BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The effect of cognitive intervention in patients with dementia is inconsistent. This study sought to find out the effect of cognitive intervention by measuring interval change between before and after intervention. METHODS: We evaluated cognitive changes according to clinical diagnostic group across Gangwon province for 940 patients with dementia diagnosed at hospital clinics and 2,975 subjects without dementia. All subjects were treated with cognitive intervention. They underwent a cognitive and mood assessment before and after intervention. We used interval change of Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores as a primary measure of interventional outcome. RESULTS: Changes in mean MMSE score were significantly different between the non-dementia group and the dementia group (p=0.016), with changes of 0.7±2.4 and 1.0±3.7 points (±standard deviation), respectively. Cognitive improvement regarding completion of session was significantly higher in the dementia group (p=0.001), with changes of 0.41±4.51 for uncompleted group and 1.30±3.22 points for completed ones. Lower initial MMSE scores, lower age, and type of intervention were found to be independent predictive factors of subsequent cognitive changes as indicated by mean MMSE scores. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that cognitive intervention might be useful for patients with dementia. Their response to treatment might be related to the type of intervention.
Cognitive Therapy ; Dementia* ; Gangwon-do ; Humans

OBJECTIVE: To prospectively evaluate the performance of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) to monitor bowel inflammation after medical therapy for Crohn's disease (CD). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Before and following 1–2 years of medical therapy, between October 2012 and May 2015, 18 randomly selected adult CD patients (male:female, 13:5; mean age ± SD, 25.8 ± 7.9 years at the time of enrollment) prospectively underwent MR enterography (MRE) including DWI (b = 900 s/mm²) and ileocolonoscopy. Thirty-seven prospectively defined index lesions (one contiguous endoscopy-confirmed inflamed area chosen from each inflamed anatomical bowel segment; 1–4 index lesions per patient; median, 2 lesions) were assessed on pre- and post-treatment MRE and endoscopy. Visual assessment of treatment responses on DWI in 4 categories including complete remission and reduced, unchanged or increased inflammation, and measurements of changes in apparent diffusion coefficient (ΔADC), i.e., pre-treatment–post-treatment, were performed by 2 independent readers. Endoscopic findings and CD MRI activity index (CDMI) obtained using conventional MRE served as reference standards. RESULTS: ΔADC significantly differed between improved (i.e., complete remission and reduced inflammation) and unimproved (i.e., unchanged or increased inflammation) lesions: mean ± SD (× 10⁻³ mm²/s) of -0.65 ± 0.58 vs. 0.06 ± 0.15 for reader 1 (p = 0.022) and -0.68 ± 0.56 vs. 0.10 ± 0.26 for reader 2 (p = 0.025). DWI accuracy for diagnosing complete remission or improved inflammation ranged from 76% (28/37) to 84% (31/37). A significant negative correlation was noted between ΔADC and ΔCDMI for both readers with correlation coefficients of -0.438 and -0.461, respectively (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: DWI is potentially a feasible tool to monitor quantitatively and qualitatively bowel inflammation of CD after medical treatment.
Adult ; Crohn Disease* ; Diffusion ; Endoscopy ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Inflammation* ; Longitudinal Studies* ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Prospective Studies*