scholarly journals Conversational System as Assistant Tool in Reminiscence Therapy for People with Early-Stage of Alzheimer’s

Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 1036
Author(s):  
Victor Morales-de-Jesús ◽  
Helena Gómez-Adorno ◽  
María Somodevilla-García ◽  
Darnes Vilariño
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Life History ◽  
Patient Information ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Care Center ◽  
Pharmacological Intervention ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Reminiscence Therapy ◽  
Past Experiences

Reminiscence therapy is a non-pharmacological intervention that helps mitigate unstable psychological and emotional states in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, where past experiences are evoked through conversations between the patients and their caregivers, stimulating autobiographical episodic memory. It is highly recommended that people with Alzheimer regularly receive this type of therapy. In this paper, we describe the development of a conversational system that can be used as a tool to provide reminiscence therapy to people with Alzheimer’s disease. The system has the ability to personalize the therapy according to the patients information related to their preferences, life history and lifestyle. An evaluation conducted with eleven people related to patient care (caregiver = 9, geriatric doctor = 1, care center assistant = 1) shows that the system is capable of carrying out a reminiscence therapy according to the patient information in a successful manner.

scholarly journals Lifelong Bilingualism Functions as an Alternative Intervention for Cognitive Reserve Against Alzheimer's Disease

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haiqing Liu ◽  
Longhuo Wu
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Cognitive Decline ◽  
Cognitive Reserve ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Pharmacological Intervention ◽  
Alternative Intervention ◽  
Confounding Variables ◽  
The Relationship

Bilingualism has been reported to significantly delay the onset of dementia and plays an important role in the management of Alzheimer's disease (AD), a condition inducing impairment in the brain network and cognitive decline. Cognitive reserve is associated with the adaptive maintenance of neural functions by protecting against neuropathology. Bilingualism acts as a beneficial environmental factor contributing to cognitive reserve, although some potential confounding variables still need further elucidation. In this article, the relationship between bilingualism and cognitive reserve is discussed, interpreting the advantage of bilingualism in protecting against cognitive decline. In addition, the possible brain and biochemical mechanisms, supporting the advantageous effects of bilingualism in delaying the onset of dementia, involved in bilingualism are reviewed. Effectively, bilingualism can be considered as a pharmacological intervention with no side effects. However, the investigation of the pharmacological parameters of bilingualism is still at an early stage.

Fluoxetine Protects against Dendritic Spine Loss in Middle-aged APPswe/PSEN1dE9 Double Transgenic Alzheimer’s Disease Mice

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Ma ◽  
Yuan Gao ◽  
Wei Tang ◽  
Wei Huang ◽  
Yong Tang
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Dendritic Spines ◽  
Dendritic Spine ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Middle Aged ◽  
Protein Levels ◽  
Spine Pathology ◽  
The Impact

Background: Studies have suggested that cognitive impairment in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is associated with dendritic spine loss, especially in the hippocampus. Fluoxetine (FLX) has been shown to improve cognition in the early stage of AD and to be associated with diminishing synapse degeneration in the hippocampus. However, little is known about whether FLX affects the pathogenesis of AD in the middle-tolate stage and whether its effects are correlated with the amelioration of hippocampal dendritic dysfunction. Previously, it has been observed that FLX improves the spatial learning ability of middleaged APP/PS1 mice. Objective: In the present study, we further characterized the impact of FLX on dendritic spines in the hippocampus of middle-aged APP/PS1 mice. Results: It has been found that the numbers of dendritic spines in dentate gyrus (DG), CA1 and CA2/3 of hippocampus were significantly increased by FLX. Meanwhile, FLX effectively attenuated hyperphosphorylation of tau at Ser396 and elevated protein levels of postsynaptic density 95 (PSD-95) and synapsin-1 (SYN-1) in the hippocampus. Conclusion: These results indicated that the enhanced learning ability observed in FLX-treated middle-aged APP/PS1 mice might be associated with remarkable mitigation of hippocampal dendritic spine pathology by FLX and suggested that FLX might be explored as a new strategy for therapy of AD in the middle-to-late stage.

scholarly journals Association between methylation of BIN1 promoter in peripheral blood and preclinical Alzheimer’s disease

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hao Hu ◽  
Lan Tan ◽  
Yan-Lin Bi ◽  
Wei Xu ◽  
Lin Tan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Peripheral Blood ◽  
Late Onset ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Susceptibility Gene ◽  
Subjective Cognitive Decline ◽  
Preclinical Ad ◽  
T Tau ◽  
New Evidence

