scholarly journals Coronary Revascularization and Postoperative Outcomes in People With and Without Alzheimer’s Disease

Author(s):  
Mai Vu ◽  
Marjaana Koponen ◽  
Heidi Taipale ◽  
Raimo Kettunen ◽  
Sirpa Hartikainen ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Little is known on the incidence and postoperative outcomes of revascularizations according to electivity in persons with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Methods The Medication Use and Alzheimer’s disease (MEDALZ) cohort includes 70 718 community dwellers diagnosed with incident AD during 2005–2011 in Finland. For each person with AD, 1–4 age-, sex-, and hospital district-matched comparison persons without AD were identified. Altogether 448 persons with AD and 5909 without AD underwent revascularization during the follow-up. The outcomes were 30-day and 90-day re-admission rate after discharge, and all-cause 1-year and 3-year mortality. Risk of outcomes in persons with AD were compared to those without AD using Cox proportional hazard models adjusted with age, sex, comorbidities, statin use, revascularization type, length of stay, and support at discharge. Result People with AD had less revascularizations (adjusted hazard ratio 0.24, 95% confidence interval 0.22–0.27). Emergency procedures were more common (42.6% vs 33.1%) than elective procedures (34.2% vs 48.6%) among people with AD. There was no difference in 30-day readmissions (0.97, 0.80–1.17) or 1-year mortality (1.04, 0.75–1.42) and 90 days readmission risk was lower in persons with AD (0.85, 0.74–0.98). People with AD had higher 3-year mortality (1.42, 1.15–1.74), but the risk increase was observed only for emergency (1.71, 1.27–2.31), not for elective procedures (0.96, 0.63–1.46). Conclusion People with AD did not have worse readmission and mortality outcomes following elective revascularization. These findings in conjunction with lower revascularization rate especially for elective procedures raise questions on the threshold for elective procedures in people with AD.

Author(s):  
Macrina Tortajada-Soler ◽  
Leticia Sánchez-Valdeón ◽  
Marta Blanco-Nistal ◽  
José Alberto Benítez-Andrades ◽  
Cristina Liébana-Presa ◽  
...  

Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) which is the most common type of dementia is characterized by mental or cognitive disorders. People suffering with this condition find it inherently difficult to communicate and describe symptoms. As a consequence, both detection and treatment of comorbidities associated with Alzheimer’s disease are substantially impaired. Equally, action protocols in the case of emergencies must be clearly formulated and stated. Methods: We performed a bibliography search followed by an observational and cross-sectional study involving a thorough review of medical records. A group of AD patients was compared with a control group. Each group consisted of 100 people and were all León residents aged ≥65 years. Results: The following comorbidities were found to be associated with AD: cataracts, urinary incontinence, osteoarthritis, hearing loss, osteoporosis, and personality disorders. The most frequent comorbidities in the control group were the following: eye strain, stroke, vertigo, as well as circulatory and respiratory disorders. Comorbidities with a similar incidence in both groups included type 2 diabetes mellitus, glaucoma, depression, obesity, arthritis, and anxiety. We also reviewed emergency procedures employed in the case of an emergency involving an AD patient. Conclusions: Some comorbidities were present in both the AD and control groups, while others were found in the AD group and not in the control group, and vice versa.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Jasmine Cárcamo ◽  
Anton J. Kociolek ◽  
Kayri K. Fernández ◽  
Yian Gu ◽  
Carolyn W. Zhu ◽  
...  

To assess the predictive value of neuropsychological tests for severe dependency in Alzheimer’s disease as defined by the Equivalent Institutional Care Rating Scale, in a multiethnic, community cohort. The sample included 146 elders from the Predictors 3 cohort. Cox proportional hazard models tested the predictive value of each neuropsychological test at baseline on relative risk of meeting severe dependency. Higher semantic Processing and Memory test scores at baseline were associated with lower risk of meeting severe dependency in the adjusted Cox models. The integrity of semantic processing and memory abilities in dementia appears to predict time to severe functional dependency.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna-Maija Tolppanen ◽  
Heidi Taipale ◽  
Marjaana Koponen ◽  
Jari Tiihonen ◽  
Sirpa Hartikainen

Abstract Background Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is related to higher mortality but it is not entirely evident which causes of death explain this. The objective of this study was to assess the causes of death in a nationwide cohort of clinically verified AD cases and compare the causes to a matched comparison cohort without AD. Methods Cohort of all community-dwellers with clinically verified AD residing in Finland on 31 December 2005 (n = 27,948) and a matched comparison cohort without AD (n = 27,948). Mortality (2006–2012, n = 30,641, 54.8%) and causes of death were obtained from register. Cause of death was ascertained with clinical examination (87.3% of deaths), forensic (8.0%) or medical autopsy (4.7%). Results In AD cohort, the most common causes were diseases of the nervous system (49.9%), circulatory system (31.7%) and neoplasms (7.7%), while diseases of circulatory system (53.5%), neoplasms (19.1%) and mental and behavioral disorders (7.3%) contributed for majority of deaths in the comparison cohort. There were no sex-wise differences. People with AD were over 20 times more likely to die due to diseases of the nervous system (OR, 95% CI 22.06, 19.87–24.25) than the comparison cohort, while other causes, e.g., diseases of the circulatory system (0.40, 0.38–0.42), neoplasms (0.35, 0.33–0.38), mental and behavioral disorders (0.27, 0.24–0.30) and external causes of morbidity and mortality (0.72, 0.62–0.81) were less common in the AD cohort. Conclusions Although half of the people with AD died due to diseases of the nervous system, cancers and especially cardio/cerebrovascular diseases were still important contributors to the overall mortality among them. This should be acknowledged when planning their terminal care.


