Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Music and Dementia: Individual Differences in Response to Personalized Playlists.
Personalized music playlists are increasingly being used in health-care contexts to address the psychological and behavioral symptoms in people with dementia. However, there is little understanding of how people with different mental health histories and symptoms respond differently to music. A factorial experiment was conducted to investigate the influence of depression, anxiety, apathy, and cognitive decline on affective response to music. ⋯ Results demonstrated that people with high levels of depression and with symptoms of Alzheimer's type dementia demonstrated increased levels of sadness when listening to music. People with low depression but high levels of apathy demonstrated the highest behavioral evidence of pleasure during music listening, although behavioral evidence declined with severity of cognitive impairment. It is concluded that as well as accounting for personal preferences, music interventions for people with dementia need to take mental health history and symptoms into account.
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Review Meta Analysis
White Matter Hyperintensities and Cognition in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease: A Domain-Specific Meta-Analysis.
White matter hyperintensities (WMHs) are related to cognitive dysfunction in the general population. The clinical relevance of WMHs in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is, however, unclear. ⋯ WMHs have a medium-sized association with different cognitive functions in patients with MCI and a small, but statistically significant, association with cognition in AD. These result underscore the role of co-occurring vascular brain damage in MCI and AD.
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Meta Analysis
The Association between Social Engagement, Loneliness, and Risk of Dementia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
It has been reported that social engagement may be associated with dementia risk. We searched PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, LILACS, Biomed Central, Scopus, and Web of Science from January 2012 - May 2017, supplemented by extraction from previous reviews. We included cohort and case-control studies examining the association between social engagement or loneliness and dementia risk, pooling data using a random-effects model. ⋯ In long-term studies (≥10 years), good social engagement was modestly protective (RR = 0.88, 95% CI 0.80-0.96; I2 = 0.00%). Loneliness was non-significantly associated with increased risk (RR = 1.38, 95% CI 0.98-1.94; I2 = 45.32). Our findings encourage interventions targeting social isolation and disengagement for dementia prevention.
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The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is used to evaluate multiple cognitive domains in elderly individuals. However, it is influenced by demographic characteristics that have yet to be adequately considered. ⋯ We developed a formula to provide demographically adjusted standard scores for the MoCA in a German-speaking population. A comparison with other MoCA normative studies revealed considerable differences with respect to selection of volunteers and methods used to establish normative data.
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To enhance the accuracy of clinical diagnosis for Alzheimer's disease (AD), pre-mortem biomarkers have become increasingly important for diagnosis and for participant recruitment in disease-specific treatment trials. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers provide a low-cost alternative to positron emission tomography (PET) imaging for in vivo quantification of different AD pathological hallmarks in the brains of affected subjects; however, consensus around the best platform, most informative biomarker and correlations across different methodologies are controversial. ⋯ This study confirms strong concordance between CSF biomarkers and PET Aβ-amyloid status is independent of immunoassay platform, supporting their utility as biomarkers in clinical practice for the diagnosis of AD and for participant enrichment in clinical trials.