David Facal

University of Santiago de Compostela | USC · Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación

The increasing prevalence of dementia demands innovative solutions; however, existing technological products often lack tailored support for individuals living with this condition. The Living Lab approach, as a collaborative innovation method, holds promise in addressing this issue by actively involving end-users in the design and development of so...

Background: Social innovation and gerontology develop a wide range of actions aimed at supporting and improving the needs of long-lived populations. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are drivers of change, and their potential to develop solutions through teaching students’ social innovation skills should be considered in the field of longevity....

Objectives The situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the mental, physical, and social health of nursing home staff. The operations and protocols of long-term care facilities had to be adapted to a new, unforeseen, and unknown situation in which a devastating and highly contagious disease was causing large numbers of deaths....

Coping with dementia requires an integrated approach encompassing personal, health, research, and community domains. Here we describe “Walking the Talk for Dementia,” an immersive initiative aimed at empowering people with dementia, enhancing dementia understanding, and inspiring collaborations. This initiative involved 300 participants from 25 nat...

El proyecto de aprendizaje-servicio (ApS) «Actividades INTERgeneracionales para el Desarrollo de Competencias DIGITALES de los Adultos Mayores -INTERDIGITALES» fue implementado entre los meses de marzo y mayo de 2022 en el Centro Sociocultural de Fontiñas (Santiago de Compostela), participando personas mayores de 65 años (n=8), usuarias del centro,...

Objectives: Entrepreneurship Education (EE) plays a pivotal role in stimulating entrepreneurial performance and nurturing innovative ideas. Recognizing the essential role of doctoral programs within the education system, it becomes crucial for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to integrate EE into these programs. Methodology: This study presents...

Background The Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist (MBI‐C) is a 34 Neuropsychiatric Symptoms (NPS) checklist for the evaluation of pre‐dementia states. Our aim was to analyze which MBI‐C symptoms could best discriminate between participants with different cognitive outcomes both at baseline and at diagnosis time (after 50‐75 months). Method A tot...

Background Cognitive frailty (CF) has been defined as the simultaneous presence of physical frailty (PF) and subjective or objective cognitive impairment, with current definitions differentiating, respectively, between reversible and potentially reversible CF. The former is indicated by subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and the latter by Mild Cogn...

Episodic memory (EM), one of the most commonly assessed cognitive domains in aging, is useful for identifying pathological processes such as mild cognitive impairment and dementia. However, EM tests must be culturally adapted, and the influence of sociodemographic variables analyzed, to provide cut-off points that enable correct diagnosis. The aim...

Background Frailty is the state of physiological vulnerability that hindered age‐related decline that precedes disability. However, some functional decline in IADLs is expected, particularly when co‐occurring with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Our aim was to analyze differences in IADLs between prefrailty and frailty participants with or without...

Education can be a central tool for stimulating entrepreneurship, establishing positive links between entrepreneurship education (EE), entrepreneurship performance and development of innovative ideas. Recognizing the pivotal role of doctoral programs within the education system, it becomes crucial for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to incorpo...

Objective: This paper reports normative data for different attentional tests obtained from a sample of middle-aged and older native Spanish adults and considering effects of age, educational level and sex. Method: 2,597 cognitively intact participants, aged from 50 to 98 years old, participated voluntarily in the SCAND consortium studies. The stati...

Objectives: To analyze the impacts of the restrictions implemented in LTCF during the COVID-19 pandemic on the psychological and functional status of older adults. Design: A retrospective multicentre study is designed. We hypothesize that the negative effects of the restrictions will lead to a higher rate of decline between the measures taken immed...

The development of immunosuppressants has been key for the advancement of solid organ transplant surgery. Specifically, cyclosporine, tacrolimus, or everolimus have significantly increased the survival rate of patients by reducing the risk of a rejection of the transplanted organ and limiting graft-versus-host disease. We report the case of a 65-ye...

Background Research on prevalence of cognitive frailty phenotypes in community-dwelling older adults in different countries is important to estimate their prevalence and to determine the influence of cognitive reserve and mental health in order to prevent frailty. The aims of this study were to estimate the prevalence of reversible and potentially...

