Your search for: 'author:("Chang, Yu-Ling")' has returned 6 results. (0.013s) Save search

Authors: Chang, Yu-Ling | Zhuo, Yi-Yuan | Luo, Di-Hua

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Background: Studies have reported that apolipoprotein E epsilon 4 (APOE ɛ4) has adverse effects on executive functions (EFs) in late adulthood. However, the results have been inconsistent. Insufficient measurements of executive functioning, uncontrolled clinical and demographic confounders, and moderation effects from other environmental factors are suspected to account for the inconsistency. Objective: This study used aggregate measures to examine the effects of APOE ɛ4 on four components of EFs, namely switching, working memory, inhibition, and reasoning. We further investigated whether high educational attainment, a proxy measure for cognitive reserve, moderates the adverse effects of ɛ4 on EFs. Methods: Cognitively unimpaired …older participants were divided into groups based on APOE genotype and into subgroups based on educational attainment level. The demographic and clinical variables were matched between the groups. Four core components of the EFs were measured using a relatively comprehensive battery. Results: The results revealed that although no main effect of the APOE genotype was observed across the four EF components, the potentially adverse effects of ɛ4 on inhibition were alleviated by high educational attainment. A main effect of education on the reasoning component was also observed. The moderation analysis revealed that for older adults with 12 years of education or fewer, the relationship between the APOE ɛ4 genotype and inhibition performance became increasingly negative. Conclusion: This study highlights the distinctive role of response inhibition in the gene–environment interaction and underlines the importance of considering factors of both nature and nurture to understand the complex process of cognitive aging. Show more

Keywords: Apolipoproteins E, cognitive aging, cognitive reserve, education, executive function

DOI: 10.3233/JAD-210183

Citation: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. 82, no. 3, pp. 1147-1157, 2021

Authors: Tseng, Yun-Ting | Chang, Yu-Ling | Chiu, Yen-Shiang

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Background: Individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), especially for those with multidomain cognitive deficits, should be clinically examined for determining risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. English-speakers with aMCI exhibit language impairments mostly at the lexical–semantic level. Given that the language processing of Mandarin Chinese is different from that of alphabetic languages, whether previous findings for English-speakers with aMCI can be generalized to Mandarin Chinese speakers with aMCI remains unclear. Objective: This study examined the multifaceted language functions of Mandarin Chinese speakers with aMCI and compared them with those without cognitive impairment by using a newly developed language test battery. …Methods: Twenty-three individuals with aMCI and 29 individuals without cognitive impairment were recruited. The new language test battery comprises five language domains (oral production, auditory and reading comprehension, reading aloud, repetition, and writing). Results: Compared with the controls, the individuals with aMCI exhibited poorer performance in the oral production and auditory and reading comprehension domains, especially on tests involving effortful lexical and semantic processing. Moreover, the aMCI group made more semantic naming errors compared with their counterparts and tended to experience difficulty in processing items belonging to the categories of living objects. Conclusions: The pattern identified in the present study is similar to that of English-speaking individuals with aMCI across multiple language domains. Incorporating language tests involving lexical and semantic processing into clinical practice is essential and can help identify early language dysfunction in Mandarin Chinese speakers with aMCI. Show more

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, language tests, Mandarin Chinese, mild cognitive impairment, neuropsychological tests

DOI: 10.3233/JAD-230871

Citation: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. 97, no. 3, pp. 1189-1209, 2024

Authors: Chang, Yu-Ling | Yen, Yu-Shiuan | Chen, Ta-Fu | Yan, Sui-Hing | Tseng, Wen-Yih Isaac

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: This study investigated the putative changes in regional gray matter and cingulum bundle segments in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) by using two diagnostic criteria. Participants comprised 50 older adults with MCI and 22 healthy older controls (HC). The older adults with MCI were further divided into two groups defined by a global Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) score of 0.5 and with (the CDR/NPT MCI group) or without (the CDR MCI group) objective cognitive impairments determined using neuropsychological tests (NPTs). Comparable regional gray matter integrity was observed among the three groups. However, the integrity of the right inferior segment of the …cingulum bundle in the two MCI groups was more reduced than that in the HC group, and the CDR/NPT MCI group exhibited additional disruption in the left inferior cingulum bundle. The results also demonstrated that neuropsychological measures have greater predictive value for changes in white matter beyond the contribution of an informant-based instrument alone. Overall, the findings confirm the utility of informant-based assessment in detecting microstructural brain changes in high-risk older adults, even before objective cognitive impairment is evident. The findings also suggest that combining the neuropsychological measures with the informant-based assessment provided the greatest predictive value in assessing white matter disruption. The essential role of the white matter measurement as a biomarker for detecting individuals at a high risk of developing dementia was highlighted. Show more

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, cognition, diffusion magnetic resonance imaging, early diagnosis, mild cognitive impairment, neuropsychology

DOI: 10.3233/JAD-150599

Citation: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 411-423, 2016

Authors: Chang, Yu-Ling | Chen, Ta-Fu | Shih, Yao-Chia | Chiu, Ming-Jang | Yan, Sui-Hing | Tseng, Wen-Yih Isaac

