scholarly journals Brief practical clinical diagnostic criteria for the neurodegenerative diseases in the elderly

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fulvio Lauretani ◽  
Paolo Caffarra ◽  
Livia Ruffini ◽  
Anna Nardelli ◽  
Gian Paolo Ceda ◽  
...  

In the literature there is need of clinical and instrumental characterization of all neurodegenerative diseases. Particular attention deserves the timing of the onset of motor or cognitive symptoms, which is extremely useful issue giving the frequent overlapping between neurodegenerative diseases. Aim of this review is to provide a description of typical clinical and imaging features of all neurodegenerative diseases, especially idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Particular attention will be devoted to the cluster of symptoms at the moment of the diagnosis. Based on early starting symptoms (cognitive or extrapiramidal) we will introduce criteria to differentiate AD from fronto-Temporal Dementia (FTD), Lewy bodies dementia (DLB) and Vascular dementia (VaD), and between PD, Vascular Parkinsonism (VP) and DLB. All these diseases are characterized by cognitive deficits. PD will be suspected if cognitive impairment occurs at least one year after the onset of the motor symptoms while VP and DLB are more likely if cognitive deficits and motor symptoms appear simultaneously. Finally, we will focus on parkinsonian signs plus other motor symptoms at the time of the diagnosis. The presence of cerebellar or pyramidal signs, with falls and autonomic dysfunction, with or without cognitive deficit should help to consider potential causes of atypical parkinsonism including cortical-basal degeneration (CBD), multiple system atrophy (MSA) and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP).

Pharmaceutics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 508
Author(s):  
Sara Silva ◽  
António J. Almeida ◽  
Nuno Vale

Parkinson’s disease (PD) affects around ten million people worldwide and is considered the second most prevalent neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, there is a higher risk incidence in the elderly population. The main PD hallmarks include the loss of dopaminergic neurons and the development of Lewy bodies. Unfortunately, motor symptoms only start to appear when around 50–70% of dopaminergic neurons have already been lost. This particularly poses a huge challenge for early diagnosis and therapeutic effectiveness. Actually, pharmaceutical therapy is able to relief motor symptoms, but as the disease progresses motor complications and severe side-effects start to appear. In this review, we explore the research conducted so far in order to repurpose drugs for PD with the use of nanodelivery systems, alternative administration routes, and nanotheranostics. Overall, studies have demonstrated great potential for these nanosystems to target the brain, improve drug pharmacokinetic profile, and decrease side-effects.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (Supplement_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
E Baldi ◽  
S Buratti ◽  
R Rordorf ◽  
A Vicentini ◽  
A Sanzo ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The implantation of an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) in secondary prevention is a class I indication for patients with an estimated survival more than 1 year with a good functional status. However, in the elderly population, it is often difficult to estimate the expected survival, especially after an acute event such as an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Purpose To evaluate 1-year survival after OHCA of patients older than 80 compared to those younger than 80. Methods We considered all the patients who suffered an OHCA in our Province (55ehz748.1135 inhabitants in northern Italy) from October 1st 2014 to November 30th 2017 stratified in two groups accordingly to their age at the moment of OHCA: elderly group (≥80 years old) and non-elderly group (<80 years old). Results In the period analysis resuscitation was attempted in 1464 OHCA patients: 632 of the elderly group (mean age of 86.4±4.4 years) and 832 of the non-elderly group (mean age of 63.4±13.8 years). The two groups were different at baseline. In the non-elderly group there were more males (74.5% vs 42.4%, p<0.001), more cases of medical etiology (95.9% vs 91.2%, p<0.001), a higher rate of bystander CPR (39.4% vs 23.4%, p<0.001) and more shockable rhythms at presentation (25.5% vs 7.9%, p<0.001), whilst a home location of the event was more frequent in the elderly group (81.3% vs 77%, p=0.048). No differences were found regarding both the percentage of not witnessed cardiac arrest (27.5% in elderly and 26% in non-elderly, p=0.57) and the time of EMS arrival (11:36 mins in elderly and 11:23 mins in young, p=0.64). Non-elderly patients showed a significantly higher rate of survival both to hospital admission (25.2% vs 6.8%, p<0.001), to hospital discharge (12.1% vs 1.7%, p<0.001) and at 1 year after the event (10.2% vs 1.6%, p<0.001, Figure 1 - left) as compared to older ones. However, when considering only those patients discharged alive we found a non-significant difference in one-year survival (84.2% vs 90.9%, p=0.64, Figure 1 – right). Conclusions Elderly patients have a worst prognosis in the acute phase after an OHCA. However, after hospital discharge, older and younger patients showed a similar 1-year survival. This result highlights how age should not be considered alone to decide whether an ICD in secondary prevention could be indicated or not in older OHCA survivors.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 2799-2816 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmine Y. Fathy ◽  
Susanne E. Hoogers ◽  
Henk W. Berendse ◽  
Ysbrand D. van der Werf ◽  
Pieter J. Visser ◽  
...  