AbstractThe bridging integrator 1 (BIN1) gene is the second most important susceptibility gene for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD) after apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene. To explore whether the BIN1 methylation in peripheral blood changed in the early stage of LOAD, we included 814 participants (484 cognitively normal participants [CN] and 330 participants with subjective cognitive decline [SCD]) from the Chinese Alzheimer’s Biomarker and LifestylE (CABLE) database. Then we tested associations of methylation of BIN1 promoter in peripheral blood with the susceptibility for preclinical AD or early changes of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) AD-related biomarkers. Results showed that SCD participants with significant AD biological characteristics had lower methylation levels of BIN1 promoter, even after correcting for covariates. Hypomethylation of BIN1 promoter were associated with decreased CSF Aβ42 (p = 0.0008), as well as increased p-tau/Aβ42 (p = 0.0001) and t-tau/Aβ42 (p < 0.0001) in total participants. Subgroup analysis showed that the above associations only remained in the SCD subgroup. In addition, hypomethylation of BIN1 promoter was also accompanied by increased CSF p-tau (p = 0.0028) and t-tau (p = 0.0130) in the SCD subgroup, which was independent of CSF Aβ42. Finally, above associations were still significant after correcting single nucleotide polymorphic sites (SNPs) and interaction of APOE ɛ4 status. Our study is the first to find a robust association between hypomethylation of BIN1 promoter in peripheral blood and preclinical AD. This provides new evidence for the involvement of BIN1 in AD, and may contribute to the discovery of new therapeutic targets for AD.

Lighting and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias: Spotlight on sleep and depression

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (5) ◽  
pp. 405-422
Author(s):  
MG Figueiro ◽  
HC Kales
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Neurodegenerative Disease ◽  
Sleep Disturbances ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Pharmacological Intervention ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Health And Well Being ◽  
Positive Results

Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias is the collective term for a progressive neurodegenerative disease for which there is presently no cure. This paper focuses on two symptoms of the disease, sleep disturbances and depression, and discusses how light can be used as a non-pharmacological intervention to mitigate their negative effects. Bright days and dark nights are needed for health and well-being, but the present components of the built environment, especially those places where older adults spend most of their days, are too dimly illuminated during the day and too bright at night. To be effective light needs to be correctly specified, implemented and measured. Yet, without the appropriate specification and measurement of the stimulus, researchers will not be able to successfully demonstrate positive results in the field, nor will lighting designers and specifiers have the confidence to implement lighting solutions for promoting better sleep and mood in this population.

scholarly journals Plasma contact factors as novel biomarkers for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jung Eun Park ◽  
Do Sung Lim ◽  
Yeong Hee Cho ◽  
Kyu Yeong Choi ◽  
Jang Jae Lee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Clinical Stage ◽  
Area Under The Curve ◽  
Contact System ◽  
Plasma Diagnostic ◽  
Vascular Abnormalities ◽  
Prodromal Ad ◽  
Novel Biomarkers

Abstract Background Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia and most of AD patients suffer from vascular abnormalities and neuroinflammation. There is an urgent need to develop novel blood biomarkers capable of diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) at very early stage. This study was performed to find out new accurate plasma diagnostic biomarkers for AD by investigating a direct relationship between plasma contact system and AD. Methods A total 101 of human CSF and plasma samples from normal and AD patients were analyzed. The contact factor activities in plasma were measured with the corresponding specific peptide substrates. Results The activities of contact factors (FXIIa, FXIa, plasma kallikrein) and FXa clearly increased and statistically correlated as AD progresses. We present here, for the first time, the FXIIa cut-off scores to as: > 26.3 U/ml for prodromal AD [area under the curve (AUC) = 0.783, p < 0.001] and > 27.2 U/ml for AD dementia (AUC = 0.906, p < 0.001). We also describe the cut-off scores from the ratios of CSF Aβ1–42 versus the contact factors. Of these, the representative ratio cut-off scores of Aβ1–42/FXIIa were to be: < 33.8 for prodromal AD (AUC = 0.965, p < 0.001) and < 27.44 for AD dementia (AUC = 1.0, p < 0.001). Conclusion The activation of plasma contact system is closely associated with clinical stage of AD, and FXIIa activity as well as the cut-off scores of CSF Aβ1–42/FXIIa can be used as novel accurate diagnostic AD biomarkers.

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