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Background/Objectives: Vulnerability to sound distraction is commonly reported in older adults with dementia and tends to be associated with adverse impacts on daily activity. However, study outcome heterogeneity is increasingly evident, with preserved resistance to distraction also evident. Contributory factors may include individual differences in distractibility in older adulthood per se, and failure to consider the influence of how difficult a person found the test. Methods: We therefore measured distractibility in a group of older adults by comparing the performance of a primary visual task (Swansea Test of Attentional Control), which includes an adaptive algorithm to take into account how difficult a person finds the test under both no-sound and sound conditions. Results: Analysis revealed no significant difference in group mean performance between no-sound versus sound conditions [t (33) = 0.181, p = 0.858; Cohen’s effect size d = −0.028], but individual differences in performance both within and between sound and no-sound conditions were evident, indicating that for older adults, distracting sounds can be neutral, detrimental, or advantageous with respect to visual task performance. It was not possible to determine individual thresholds for whether sound versus no-sound conditions affected a person’s actual behaviour. Conclusions: Nevertheless, our findings indicate how variable such effects may be in older adults, which in turn may help to explain outcome heterogeneity in studies including people living with dementia. Furthermore, such within-group heterogeneity highlights the importance of considering a person’s individual performance in order to better understand their behaviour and initiate interventions as required.

This study provides analysis and insight into the views and experiences of 12 top executives of FTSE 350 companies about appointing women to their boards, against background growth in the number of female non-executive directors but the number of female executive director appointments showing no progress. Findings showed that the idea of women on boards as non-executive directors is well embedded, yet many barriers to increasing the numbers of women executive directors remain. Lack of robust selection processes, negative views of executive search companies, and views about the shortage of suitably qualified women are reported while most participants did not view the development of the female executive pipeline as a top priority. Findings suggest that public focus on increasing the number of non-executive directors has been effective, attention should be shifted to galvanise efforts in FTSE companies to develop their female talent and increase executive director numbers.

UNLABELLED:Restoring vision in inherited retinal degenerations remains an unmet medical need. In mice exhibiting a genetically engineered block of the visual cycle, vision was recently successfully restored by oral administration of 9-cis-retinyl acetate (QLT091001). Safety and visual outcomes of a once-daily oral dose of 40 mg/m2/day QLT091001 for 7 consecutive days was investigated in an international, multi-center, open-label, proof-of-concept study in 18 patients with RPE65- or LRAT-related retinitis pigmentosa. Eight of 18 patients (44%) showed a ≥20% increase and 4 of 18 (22%) showed a ≥40% increase in functional retinal area determined from Goldmann visual fields; 12 (67%) and 5 (28%) of 18 patients showed a ≥5 and ≥10 ETDRS letter score increase of visual acuity, respectively, in one or both eyes at two or more visits within 2 months of treatment. In two patients who underwent fMRI, a significant positive response was measured to stimuli of medium contrast, moving, pattern targets in both left and right hemispheres of the occipital cortex. There were no serious adverse events. Treatment-related adverse events were transient and the most common included headache, photophobia, nausea, vomiting, and minor biochemical abnormalities. Measuring the outer segment length of the photoreceptor layer with high-definition optical coherence tomography was highly predictive of treatment responses with responders having a significantly larger baseline outer segment thickness (11.7 ± 4.8 μm, mean ± 95% CI) than non-responders (3.5 ± 1.2 μm). This structure-function relationship suggests that treatment with QLT091001 is more likely to be efficacious if there is sufficient photoreceptor integrity. TRIAL REGISTRATION:ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01014052.