Browsing by Author "Colucci, Luisa"

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    Neuropsychology In North Uganda. What May Handcrafts Tell Us About Cognitive Functions ?
    (Pharmacologyonline, 2010) Lamwaka, Alice V.; Okeng, O.; Otim, M.; Colucci, Luisa; Fasanaro, Angiola Maria
    Diabetes and hypertension are increasing in several developing countries leading in a near future to a significant increase of vascular diseases. In Gulu, Northern Uganda , war and displacement have increased the disease burden. We report here the results on cognitive performances found during an health education program directed towards diabetic and /or hypertensive patients with poor therapeutic compliance and consisting in weekly meetings during which sugar blood and arterial pressure were checked. Patients were encouraged to do several handcrafts comprehending some well known and some new crafts where new elements were introduced, requiring therefore the shifting to new strategies. Patients were taught for one month and then left to operate on their own. Performances were evaluated as: 1) good execution of both tasks 2) good execution of the “old “ but not of the “new” task 3) bad execution of both. It was found that patients with diabetes only and hypertension only had similar results as 34% of patients did well both tasks and the same percentage failed in both. Patients with both diseases performed significantly worst a 48% of them were unable to correctly perform both the well known and the new tasks and particularly failed in these lasts. These results seem to indicate that subclinical brain lesions usually found in middle aged subjects in our areas are leading there to very early cognitive impairments. Prevention programs are therefore strongly needed.