In this editorial, we aim to highlight some lessons learned in our field and to discuss some open questions regarding the continuum between healthy cognitive aging and dementia [...]

Resumen Introducción: La pandemia por la COVID-19 ha generado grandes cambios en el funcionamiento diario de los centros residenciales; poco se sabe del impacto que ha tenido en los profesionales que trabajan en residencias de personas mayores en España. Esta investigación surge por la necesidad de explorar cuál ha sido la situación vivida durante...

Background Dual tasking, or the ability to executing two tasks simultaneously, has been used in recent research to predict cognitive impairments, physical frailty, and has been linked with cognitive frailty in old adults. Aim This study aimed to determine age-related variables can predict dual-task (DT) performance in the older population. Method...

Declining birth rates and increasing life expectancy are bringing with them the aging of the European population, which presents not only challenges but also a significant economic opportunity. This group of consumers fits into the so-called silver economy (SE), linked to aging as an unlocking of new market opportunities. Based on review publicatio...

Depression is one of the most prevalent pathologies in older adults. Its diagnosis and treatment are complex due to different factors that intervene in its development and progression, including intercurrent organic diseases, perceptual deficits, use of drugs, and psycho-social conditions associated with the aging process. We present the case of a...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, long-term care (LTC) centers have adopted a series of measures that have affected the physical and cognitive health of patients. The routines of the patients, as well as the interventions of professionals, have been altered. In the case presented here, our aim was to explain the effect that the strong confinement due t...

This review article provides an update of the empirical research on cognitive fragility conducted in the last four years. The studies retrieved were classified in four different categories. The first category includes articles relating cognitive frailty to cognitive reserve and which continue to highlight the importance of educational level. The se...

Background Severity of the neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) is expected to have a negative impact on IADL, adding to the effect that cognitive decline can have and could lead to further impairment of functionality. Our objective was to analyze differences in IADL between two longitudinal evaluations in SCC participants with null, intermediate, or hi...

Background Subjective cognitive complaints (SCCs) are a risk factor to dementia. Self‐ and informant‐reports may have different predictive validity along the cognitive decline continuum. We aimed to analyze longitudinal differences between self‐ and informant‐reports in stable(‐s) and worsening(‐w) SCD and MCI participants, and the predictive value...

Adult development throughout a lifetime implies a series of changes in systems, including cognitive and linguistic functioning. The aim of this article is to study the effect of foreign language training on linguistic processing, particularly the frequency of the tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon and on other cognitive processes such as processing...

INVENTHEI (INnoVation and ENTrepreneurship in Higher Education Institutions) is an European project aimed to enhance the regional innovation ecosystems and promote innovation-driven research. In Spain, the University of Santiago de Compostela participates through the Master’s Degree in Psychogerontology (Faculty of Psychology) and the Master’s Degr...

Background Family caregivers of persons with dementia often experience a negative impact on their health. More studies based on nursing theories are needed to improve the provision of care. Aims To describe the care provided by family caregivers of persons with dementia and the impact on their health, as well as to analyse how personal variables o...

(1) Background: Long-term care facilities (LTCFs) have been harmed by the coronavirus, and older adults have remained isolated for a long time with many restrictions. The aim of this study was to measure the decline in cognitive, functional, and affective status in a care facility after the lockdown in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and to...

Background: The presence of subjective cognitive complaints (SCCs) is a core criterion for diagnosis of subjective cognitive decline (SCD); however, no standard procedure for distinguishing normative and non-normative SCCs has yet been established. Objective: To determine whether differentiation of participants with SCD according to SCC severity...

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic required a population lockdown during the first wave in March 2020. Evidence has shown a circular relationship between perceived threat and the risk of developing negative mood, which might impact the affect balance of older adults. We aimed to investigate the positive and negative feelings expressed by young–old (...

