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Background: Discourse production is a very complex cognitive task that requires the integration of several linguistic cognitive skills. Socio-demographic factors such as schooling can impact on cognitive tasks. This study investigated the impact of age and schooling in some macrolinguistic and microlinguistic aspects in the written discourse of healthy adults., Methods: Individuals with no previous history of language, hearing, neurological, or psychiatric disorders were asked to write a story based on a figure that showed a "bank robbery." A total of 463 graphic narrative were analyzed. The schooling was stratified into the following three bands: 5 to 8 years, 9 to 11 years and 12 or more, and the age ranged from 19 to 75 years., Results: Individuals with high schooling (12 years or more) produced discourses with more information units, more coherent, and cohesive. The oldest group (60 to 75 years) needed more time to finish the written production., Conclusion: The schooling influences some micro and macrolinguistic aspects in the written discourse production. A higher educational level provided a greater number of words as well as a higher number of information units, and the discourses produced are more coherent and cohesive. The age influenced only the time of discourse production.

Purpose: To compare the Percentage of Consonants Correct (PCC) index of children with and without hearing loss, and to verify whether the time using hearing aids, the time in therapy, and the time spent until hearing loss was diagnosed influence the performance of deaf children., Methods: Participants were 30 children, 15 with hearing impairment and 15 with normal hearing, paired by gender and age. The PCC index was calculated in three different tasks: picture naming, imitation and spontaneous speech. The phonology tasks of the ABFW - Teste de Linguagem Infantil were used in the evaluation., Results: Differences were found between groups in all tasks, and normally hearing children had better results. PCC indexes presented by children with hearing loss characterized a moderately severe phonological disorder. Children enrolled in therapy for a longer period had better PCC indexes, and the longer they had been using hearing aids, the better their performances on the imitation task., Conclusion: Children with hearing loss have lower PCC indexes when compared to normally hearing children. The average performance and imitation are influenced by time in therapy and time using hearing aids.

Plasma zinc levels were measured in young controls, aged controls, patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type and patients with non-Alzheimer type dementia. Zinc levels decreased with age; however, no difference was found between patients with dementia and age-matched controls. Plasma levels of active or inactive thymulin, a nonapeptide produced and released by the thymus gland, were also determined in young controls, aged controls, patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type and patients with non-Alzheimer type dementia. Basal levels of active thymulin were decreased in aged controls and in patients with dementia. In vitro reactivation of thymulin after zinc addition to plasma samples was decreased in aged controls. A further impairment of thymulin reactivation was present in patients with dementia. A significant age-dependent decrease in lymphocyte proliferation after mitogen stimulation was found; however, no difference was present between aged controls and patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type. Interleukin-2-induced cell activation and its effect on mitogen-induced proliferation were also measured; once again only an age-associated decrease was found. The endocrine function of the thymus of patients with dementia appears to be more compromised than that from aged controls.

Ten advanced cancer patients (both with hormone-sensitive and non-hormone sensitive tumors) were treated with high dose medroxyprogesterone acetate (MAP, greater than 500 mg/day). We determined body weight, lean body mass, blood pressure, sodium blood level, urinary excretion, and exchangeable sodium pool by the 22Na method before and after treatment. These data seem to exclude a fluid retentive effect for high-dose MAP.