Browsing by Author "Weatherbee, Sarah Rose"

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    Assessing the Between- and Within-Person Relationships between Pain and Cognitive Performance in Older Adults
    (2009-08-07) Weatherbee, Sarah Rose; Thomas M. Hess, Committee Member; Shevaun D. Neupert, Committee Member; Douglas J. Gillan, Committee Member; Jason C. Allaire, Committee Chair
    The current study was part of a larger study where overarching purpose was to design a daily measure of everyday cognitive performance. The current investigation examined the extent to which self-report pain was related to cognitive performance in a sample of 148 community dwelling older adults (M = 73 years old, SD = 6.84). A multidimensional battery was used to assess socio-demographics, physical health (e.g. self-report pain, self-report physical health), mental health (e.g. negative affect, life-event stress, and daily stress), and cognitive functioning (e.g. short-term memory, processing speed, inductive reasoning, and working memory) at pretest and over 8 occasions. The direct relationship between self-report pain and cognition was examined as well as potential moderators and mediators of the pain-cognition relationship both at the between- and within-person levels. At the between-person level, self-reported pain was found to be significantly related to processing speed, where high pain was associated with slower reaction time. At the within-person level self-reported pain was found to be significantly related to working memory, where on days when self-reported pain was higher than an individual’s average, their working memory performance suffered. Within-person self-reported pain X age interactions were found for short-term memory, processing speed, and working memory. Additionally, negative affect and stress were found to moderate the pain-cognition relationship. The strength of the pain-cognition relationship is best understood by examining moderating factors such as age, stress, and negative affect. Furthermore, the handful of significant interactions at the within-person level suggest that the pain-cognition relationship is dynamic and should not be assessed at only one time point.
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    Beneficial Effects of Expressive Writing in the Elderly
    (2007-01-22) Weatherbee, Sarah Rose; Dr. Jason C. Allaire, Committee Chair; Dr. Thomas Hess, Committee Member; Dr. Katherine Klein, Committee Member
    The current investigation examined whether expressive writing produced gains in elders' cognitive functioning. Given previous research, it was expected that expressive writing would reduce intrusive thoughts, which would lead to gains in cognitive performance. In the current study community dwelling elders (n = 61) with a mean age of 75 years (range = 61 — 94; SD = 7.70) were given a 2-hour pretest battery, which consisted of measures of basic cognitive ability, everyday cognition, and intrusive thinking. Following pretesting participants were randomly assigned to either the emotional expressive writing group or the non-emotional writing group where they were instructed to write for 20 minutes on five occasions over 10-days. Following the intervention all participants returned for post-testing, which occurred seven days after the writing period. Contrary to expectations, there was no evidence of a time by condition interaction for intrusive thinking. When cognitive change was examined a pretest to posttest gain was found for processing speed performance when collapsing across the two experimental groups. A similar pattern was also found for the measure of everyday cognitive functioning within the domain of memory. Discussion will focus on the fact that changes in cognitive performance may not necessarily be attributed entirely to the intervention; rather it could be mental exercise or mere practice effects.