2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colleen M. Kelley ◽  
Larry L. Jacoby

Abstract Cognitive control constrains retrieval processing and so restricts what comes to mind as input to the attribution system. We review evidence that older adults, patients with Alzheimer's disease, and people with traumatic brain injury exert less cognitive control during retrieval, and so are susceptible to memory misattributions in the form of dramatic levels of false remembering.


Author(s):  
J. Metuzals ◽  
D. F. Clapin ◽  
V. Montpetit

Information on the conformation of paired helical filaments (PHF) and the neurofilamentous (NF) network is essential for an understanding of the mechanisms involved in the formation of the primary lesions of Alzheimer's disease (AD): tangles and plaques. The structural and chemical relationships between the NF and the PHF have to be clarified in order to discover the etiological factors of this disease. We are investigating by stereo electron microscopic and biochemical techniques frontal lobe biopsies from patients with AD and squid giant axon preparations. The helical nature of the lesion in AD is related to pathological alterations of basic properties of the nervous system due to the helical symmetry that exists at all hierarchic structural levels in the normal brain. Because of this helical symmetry of NF protein assemblies and PHF, the employment of structure reconstruction techniques to determine the conformation, particularly the handedness of these structures, is most promising. Figs. 1-3 are frontal lobe biopsies.


Author(s):  
Mark Ellisman ◽  
Maryann Martone ◽  
Gabriel Soto ◽  
Eleizer Masliah ◽  
David Hessler ◽  
...  

Structurally-oriented biologists examine cells, tissues, organelles and macromolecules in order to gain insight into cellular and molecular physiology by relating structure to function. The understanding of these structures can be greatly enhanced by the use of techniques for the visualization and quantitative analysis of three-dimensional structure. Three projects from current research activities will be presented in order to illustrate both the present capabilities of computer aided techniques as well as their limitations and future possibilities.The first project concerns the three-dimensional reconstruction of the neuritic plaques found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease. We have developed a software package “Synu” for investigation of 3D data sets which has been used in conjunction with laser confocal light microscopy to study the structure of the neuritic plaque. Tissue sections of autopsy samples from patients with Alzheimer's disease were double-labeled for tau, a cytoskeletal marker for abnormal neurites, and synaptophysin, a marker of presynaptic terminals.


Author(s):  
D.F. Clapin ◽  
V.J.A. Montpetit

Alzheimer's disease is characterized by the accumulation of abnormal filamentous proteins. The most important of these are amyloid fibrils and paired helical filaments (PHF). PHF are located intraneuronally forming bundles called neurofibrillary tangles. The designation of these structures as "tangles" is appropriate at the light microscopic level. However, localized domains within individual tangles appear to demonstrate a regular spacing which may indicate a liquid crystalline phase. The purpose of this paper is to present a statistical geometric analysis of PHF packing.


Author(s):  
V.J.A. Montpetit ◽  
S. Dancea ◽  
S.W. French ◽  
D.F. Clapin

A continuing problem in Alzheimer research is the lack of a suitable animal model for the disease. The absence of neurofibrillary tangles of paired helical filaments is the most critical difference in the processes by which the central nervous system ages in most species other than man. However, restricting consideration to single phenomena, one may identify animal models for specific aspects of Alzheimer's disease. Abnormal fibers resembling PHF have been observed in dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons of rats in a study of chronic ethanol intoxication and spontaneously in aged rats. We present in this report evidence that PHF-like filaments occur in ethanol-treated rats of young age. In control animals lesions similar in some respects to our observations of cytoskeletal pathology in pyridoxine induced neurotoxicity were observed.Male Wistar BR rats (Charles River Labs) weighing 350 to 400 g, were implanted with a single gastrostomy cannula and infused with a liquid diet containing 30% of total calories as fat plus ethanol or isocaloric dextrose.


2014 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 99-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Allsop ◽  
Jennifer Mayes

One of the hallmarks of AD (Alzheimer's disease) is the formation of senile plaques in the brain, which contain fibrils composed of Aβ (amyloid β-peptide). According to the ‘amyloid cascade’ hypothesis, the aggregation of Aβ initiates a sequence of events leading to the formation of neurofibrillary tangles, neurodegeneration, and on to the main symptom of dementia. However, emphasis has now shifted away from fibrillar forms of Aβ and towards smaller and more soluble ‘oligomers’ as the main culprit in AD. The present chapter commences with a brief introduction to the disease and its current treatment, and then focuses on the formation of Aβ from the APP (amyloid precursor protein), the genetics of early-onset AD, which has provided strong support for the amyloid cascade hypothesis, and then on the development of new drugs aimed at reducing the load of cerebral Aβ, which is still the main hope for providing a more effective treatment for AD in the future.


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