Dementia and geriatric cognitive disorders
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Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord · Jan 2012
Meta AnalysisGray matter atrophy in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia: a meta-analysis of voxel-based morphometry studies.
Structural neuroimaging studies on behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) using the voxel-based morphometry (VBM) method reported not entirely consistent findings. ⋯ The present meta-analysis provides evidence of GM changes in the frontal-striatal-limbic brain areas in patients with bvFTD. Furthermore, GM atrophy in the fron-toinsular cortex and anterior cingulate cortex may be important anatomical changes for the diagnosis of patients with bvFTD.
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Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord · Jan 2012
Multicenter StudyDifferent functional outcomes in patients with delirium and subsyndromal delirium one month after hospital discharge.
Subsyndromal delirium has an increasing relevance in the medical literature. There are only three studies in hospitalized elderly patients. Our goal is to demonstrate the importance of this syndrome in a population with more complexity and cognitive impairment than in previous studies. ⋯ SSD could help get more accurate diagnoses as well as improve patient management.
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Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord · Jan 2012
Memory impairment, in mild cognitive impairment without significant cerebrovascular disease, predicts progression to Alzheimer's disease.
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) usually represents a transitional phase between normal cognitive function and dementia, but not all people with MCI develop dementia because MCI is a clinically and etiologically heterogeneous grouping. The aim of this study was to compare progression rates to Alzheimer's disease (AD) among various MCI subtypes which show minimal white matter ischemia. ⋯ Subjects with mdMCI+a had a statistically significant association with progression to AD. Especially, in cases of degenerative etiologies, impairment of the memory domain is more important than impairment of multiple domains in predicting the progression to dementia.
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Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord · Jan 2012
Comparative StudyPsychometric properties of the pain assessment in advanced dementia scale compared to self assessment of pain in elderly patients.
The aims of the present study were to report on the psychometric properties of the Pain Assessment in Advanced Dementia (PAINAD) scale by comparing it with the gold standard method of self-reporting on a numerical rating scale (NRS), and to provide a categorical version of the PAINAD scale comparable with the verbal descriptor scale of the NRS. ⋯ Our findings clearly indicate that the PAINAD scale is a reliable and easily administered tool for assessing pain intensity also in elderly patients with advanced dementia.
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Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord · Jan 2012
Physiological fall risk factors in cognitively impaired older people: a one-year prospective study.
Cognitively impaired older people are at twice the risk of falls compared to cognitively intact, with approximately 60% falling once or more per year. This study aimed to investigate sensorimotor and balance risk factors for falls in cognitively impaired older people. ⋯ These findings indicate poor performance on physiological fall risk factors, particularly balance, increases the risk of falls in older cognitively impaired people.