scholarly journals Reducing the Risk of Cognitive Decline and Dementia: WHO Recommendations

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neerja Chowdhary ◽  
Corrado Barbui ◽  
Kaarin J. Anstey ◽  
Miia Kivipelto ◽  
Mariagnese Barbera ◽  
...  

With population ageing worldwide, dementia poses one of the greatest global challenges for health and social care in the 21st century. In 2019, around 55 million people were affected by dementia, with the majority living in low- and middle-income countries. Dementia leads to increased costs for governments, communities, families and individuals. Dementia is overwhelming for the family and caregivers of the person with dementia, who are the cornerstone of care and support systems throughout the world. To assist countries in addressing the global burden of dementia, the World Health Organisation (WHO) developed the Global Action Plan on the Public Health Response to Dementia 2017–2025. It proposes actions to be taken by governments, civil society, and other global and regional partners across seven action areas, one of which is dementia risk reduction. This paper is based on WHO Guidelines on risk reduction of cognitive decline and dementia and presents recommendations on evidence-based, multisectoral interventions for reducing dementia risks, considerations for their implementation and policy actions. These global evidence-informed recommendations were developed by WHO, following a rigorous guideline development methodology and involved a panel of academicians and clinicians with multidisciplinary expertise and representing geographical diversity. The recommendations are considered under three broad headings: lifestyle and behaviour interventions, interventions for physical health conditions and specific interventions. By supporting health and social care professionals, particularly by improving their capacity to provide gender and culturally appropriate interventions to the general population, the risk of developing dementia can be potentially reduced, or its progression delayed.

Author(s):  
C. Scerri

In 2017, the World Health Organisation (WHO) launched the global action plan on the public health response to dementia. Among its many aims, the plan recommends the need to create a knowledge-based healthcare profession that delivers evidence-based, culturally-appropriate and human rights-orientated health and social care, including long-term services for individuals with dementia.


2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwyneth Lewis

Every year some eight million women suffer preventable or remediable pregnancy-related complications and over half a million will die unnecessarily. Most of these deaths could be averted at little or no extra cost, even where resources are limited, but in order to take action, and develop and implement changes to maternity services to save mothers and newborns lives, a change in cultural attitudes and political will, as well as improvements in the provision of health and social care, is required. Further, to aid programme planners, more in-depth information than that which may already be available through national statistics on maternal mortality rates or death certificate data is urgently needed. What is required is an in-depth understanding of the clinical, social, cultural or any other underlying factors which lead to mothers' deaths. Such information can be obtained by using any of the five methodologies outlined in the World Health Organizations programme and philosophy for maternal death or disability reviews, ‘Beyond the Numbers’, briefly described here and which are now being introduced in a number of countries around the world.


2019 ◽  
pp. 147-150
Author(s):  
Navneet Kapur ◽  
Robert Goldney

With the increasing recognition of suicide as a major health and social care issue, many suicide prevention organisations have been established locally, nationally and internationally. This chapter includes a number of links to the most prominent of these, but the list is indicative rather than exhaustive. These include the International Association for Suicide Prevention, the International Academy of Suicide Research, the Samaritans, the World Health Organization, and national suicide prevention organizations from across the world.


2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamiris Cristhina Resende ◽  
Marco Antonio Catussi Paschoalotto ◽  
Stephen Peckham ◽  
Claudia Souza Passador ◽  
João Luiz Passador

Abstract This paper aims to analyse the coordination and cooperation in Primary Health Care (PHC) measures adopted by the British government against the spread of the COVID-19. PHC is clearly part of the solution founded by governments across the world to fight against the spread of the virus. Data analysis was performed based on coordination, cooperation, and PHC literature crossed with documentary analysis of the situation reports released by the World Health Organisation and documents, guides, speeches and action plans on the official UK government website. The measures adopted by the United Kingdom were analysed in four periods, which helps to explain the courses of action during the pandemic: pre-first case (January 22- January 31, 2020), developing prevention measures (February 1 -February 29, 2020), first Action Plan (March 1- March 23, 2020) and lockdown (March 24-May 6, 2020). Despite the lack of consensus in essential matters such as Brexit, the nations in the United Kingdom are working together with a high level of cooperation and coordination in decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (10) ◽  
pp. 2597-2614
Author(s):  
Maria Laura Ruiu ◽  
Massimo Ragnedda ◽  
Gabriele Ruiu

