age OR aging OR ageing

Objectives Breaking bad news can be a very distressing situation for both patients and physicians. Physician communication behavior should therefore match patients' communication preferences. The aim of this study was to characterize the content of bad news from the patients' perspective. Patients' preferences for communication of bad news as well as the fit to communication behavior displayed by physicians were also investigated. Finally, consequences of a mismatch between patients' preferences and physician communication were investigated in relation to psychological distress in patients...

Background The stigma of cancer patients can lead to far-reaching consequences, both for the individual and for the society. Quantitative studies on the stigmatization of cancer patients are scarce. The present study assessed the stigma of cancer patients in relation to their status of employment, and analyzes sociodemographic, disease and occupational predictors. Methods In a bicentric study, 858 patients with breast, bowel, lung or prostate cancer were included. Of these, n=305 were employed and entered into the analyses (age average 55 years, 43% female, 47% breast cancer)...

Background Aim of the study was to analyze parenting concerns in cancer survivors and to identify covariats for parenting concerns. Method In a cross-sectional epidemiological sample of cancer survivors with minor children (n=1416) demographic and disease-related variables and psychological distress (HADS) were assessed. Parenting concerns were assessed using the Parenting Concerns Questionnaire (PCQ). The instrument covers the 3 subscales concerns about the 'practical impact' of the disease on the children, about the 'emotional impact' and concerns about the 'co-parent'...

OBJECTIVES: To assess subjectively perceived, real-world benefits longitudinally for unilateral cochlear implant (CI) recipients in a multinational population treated routinely. To identify possible predictors of self-reported benefits. DESIGN: This was a prospective, multicenter, repeated-measures study. Self-assessment of performance at preimplantation and postimplantation at 1, 2, and 3 years using standardized, validated, local language versions of the Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing Scale (SSQ), and the Health Utilities Index Mark 3 (HUI3) was performed...

BACKGROUND: Prenatal detection of excessive growth remains inaccurate. Most strategies rely on a single cross-sectional evaluation of fetal size during the third trimester. OBJECTIVES: To compare second- to third-trimester longitudinal growth assessment with cross-sectional evaluation at the third trimester in the prediction of largeness for gestational age (LGA) and macrosomia. METHODS: A cohort of 2,696 unselected singleton pregnancies scanned at 21 ± 2 and 32 ± 2 weeks was created...

BACKGROUND: Prescription opioid (PO) overdose deaths increased sharply over the last decade. Changes in PO deaths in combination with other psychoactive substances may provide a partial explanation. METHODS: PO deaths from the National Multiple-Cause-of-Death Files for 2002-03 (N=15,973) and 2014-15 (N=41,491) were analyzed. We calculated (1) changes in proportions of deaths in combination with benzodiazepines, antidepressants, heroin, alcohol, cocaine between the two periods, and (2) proportions of increase in deaths attributable to each substance among PO and synthetic opioids other than methadone (SO-M) deaths, by age, gender, race/ethnicity...

OBJECTIVES: In up to half of the cases, low back pain (LBP) is thought to be related to a degeneration of the lumbar disc. Lumbar total disc replacement (LTDR) emerged as an alternative to fusion, but its use and indications are still subject to debate. The purpose of this paper was to compare Health-related Quality of life (HRQOL) in patients undergoing LTDR for one or two-level degenerative disc disease (DDD) with the paired age and gender general population values and to assess functional disability and residual pain at one year after the surgical procedure...

Adult somatic stem cells facilitate tissue homeostasis throughout the life of the organism. The mechanisms controlling stem cell activity are under intense scrutiny, with the aims of elucidating how they mediate tissue homeostasis, contribute to age-related decline of adult tissues, and promote tumorigenesis. Recently, the use of model systems such as the Drosophila intestine has enriched our understanding of how stem cells integrate local and systemic signals to maintain tissue and organs function in physiological conditions of homeostasis or after damage...

More Americans are consuming diets higher in saturated fats and refined sugars than ever before, and based on increasing obesity rates, this is a growing trend among older adults as well. While high saturated fat diet (HFD) consumption has been shown to sensitize the inflammatory response to a subsequent immune challenge in young adult rats, the inflammatory effect of HFD in the already-vulnerable aging brain has not yet been assessed. Here, we explored whether short-term (3 days) consumption of HFD would serve as a neuroinflammatory trigger in aging animals, leading to cognitive deficits...

Aging is associated with declines in executive function. We examined how executive functional brain systems are influenced by clinically silent Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology and cerebral white-matter hyperintensities (WMHs). Twenty-nine younger adults and 34 cognitively normal older adults completed a working memory paradigm while functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed. Older adults further underwent lumbar cerebrospinal fluid draw for the assessment of AD pathology and FLAIR imaging for the assessment of WMHs...