Our aim was to calculate the 'Timed Up & Go' (TUG) normative scores in a Spanish sample composed of functional older adults. The TUG test provides a measure of global ambulation skills and its total score has been successfully related with functionality and other important health variables in older adults. Reliable norms are needed for adults 50 ye...

Background: Apathy and agitation are often recognized as the most problematic behavioural and psychological symptoms in care settings. In this study, we analyze the relationship between apathy and agitation symptoms other and their relationship with demographic, cognitive, and neuropsychiatric variables and psychotropic medication use. Methods:...

Background Dementia is a brain syndrome that affects a growing number of persons worldwide and generates a strong and progressive demand for care from a family caregiver, usually females. Objective We aimed to describe the care provided by family caregivers of persons with dementia as well as the impact on their health and its interrelation with g...

Background: Detecting cognitive impairment is a priority for health systems. The aim of this study is to create normative data on screening tests (MMSE, GDS and MFE) for middle-aged and older Spanish adults, considering the effects of sociodemographic factors. Method: A total of 2,030 cognitively intact subjects who lived in the community, aged...

En este trabajo se realiza una propuesta de comunicación transdisciplinar entre las ciencias cognitivas y la educación, tal y como se perfilan en el siglo XXI. En un primer lugar se contextualizan estos procesos de comunicación en el continuum histórico que transita desde los inicios del siglo pasado, con la configuración de la psicología educativa...

Cognitive frailty (CF) is a topic of growing interest with implications for the study of preventive interventions in aging. Nevertheless, little research has been done to assess the influence of psychosocial variables on the risk of CF. Our objectives were to estimate the prevalence of CF in a Spanish sample and to explore the influence of psychoso...

Background: The global pandemic of COVID-19 has required a population lockdown. Spain has one of the oldest/most aging populations in the world and was one of the most affected countries. We aim to describe the psychological and social implications as well as health-related behaviors as a result of the lockdown in community-dwelling older adults. M...

Background Neurobehavioral Symptoms (NPS) have been usually measured with the Neuropsychiatric‐Inventory (NPI‐Q) (Kaufer et al., 2000) in pre‐dementia individuals. However, this instrument was designed to dementia states. The Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist (MBI‐C) (Ismail et al., 2017) is an instrument developed to evaluate NPS in pre‐dementi...

Background Presence of significant subjective complaints about cognition (SCD) is considered the first behavioral manifestation of Alzheimer disease (AD). However, SCD has not yet overcome the challenge of becoming a reliable preclinical AD marker. Severity indices were proposed to improve the accuracy of complaints when predicting the risk of AD (...

Background The concept of cognitive frailty has been defined as the simultaneous presence of frailty and mild cognitive impairment in absence of dementia, although recent approaches has considered cognitive frailty as a distinct construct and has taken into account different domains of physical frailty (De Roeck et al., 2020). The aim of the presen...

Background Cognitive frailty (CF) has been considered as a subtype of frailty characterized by concurrent physical frailty and potentially cognitive impairment (Kelaiditi et al., 2013). Early detection of CF is an important issue in order to implement prevention and intervention to improve quality of life in aging. The aim of this study was to expl...

Objective The aim of this pilot study was to investigate differences on dual‐ and triple‐task performance in institutionalized pre‐frail and frail older adults. Performance on these tasks is relevant since many activities of daily living involve simultaneous motor and cognitive tasks. Methods We used a phenotypic description of frailty based on th...

Objective: Mindfulness is the ability to pay attention to the present moment without judgment. Mindfulness interventions have proved to be effective in improving the management of psychological symptoms of chronic patients. The objective of this work is to update the evidence about the effects of mindfulness interventions on psychological symptoms...

Introduction: To understand the potential influence of diversity on the measurement of functional impairment in dementia, we aimed to investigate possible bias caused by age, gender, education, and cultural differences. Methods: A total of 3571 individuals (67.1 ± 9.5 years old, 44.7% female) from The Netherlands, Spain, France, United States, U...

Background Mild cognitive impairment (MCI), as a stage in the cognitive continuum between normal ageing and dementia, is mainly characterized by memory impairment. The aims of this study were to examine CANTAB measures of temporal changes of visual memory in MCI and to evaluate the usefulness of the baseline scores for predicting changes in cogniti...