Purpose This paper investigates both similarities and differences between two global threats represented by climate change (CC) and Covid-19 (CV). This will help understand the reasons behind the recognition of the CV as a pandemic that requires global efforts, whereas efforts to tackle climate change still lack such urgency. This paper aims to answer to the following questions: What are the elements that make CV restrictions acceptable by both the public and policymakers? and What are the elements that make CC restrictions not acceptable? Design/methodology/approach This paper analyses the situation reports released by the World Health Organisation between the 11th of March (declaration of pandemic) and the 22nd of April, and their associated documents such as the Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan (WHO), the Risk Communication and Community Engagement Action Plan (WHO) and its updated version (WHO) and the Handbook for public health capacity-building (WHO). The analysis ends one week after President Trump’s announcement to suspend US funding to WHO (Fedor and Manson, 2020) and his support to public demonstrations against restrictions. Findings The application of the second stage of the “Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication” model identifies five lessons that can be learned from this comparison. These relate to the necessity to simultaneously warn (about the severity of a threat) and reassure (by suggesting specific courses of action) the public; the need for multilevel collaboration that integrates collective and individual actions; the capacity to present cohesive messages to the public; the risk of politicisation and commodification of the issue that might undermine global efforts to tackle the threat; and the capacity to trigger individual responses through the promotion of self-efficacy. Originality/value This paper identifies both similarities and differences between CC and CV managements to understand why the two threats are perceived and tackled in different ways. The analysis of official documents released by both the World Health Organisation and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate CV outbreak as a crisis, whereas climate change is still anchored to the status of a future-oriented risk.


Author(s):  
Wendy Nicklin ◽  
Carsten Engel ◽  
Jacqui Stewart

Abstract With the rapid acceleration of changes being experienced throughout the world and in particular within health and health and social care, accreditation programmes must keep pace or go the way of the dinosaur. While accreditation has deep roots in some countries, in the past 30 years, it has spread to a considerably larger range of countries in a mix of mandatory and voluntary systems. Accreditation is a tool to improve the quality of healthcare and social care, and in particular, there is recent recognition of its value in low- and middle-income countries, with promotion by the World Health Organization (WHO). The challenge is that with the rapid pace of change, how does accreditation reframe and reposition itself to ensure relevance in 2030? Accreditation must adapt and be relevant in order to be sustainable. This article outlines the fundamental principles, reviews the global trends’ impact on accreditation and the challenges with the existing model and, through the lens of living in 2030, outlines how accreditation programmes will be structured and applied 10 years from now.


Subject Health system capacities. Significance Across the globe, total COVID-19 cases continue to rise at pace; the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Europe as the pandemic’s epicentre on March 13, and the situation in the United States is set to escalate rapidly. The grave situation in Italy provides an insight into what is facing many other countries around the world. Despite the nation-wide introduction of what have been viewed as ‘extreme’ social distancing measures, Italy’s caseload has continued to rise, with hospitals being compared to war-zones. Impacts Countries with aggressive social distancing policies will reduce the likelihood that their healthcare system will be overwhelmed. Social care, such as elderly and vulnerable being taken to hospital when they are unable to cope at home, will be interrupted. Expenditure on health and social care will continue to snowball in order to meet the extra demands on services.


1990 ◽  
Vol 64 (02) ◽  
pp. 267-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
A B Heath ◽  
P J Gaffney

SummaryAn International Standard for Streptokinase - Streptodomase (62/7) has been used to calibrate high purity clinical batches of SK since 1965. An international collaborative study, involving six laboratories, was undertaken to replace this standard with a high purity standard for SK. Two candidate preparations (88/826 and 88/824) were compared by a clot lysis assay with the current standard (62/7). Potencies of 671 i.u. and 461 i.u. were established for preparations A (88/826) and B (88/824), respectively.Either preparation appeared suitable to serve as a standard for SK. However, each ampoule of preparation A (88/826) contains a more appropriate amount of SK activity for potency testing, and is therefore preferred. Accelerated degradation tests indicate that preparation A (88/826) is very stable.The high purity streptokinase preparation, coded 88/826, has been established by the World Health Organisation as the 2nd International Standard for Streptokinase, with an assigned potency of 700 i.u. per ampoule.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Micael Davi Lima de Oliveira ◽  
Kelson Mota Teixeira de Oliveira

According to the World Health Organisation, until 16 June, 2020, the number of confirmed and notified cases of COVID-19 has already exceeded 7.9 million with approximately 434 thousand deaths worldwide. This research aimed to find repurposing antagonists, that may inhibit the activity of the main protease (Mpro) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as well as partially modulate the ACE2 receptors largely found in lung cells, and reduce viral replication by inhibiting Nsp12 RNA polymerase. Docking molecular simulations were performed among a total of 60 structures, most of all, published in the literature against the novel coronavirus. The theoretical results indicated that, in comparative terms, paritaprevir, ivermectin, ledipasvir, and simeprevir, are among the most theoretical promising drugs in remission of symptoms from the disease. Furthermore, also corroborate indinavir to the high modulation in viral receptors. The second group of promising drugs includes remdesivir and azithromycin. The repurposing drugs HCQ and chloroquine were not effective in comparative terms to other drugs, as monotherapies, against SARS-CoV-2 infection.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document