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to examine the characteristics of patients, physicians, and medical facilities, and their association with prescriptions that do not include metformin as the initial oral antidiabetic agent. STUDY DESIGN: Observational, cross-sectional study. METHODS: Patients with incident type 2 diabetes between January 1, 2006, and December 31, 2010, were identified from the Taiwan National Insurance Research Database...

OBJECTIVE: The effect of a common polymorphism in the Growth Hormone (GH) receptor (d3-GHR) gene on growth, metabolism and body composition was examined in short children born small for gestational age (SGA) on GH treatment. DESIGN: In 96 prepubertal, short SGA children treated with high-dose GH (67μg/kg/day) in the NESGAS study, insulin sensitivity (IS), insulin secretion and disposition index (DI) were determined during the first year of treatment. Body composition was analysed by DXA...

While deficits in metacognition, or the ability to notice and reflect upon mental states has been observed in schizophrenia and linked with poorer concurrent and future function, it is unknown whether these deficits are unique to schizophrenia. Accordingly, this study assessed metacognition using the Metacognitive Assessment Scale-Abbreviated (MAS-A) and the Metacognitions Questionnaire- 30 (MCQ-30) among 26 adults with schizophrenia, 23 with bipolar disorder and 23 healthy controls. Symptom levels of the psychiatric groups were assessed with the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale...

AIMS: In humans, noncoding variants of PCSK2, the gene encoding prohormone convertase 2 (PC2), have been previously associated with risk for and age of onset of type 2 diabetes (T2D). The aims of this study were to identify coding variants in PCSK2; to determine their possible association with glucose handling; and to determine functional outcomes for coding variants in biochemical studies. METHODS: Exome-wide genotyping was performed on 1725 Old Order Amish (OOA) subjects...

In this work, a low-cost alternative approach (i.e., adding aged refuse (AR) into waste activated sludge) to significantly enhance anaerobic digestion of sludge was reported. Experimental results showed that with the addition dosage of AR increasing from 0 to 400 mg/g dry sludge soluble chemical oxygen demand (COD) increased from 1150 to 5240 mg/L at the digestion time of 5 d, while the maximal production of volatile fatty acids (VFA) increased from 82.6 to 183.9 mg COD/g volatile suspended solids. Although further increase of AR addition decreased the concentrations of both soluble COD and VFA, their contents in these systems with AR addition at any concentration investigated were still higher than those in the blank, which resulted in higher methane yields in these systems...

GOALS: To assess risks of secondary malignancies in breast cancer patients who received radiation therapy compared to patients who did not. METHODS: The SEER database was used to identify females with a primary diagnosis of breast cancer as their first malignancy, during 1973-2008. We excluded patients with metastatic disease, age <18 years, no definitive surgical intervention, ipsilateral breast cancer recurrence, or who developed a secondary malignancy within 1 year of diagnosis...

INTRODUCTION: It is hypothesized that cerebral hypoperfusion promotes the development of Alzheimer pathology. We therefore studied whether longstanding cerebral hypoperfusion is associated with Alzheimer pathology in nondemented humans. METHODS: Cerebral blood flow and β-amyloid ((18)F-Flutemetamol) positron emission tomography retention were assessed in eleven patients with unilateral occlusion of precerebral arteries resulting in chronic and uneven hypoperfusion...

The aim of this study was to investigate how breast density interacted with demographic, reproductive, and lifestyle features among Vietnamese women. Mammographic density and established risk factors for breast cancer were collected from 1651 women (345 cancer cases and 1306 normal cases) in Vietnam. The association of breast density categories with potential risk factors was investigated using Spearman's test for continuous variables and χ(2) tests for categorical variables. Independent factors associated with high breast density and breast cancer in specific density groupings were assessed using logistic regression...

We aimed to describe disease burden, characteristics, and outcomes of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bloodstream infection (BSI) in Hong Kong. A retrospective, observational study was conducted in 26 Hong Kong public hospitals between January 2010 and December 2012. The primary outcome measures were 30-day mortality rate and infection-related hospital cost. Of 1133 patients reviewed, 727 (64.17%) were male, 1075 (94.88%) had health care-associated community-onset and 44 (3.88%) had hospital-onset MRSA infection...

We compared waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) with traditional anthropometric indices in healthy women aged 21 to 45 years from urban slums of Mumbai city, India. Lipid profile and inflammatory markers were measured in a subsample of 200 women, and their relationship with WHtR was examined. Mean WHtR was 0.50 ± 0.1, but a little more than half (51.9%) of the women had WHtR ≥0.50. WHtR could correctly identify centrally obese adult women, even when they were categorized as healthy or normal according to body mass index, waist circumference, waist to hip ratio, and percentage body fat...