Introduction. Cognitive decline usually coexists with motor impairment in PD. Multitask settings provide appropriate measures to evaluate the complex interaction between motor and cognitive impairments. The main objective was to analyze which concurrent task, i. e., motor or hybrid motor-cognitive, in combination with a cognitive task better differ...

Background The Tip-of-the-Tongue (ToTs) state is considered a universal phenomenon and is a frequent cognitive complaint in old age. Previous cross-sectional studies have found that ToT measures successfully discriminate between cognitively unimpaired adults and adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). The aim of this study was to identify long...

INTRODUCTION: To understand the potential influence of diversity on the measurement of functional impairment in dementia, we aimed to investigate possible bias caused by age, gender, education, and cultural differences. METHODS: 3,571 individuals (67.1 +- 9.5 years old, 44.7% female) from the Netherlands, Spain, France, United States, United Kingdo...

Self-efficacy (SE) has been shown to be a remarkable cognitive factor affecting health. Subjective perception of memory and other cognitive failures (i.e., subjective cognitive complaints [SCC]) have been associated with self-perception. The authors studied whether SE is a relevant subjective variable in predicting SCC in middle-aged adults living...

The relationship between obesity and asthma exacerbations is still under debate. The aim of our work is to analyse the relationship between obesity and hospital re-admissions in asthmatics. A review was retrospectively performed on all hospital admissions of adult patients due to asthma exacerbation occurring in our hospital for 11 years. All those...

Background: Neuropsychiatric Symptoms (NPS) are common in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). The Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) and its shorter version, the Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire (NPI-Q), are the most common measures to assess NPS. Our objective was to determine if NPI/NPI-Q ratings predict conversion from MCI to dementia. Meth...

(1) Background: Early identification of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in people reporting subjective cognitive complaints (SCC) and the study of progression of cognitive decline are important issues in dementia research. This paper examines whether empirically derived procedures predict progression from MCI to dementia. (2) Methods: At baseline,...

Objective To study the influence of cognitive reserve (CR) on cognitive performance of individuals with subjective cognitive complaints (SCCs) within a period of 36 months. Design We used a general linear model repeated measures procedure to analyze the differences in performance between three assessments. We used a longitudinal structural equatio...

(1) Background: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a diagnostic label in which stability is typically low. The aim of this study was to examine temporal changes in the diagnosis of MCI subtypes by using an overlapping-time strategy; (2) Methods: The study included 435 participants aged over 50 years with subjective cognitive complaints and who comp...

Objectives To use a Machine Learning (ML) approach to compare Neuropsychiatric Symptoms (NPS) in participants of a longitudinal study who developed dementia and those who did not. Design Mann-Whitney U and ML analysis. Nine ML algorithms were evaluated using a 10-fold stratified validation procedure. Performance metrics (accuracy, recall, F-1 scor...

Objectives: To use a Machine Learning (ML) approach to compare Neuropsychiatric Symptoms (NPS) in participants of a longitudinal study who developed dementia and those who did not. Design: Mann-Whitney U and ML analysis. Nine ML algorithms were evaluated using a 10-fold stratified validation procedure. Performance metrics (accuracy, recall, F-1 sco...

The present article discusses the ability of an ensemble of machine learning models to implement classification strategies to discriminate among mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Cognitive Unimpaired (CU). For this, a battery of games that assesses the most relevant markers for the early diagnosis of cognitive impairment...

Introduction: Alzheimer's disease is a degenerative brain disease and the most common cause of dementia. Today, 47 million people live with dementia worldwide. This number is projected to increase to more than 131 million by 2050, as populations age. Therefore, the World Health Organization considers serious cognitive deterioration a public health...

Objectives The overall aim of the present study was to explore the role of Cognitive Reserve (CR) in the conversion from Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) to dementia. We used traditional and Machine Learning (ML) techniques to compare converter and non‐converter participants. We also discuss the predictive value of CR proxies in relation to the ML m...