Demential

This study evaluates a public health campaign initiated by the Alzheimer Center Limburg of Maastricht University. The aim was to increase awareness of the influence of a healthy lifestyle on lowering the risk of dementia in community-dwelling inhabitants of the Province of Limburg (aged 40 - 75 years). The campaign used mass media and public events, supported by a campaign website and mobile application (MijnBreincoach app).  An additional district-oriented approach was chosen in the municipalities of Roermond, Landgraaf and Brunssum, in which local stakeholders were involved in the design and execution of campaign-related events...

To anticipate future suffering due to dementia a growing number of people draft written advance euthanasia directives (AED). In actual practice the number of cases of euthanasia in advanced dementia is very limited. Dementia case managers are often closely involved since an early stage of the disease in the support and guidance of people with dementia and are well positioned to talk about the AED. This study aims to acquire insights into the way case managers deal with AEDs of people suffering from dementia...

In this article, the author comments on the research publication 'Estimating the lifetime risk of dementia using nationwide individually linked cause-of-death and health register data'. By combining 7 Dutch registries on causes of death and the use of health care, the lifetime risk of dementia was calculated at 29.4% (women) and 18.3% (men). In 2017, 62% of the deaths either by dementia (15,950 persons) or with dementia (19,560 persons) occurred in nursing homes. Discussing the difficulties of adequate and linkable registrations, the author concludes that the lifetime risk of dementia is probably underestimated with an additional 3 to 5 percentage points...

Delirium is a common serious complication in dementia that is associated with poor prognosis and a high burden on caregivers and healthcare professionals. Appropriate care is therefore important at an early stage for patients with delirium superimposed on dementiaTo gain insight into the care of six patients with delirium superimposed on dementia, 19 semi-structured interviews were conducted focused on the experiences of caregivers and professionals. The interviews revealed four themes that appeared to play a role: 1...

BACKGROUND: The behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) strongly resembles primary psychiatric disorders. Furthermore, a bvFTD mimic may occur, without neurodegenerative aetiology. AIM: To offer psychiatrist clinical tools for making or ruling out a bvFTD diagnosis. METHOD: To present the results of the first prospective cohort study on bvFTD patients and primary psychiatric patients. Results are discussed within the context of the international literature...

The number of patients with dementia is increasing over time. There is evidence that the prevalence in ethnic minority groups is even higher. Diagnosing dementia in first generation non-western migrants is often difficult due to language and cultural barriers, low education, and illiteracy. In this article we recommend the use of two validated screening tools (the RUDAS, Rowland Universal Dementia assessment scale and the IQCODE, Informant Questionnaire of Cognitive Decline in the elderly) elucidated by two case descriptions...

OBJECTIVE: To determine variation in diagnostic strategies for diagnosing dementia between Dutch hospitals. DESIGN: Descriptive, retrospective research based on claim data of Dutch health insurers. METHOD: Information on the use of diagnostic ancillary services carried out from 2015 to 2018 was collected via national-level insurance claims for patients who received a (new) diagnose-coding for dementia in 2018. Hospitals were included in the analysis if they diagnosed >50 patients with dementia...

Objectives : To investigate the effect on vascular dementia of involuntary exercise induced by functional electrical stimulation and of forced and voluntary exercise, focusing on the recovery of cognitive function and using a rat model of dementia. Methods: A demential model was created in Wistar rats who were then given forced exercise, allowed voluntary exercise (wheel running) or had exercise induced through functional electrical stimulation. Their responses were quantified using a Morris water maze and by measuring long-term potentiation in the hippocampus...

BACKGROUND: Behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) are common and contribute significantly to caregiver burden and institutionalization of the patient. Unfortunately, current guideline-based interventions are sometimes ineffective and BPSD can become extreme. CASE DESCRIPTION: A 75-year-old man with dementia was admitted to a psychogeriatric unit because of very severe BPSD in a nursing home. Different kinds of pharmaceutical and psychological interventions had been tried but turned out to be ineffective...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of the DementiAbility Methods: The Montessori Way (DMMW) on agitation in long-term care home residents with dementia. The activities using the DMMW are hypothesized to reduce agitation in terms of its frequency and disruptiveness to greater extent than structured social activities as control. METHODS: Forty-six long-term care home residents with dementia were randomly allocated to receive the DMMW (n = 23) or structured social activities as control (n = 23)...

