndrome for which there is no effective disease-modifying treatment. Impairments in language are the primary and persistent symptoms, and severely limit participation in everyday activities and family conversations. Despite this, there are no published studies examining the objective relationship between conversation difficulties and caregiving burden in PPA. We tested the hypothesis that the severity of care partner perceived conversation difficulties predicts caregiving burden using the Perception of Conversation Difficulty-Dementia Alzheimer’s Type and the Montgomery Borgatta Caregiving Burden Scale. The analysis included baseline data from 78 care partners (62% female) enrolled in the Communication BridgeTM-2 randomized control clinical trial of a speech-language intervention for PPA. Care partners had a mean age of 64.5 years (SD=10.76) and a mean relationship duration with the PPA participant of 38.6 years (SD=15.29). Eighty-six percent were spouses, 5% were adult children, and the remaining 9% were friends or siblings. Higher ratings of conversation difficulties were associated with increased caregiving burden for both objective burden (p < 0.001) and subjective stress burden (p < 0.001). The relationship between conversation difficulties and objective burden was mediated by dependence in activities of daily living and care partner depression, whereas the relationship with subjective stress burden was mediated by depression only. This is the first large scale study of care partner reported conversation difficulties and caregiving burden in PPA. The finding that conversation difficulties have a direct relationship with caregiving burden is an important consideration for interventions and outcome measurement in PPA.

Hopefulness During COVID-19: Associations With Function, Sleep, and Loneliness in the NHATS

The associations between hopefulness and function, loneliness, and sleep have not been explored in a nationally representative sample of older adults. Additionally, COVID19 dramatically increased stress burden, potentially influencing these relationships. This study used National Health and Aging Trends COVID19 Supplement data (N=2,894 adults aged ≥ 65 years) to evaluate cross-sectional associations between hopefulness about the future during COVID19 with limitations in activities of daily living (ADLs) using a negative binomial model and one-item sleep and loneliness measures using ordered logistic models. Adjusting for age, race/ethnicity, and education and applying sampling weights, increased hopefulness was associated with better ADLs (b= -0.11, p-value=0.021), less loneliness (b=-0.32, p-value=<0.001), and better sleep (b= -0.27, p-value= <0.001). In the midst of a world-wide stressor, hopefulness was associated with better function and symptoms. This relationship is likely bidirectional and further longitudinal research is needed.

Biologisation of production and technological processes in nursery farming

We conducted a retrospective analysis of national scientific and technological advances by technological design to manifest the demand for organisation processes remodelling towards the methods and approaches of the sixth design, especially in biotechnology. The article defines terms such as nursery, biologisation, promising technology and resource conservation. We analyse the fruit crop seedling production and structure of nursery-specific processes. We determine the main agrocenotic components most susceptible to chemical and technogenic impacts. Studies of soil fertility and biota prioritised the challenge of declined soil activity and biogenicity. We establish that an increased chemical pressure on fruit nursery agrocenoses leads to disturbances in benign microflora, microbiotic, acaro- and entomosystems, alters plant infection pathways and immune status. We report destructive manifestations of microbiotic, entomo- and acarosystems in agrocenoses via the emergence of new pathogenic fungal species, root rotting agents, vascular system necroses (tracheomycoses), resistant typically dominant pathogen strains, higher pathogenicity, the expansion of species list and ranges of bacterial communities, phytoplasmas, viruses and viroids, a more aggressive invasion of new pests, including stem pathogens, emerging hazardous adaptations in economically impactive phytophages. Furthermore, we consider the scientific and practical issues in fruit crop reproduction: sweeping off forms (genotypes) from selection, changes in infection pathways in candidate parental plants, reduced “plant — external environment” adaptation, impaired plant immunity under climatic and anthropogenic stress, selection of candidates with a higher production value under environmental stress burden, reduction of best-quality planting stock, seedling root system retardation, massive crown invasion with fungal and bacterial agents, inadequacy of trait databasing for promising varieties and genotyping techniques. The priority role of agrocenotic biologisation in sustainable fruit nursery is substantiated through adopting modern approaches, especially in biotechnology, based on molecular biology, biochemistry and genetic engineering.

Caregiver Tele-Assistance for Reduction of Emotional Distress During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Psychological Support to Caregivers of People with Dementia: The Italian Experience

Background: COVID-19 pandemic worsened vulnerability of patients with dementia (PWD). This new reality associated with government restriction and isolation worsened stress burden and psychological frailties in PWD caregivers. Objective: To give tele-psychological support to caregivers and evaluate the effect of this intervention by quantifying stress burden and quality of life during the first COVID-19 lockdown. Methods: 50 caregivers were divided into two groups: “Caregiver-focused group” (Cg) and “Patient-focused group” (Pg). Both groups received telephone contact every 2 weeks over a 28-week period, but the content of the call was different: in Cg, caregivers answered questions about the state of the PWD but also explored their own emotional state, stress burden, and quality of life. In Pg instead, telephone contacts were focused only on the PWD, and no evaluation regarding the caregiver mood or state of stress was made. Psychometric scales were administered to evaluate COVID-19 impact, stress burden, and quality of life. Results: Considering the time of intervention, from baseline (W0) to W28, Zarit Burden Interview and Quality of Life-caregiver questionnaires remained unchanged in Cg as compared with baseline (p > 0.05), whereas they worsened significantly in Pg (p < 0.01), showing increased stress over time and decreased quality of life in this group. Moreover, Impact on Event Scale values improved over the weeks in Cg (p = 0.015), while they remained unchanged in Pg (p = 0.483). Conclusion: Caregivers who received telephone support about their mood and stress burden did not worsen their psychological state during the time of intervention, as did instead those who did not get such support.