Abstract The insular cortex is proposed to function as a central brain hub characterized by wide-spread connections and diverse functional roles. As a result, its centrality in the brain confers high metabolic demands predisposing it to dysfunction in disease. However, the functional profile and vulnerability to degeneration varies across the insular sub-regions. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to summarize and quantitatively analyze the relationship between insular cortex sub-regional atrophy, studied by voxel based morphometry, with cognitive and neuropsychiatric deficits in frontotemporal dementia (FTD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). We systematically searched through Pubmed and Embase and identified 519 studies that fit our criteria. A total of 41 studies (n = 2261 subjects) fulfilled the inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis. The peak insular coordinates were pooled and analyzed using Anatomic Likelihood Estimation. Our results showed greater left anterior insular cortex atrophy in FTD whereas the right anterior dorsal insular cortex showed larger clusters of atrophy in AD and PD/DLB. Yet contrast analyses did not reveal significant differences between disease groups. Functional analysis showed that left anterior insular cortex atrophy is associated with speech, emotion, and affective-cognitive deficits, and right dorsal atrophy with perception and cognitive deficits. In conclusion, insular sub-regional atrophy, particularly the anterior dorsal region, may contribute to cognitive and neuropsychiatric deficits in neurodegeneration. Our results support anterior insular cortex vulnerability and convey the differential involvement of the insular sub-regions in functional deficits in neurodegenerative diseases.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Chinonye A Maduagwuna ◽  

Study background: Chronic neuroinflammation is a common emerging hallmark of several neurodegenerative diseases. Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia among the elderly and is characterized by loss of memory and other cognitive functions.


2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
G Foussias ◽  
G Remington ◽  
R Mizrahi

Background: Schizophreniais a chronic and debilitating illness that affects approximately one percent of the population. The symptoms of schizophrenia are typically thought of in separate domains, including positive symptoms (hallucinations and delusions), negative symptoms (diminished emotional expression and amotivation), and cognitive deficits. Importantly, the negative symptoms have been consistently found to adversely influence functional outcomes, in particular due to markedamotivation.^1 There have been suggestions that these individuals also experience deficits in the experience of pleasure, especially in their capacity to anticipate pleasure.^2 However, such investigations have not included the examination of these symptoms in those in the prodromal phase ofthis illness, a time that holds promise for early intervention and altering thecourse of schizophrenia.^3 Methods: In an effort to examine deficits in motivation and pleasure in the prodromal phase of schizophrenia, we have used an experience sampling method to assess “in the moment” motivation and pleasure in individuals at high risk of developing schizophrenia and healthy controls. Subjects completed baseline assessments including evaluation of their positive and negative symptoms. Subsequently, through the use of a personal digital assistant, subjects rated their motivation and experience of consummatory and anticipatory pleasure in their daily lives, multiple times over the course of four days. Results and Conclusions: Preliminary data will be presented, as well as the importance of these findings in the context of understanding the underlying pathobiology of this illness, and guiding our search for effective treatments to improvefunctional outcomes in schizophrenia. References: 1. Sayers SL, Curran PJ, Mueser KT. Psychol Assessment 1996;8:269-80. 2. Gard DE, Kring AM, Gard GM, et al.. Schizophr Res 2007;93:253-60.


