Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD
-
Alzheimer's disease (AD) commonly accompanies cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA). ⋯ CAA-related cortical microbleeds would be associated with lower CSF levels of Aβ40 and Aβ42 in AD, reflecting the deposition of both Aβ40 and Aβ42 in the cerebrovasculature.
-
Observational Study
Algoplus® Scale in Older Patients with Dementia: A Reliable Real-World Pain Assessment Tool.
Pain is still a neglected clinical issue in elderly people with dementia and/or communicative disorders, with an unacceptable higher rate of under diagnosis and under treatment. Cognitive deficit and emotional and psychological disturbances entangle pain symptoms, affecting patient self-report. So far, observational pain tools do not have fully adequate clinimetric properties and quality requirements for easy-to-use daily rating. ⋯ The assessment of pain is important for improving clinical outcomes, such as functional status, frailty trajectories, comorbidity, and quality of life. The PAINAID scale appears to be the most accurate pain tool in people with dementia along with the Algoplus® scale, a recently developed tool to rapidly assess acute pain in hospitals settings. The present study aimed to assess the clinimetric properties of the Algoplus®, as compared to PAINAID, for detecting acute pain in a real-world cohort of hospitalized older patients with dementia.
-
Progranulin is a multifunctional growth factor mainly expressed in neurons and microglia. Loss-of-function mutations in the Granulin (GRN) gene are causative of frontotemporal dementia with TAR DNA-binding protein-43 inclusions. ⋯ Plasma progranulin levels were significantly reduced and in silico analysis predicted a premature termination codon. This case expands our knowledge on GRN mutations in frontotemporal dementia.
-
People with Alzheimer's disease (AD) report pain less frequently and receive less pain medication than people without AD. Recent studies have begun to elucidate how pain may be altered in those with AD. However, potential sex differences in pain responsiveness have never been explored in these patients. It is unclear whether sex differences found in prior studies of healthy young and older individuals extend to people with AD. ⋯ Results suggest experimental pain-related sex differences persist in older adults with AD in a different manner than those previously demonstrated in cognitively intact older adults. These findings could potentially aid in developing targeted pain management approaches in this vulnerable population. Further studies are warranted to replicate the findings from this pilot work.
-
Identifying older adults at risk of cognitive decline represents a challenge as Alzheimer's disease (AD) modifying therapies move toward preclinical stages. ⋯ Baseline CSF t-Tau and p-Tau181, in vivo amyloid load, and hippocampal volume were all independently associated with future decline in cognition. The discriminatory ability of these biomarkers to predict risk of cognitive decline, however, was only modest.