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Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) demonstrate a disproportionately larger forgetting rate in episodic memory tasks. Previous studies documented that, in comparison with healthy controls, the increased forgetting manifested by AD patients in word list recall tasks is confined to the recency portion of the list with normal forgetting rates on the primacy and mid-list portions. In this study we compared the primacy, mid-list, and recency ratios, obtained by dividing the immediate and delayed recall of words in position 1-4, 5-11, and 12-15 of a 15-word list, in different groups of demented patients, i...

The history of the concept of stigmatization dates back to ancient times, but the meaning of this term has changed over the years. Presently it is defined as the attitude of disapproval, negative perception, discrimination by a group due to certain features presented by it. This problem is also valid in medicine, affecting, among many others disorders, patients with dementia. Stigmatization carries a lot of negative consequences, causing feelings of shame that may lead to the exclusion from society. It also affects families and close relatives...

Cognitive impairment, including mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia, compromises the patients' cognitive abilities and, to different extents, to carry out daily activities, accompanied by personality and behavioral changes. Studies suggest that leptin, an adipokine, has a neuroprotective role against Alzheimer's disease (AD) and that cytokines are associated with inflammatory processes and dementia. This study aimed to evaluate serum leptin, hsCRP, IL-6 and TNF-α levels in a cognitive continuum group from normal to demential status, and to assess whether they correlates to Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Functional Assessment Staging (FAST) scores...

AIM: To study the presence of alterations in social cognition in Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD) and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), to compare the levels of involvement, and to analyze their relevance as a tool to distinguish between both demential profile. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: For this purpose, 34 patients diagnosed with PDD, 21 men and 13 women, with an average age of 70 years and 8 years of education, and 26 patients diagnosed with bvFTD, 9 men and 17 women, with an average age of 68 years and 6 years of education, were assessed...

BACKGROUND: Assigning a diagnosis to a patient with dementia is important for the present treatment of the patient and caregivers, and scientific research. Nowadays, the dementia diagnostic criteria are based on clinical information regarding medical, history, physical examination, neuropsychological tests, and supplementary exams and, therefore, subject to variability through time. METHODS: A retrospective observational study to evaluate variables related to clinical diagnostic stability in dementia syndromes in at least one year follow up...

INTRODUCTION: A potential factor increasing the risk of the development of cognitive impairment with age is apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 carrier status. A subsequent factor which may increase the risk of development of cognitive impairment at an older age is the concentration of C-reactive protein (CRP). The objective of the study was to examine the relationship between cognitive functions and the concentration of CRP in post-menopausal women who were carriers of particular apolipoprotein E gene (APOE) polymorphisms...

INTRODUCTION: Caregivers of demented relatives devote their time and attention in order to help the beloved members of the family. Those who are informal caregivers require support in order to avoid being overburdened. Many such caregivers may suffer from chronic health problems, for instance, depression. OBJECTIVE: The aim was to assess the factors of depression in caregivers, and to discover the determinants of depression among informal family caregivers of demented individuals...

Regression to mother tongue is common in those with dementia. In two long-term care facilities, we explored the use of bilinguals' two languages for five older adults with mild-moderate dementia who have begun to regress to Greek. We also examined the role of Montessori DementiAbility Methods: The Montessori Way-based English language activities in fostering conversational use of English. Over 10 sessions, participants' vocabulary or grammatical structure in English did not improve. However, four of the five participants were able to maintain a conversation in English for longer periods of time...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of progressive dementia in the elderly population. AD is histologically characterized by accumulation of amyloid-β protein (Aβ) on extracellular plaques and deposition of hyperphosphorylated tau protein in intracellular neurofibrillary tangles. Several studies have shown that obesity may precede dementia and that lifestyle factors play a critical role in the onset of AD. Furthermore, accumulating evidence indicates that obesity is an independent risk factor for developing AD...