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), which has a high risk of progression to Alzheimer's disease (AD), can be classified into single domain (S-aMCI) and multiple domain (M-aMCI) subtypes. We investigated the integrity of regional gray matter and segments of the cingulum bundle with diffusion spectrum imaging tract-specific analysis, and their relationships to neuropsychological functioning, in 46 individuals with aMCI (S-aMCI n = 24; M-aMCI n = 22) and 36 healthy controls (HC). Results demonstrated that although both aMCI groups were impaired on all memory measures relative to HCs, the M-aMCI group demonstrated worse performance on paired association memory and on …selective executive function relative to the S-aMCI group. The two aMCI groups did not show significant atrophy in regional gray matter indices as compared to the HC group, but the M-aMCI group showed significant disruption in white matter of the left anterior and inferior cingulum bundles relative to the S-aMCI and HC groups. Furthermore, disruption in the inferior cingulum bundles was significantly associated with executive function and attention/processing speed in all aMCI participants above and beyond the contribution of bilateral hippocampal volumes. Overall, these results indicate that the degeneration of cingulum fibers did not appear to arise from degeneration of the corresponding cerebral cortex. It also suggests relatively greater sensitivity of a white matter biomarker and comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation over gray matter biomarkers in early detection of AD. Show more

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, cognition, diffusion magnetic resonance imaging, mild cognitive impairment, neuropsychology

DOI: 10.3233/JAD-141839

Citation: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 125-138, 2015

Authors: Chang, Yu-Ling | Luo, Di-Hua | Huang, Tsung-Ren | Goh, Joshua O.S. | Yeh, Su-Ling | Fu, Li-Chen

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Background: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which is common in older adults, is a risk factor for dementia. Rapidly growing health care demand associated with global population aging has spurred the development of new digital tools for the assessment of cognitive performance in older adults. Objective: To overcome methodological drawbacks of previous studies (e.g., use of potentially imprecise screening tools that fail to include patients with MCI), this study investigated the feasibility of assessing multiple cognitive functions in older adults with and without MCI by using a social robot. Methods: This study included 33 older adults with or without MCI and …33 healthy young adults. We examined the utility of five robotic cognitive tests focused on language, episodic memory, prospective memory, and aspects of executive function to classify age-associated cognitive changes versus MCI. Standardized neuropsychological tests were collected to validate robotic test performance. Results: The assessment was well received by all participants. Robotic tests assessing delayed episodic memory, prospective memory, and aspects of executive function were optimal for differentiating between older adults with and without MCI, whereas the global cognitive test (i.e., Mini-Mental State Examination) failed to capture such subtle cognitive differences among older adults. Furthermore, robot-administered tests demonstrated sound ability to predict the results of standardized cognitive tests, even after adjustment for demographic variables and global cognitive status. Conclusion: Overall, our results suggest the human–robot interaction approach is feasible for MCI identification. Incorporating additional cognitive test measures might improve the stability and reliability of such robot-assisted MCI diagnoses. Show more

Keywords: Cognitive assessment, dementia, health care, human–robot interaction, mild cognitive impairment, older adults

DOI: 10.3233/JAD-215015

Citation: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. 85, no. 3, pp. 1129-1142, 2022

Authors: Chuang, Yu-Chen | Chiu, Ming-Jang | Chen, Ta-Fu | Chang, Yu-Ling | Lai, Ya-Mei | Cheng, Ting-Wen | Hua, Mau-Sun

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Background: The issue of whether there exists an own-effect on facial recognition in the elderly remains equivocal. Moreover, currently the literature of this issue in pathological aging is little. Objective: Our study was thus to explore the issue in both of healthy older people and patients with AD Methods: In study 1, 27 older and 31 younger healthy adults were recruited; in study 2, 27 healthy older adults and 80 patients (including subjective cognitive decline (SCD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) groups) were recruited. Participants received the Taiwan Facial Emotion Recognition Task (FER Task), and a clinical …neuropsychological assessment. Results: No significant differences on the FER test were found among our groups, except for sadness recognition in which our MCI and AD patients’ scores were remarkably lower than their healthy counterparts. The own-age effect was not significantly evident in healthy younger and older adults, except for recognizing neutral photos. Our patients with MCI and AD tended to have the effect, particularly for the sad recognition in which the effect was significantly evident in terms of error features (mislabeling it as anger in younger-face and neutral in older-face photos). Conclusion: Our results displayed no remarkable own-age effect on facial emotional recognition in the healthy elderly (including SCD). However, it did not appear the case for MCI and AD patients, especially their recognizing those sadness items, suggesting that an inclusion of the FER task particularly involving those items of low-intensity emotion in clinical neuropsychological assessment might be contributory to the early detection of AD-related pathological individuals. Show more

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, amnestic mild cognitive impairment, early detection, facial emotion recognition task, subjective memory decline, Taiwanese

DOI: 10.3233/JAD-200916

Citation: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. 80, no. 1, pp. 259-269, 2021