2012 ◽  
pp. 66-80
Author(s):  
Michał Mrozowicki

Michel Butor, born in 1926, one of the leaders of the French New Novel movement, has written only four novels between 1954 and 1960. The most famous of them is La Modification (Second thoughts), published in 1957. The author of the paper analyzes two other Butor’s novels: L’Emploi du temps (Passing time) – 1956, and Degrés (Degrees) – 1960. The theme of absence is crucial in both of them. In the former, the novel, presented as the diary of Jacques Revel, a young Frenchman spending a year in Bleston (a fictitious English city vaguely similar to Manchester), describes the narrator’s struggle to survive in a double – spatial and temporal – labyrinth. The first of them, formed by Bleston’s streets, squares and parks, is symbolized by the City plan. During his one year sojourn in the city, using its plan, Revel learns patiently how to move in its different districts, and in its strange labyrinth – strange because devoid any centre – that at the end stops annoying him. The other, the temporal one, symbolized by the diary itself, the labyrinth of the human memory, discovered by the narrator rather lately, somewhere in the middle of the year passed in Bleston, becomes, by contrast, more and more dense and complex, which is reflected by an increasinly complex narration used to describe the past. However, at the moment Revel is leaving the city, he is still unable to recall and to describe the events of the 29th of February 1952. This gap, this absence, symbolizes his defeat as the narrator, and, in the same time, the human memory’s limits. In Degrees temporal and spatial structures are also very important. This time round, however, the problems of the narration itself, become predominant. Considered from this point of view, the novel announces Gerard Genette’s work Narrative Discourse and his theoretical discussion of two narratological categories: narrative voice and narrative mode. Having transgressed his narrative competences, Pierre Vernier, the narrator of the first and the second parts of the novel, who, taking as a starting point, a complete account of one hour at school, tries to describe the whole world and various aspects of the human civilization for the benefit of his nephew, Pierre Eller, must fail and disappear, as the narrator, from the third part, which is narrated by another narrator, less audacious and more credible.


2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-233
Author(s):  
Vakhtang Merabishvili

Malignant melanoma of the skin (MMS) is less than 2% (1.74%) among all malignant tumors in Russia but this is more than 10,000 (10236-2015) of new cases. It is important to monitor the trend in dynamics of morbidity and mortality from this cause. From 1995 to 2015 a number of MMS primary cases was more than doubled in absolute numbers and “crude” rates. A slightly smaller increase is indicated by standardized indicators - 62.5% for men and 70.2% for women. Annually in Russia 3670 people die from MMS (2015), which is 1.2% of all cancer deaths. In recent years the previously revealed regularities have been largely preserved: lower rates of specific gravity detected in the early stages among people in the elderly and senile and in a smaller proportion in this group who received special treatment. At the same time a change in the detailed structure of the incidence of women has been revealed where currently the leading localization of MMS was not the lower extremities but the back. The index accuracy improved however the official statistics of the distribution of patients by stages of a disease was significantly distorted (weight of the early stages was increased from the real values). The index of one-year lethality and survival was significantly improved.


Author(s):  
Paolo Spinnato ◽  
Andrea Sambri ◽  
Tomohiro Fujiwara ◽  
Luca Ceccarelli ◽  
Roberta Clinca ◽  
...  

: Myxofibrosarcoma is one of the most common soft tissue sarcomas in the elderly. It is characterized by an extremely high rate of local recurrence, higher than other soft tissue tumors, and a relatively low risk of distant metastases.Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the imaging modality of choice for the assessment of myxofibrosarcoma and plays a key role in the preoperative setting of these patients.MRI features associated with high risk of local recurrence are: high myxoid matrix content (water-like appearance of the lesions), high grade of contrast enhancement, presence of an infiltrative pattern (“tail sign”). On the other hand, MRI features associated with worse sarcoma specific survival are: large size of the lesion, deep location, high grade of contrast enhancement. Recognizing the above-mentioned imaging features of myxofibrosarcoma may be helpful to stratify the risk for local recurrence and disease-specific survival. Moreover, the surgical planning should be adjusted according to the MRI features


Author(s):  
Brett Hammond ◽  
Olivia S. Mitchell ◽  
Stephen P. Utkus

By the end of the next decade, the number of older Americans will have grown rapidly, but half if not more of the elderly will suffer from cognitive deficits after the age of 80. This volume explores how financial decision making changes at older ages, how and when financial advice can be useful for the older population, and what solutions and opportunities are needed to resolve the likely problems that will arise.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document