Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders最新文献

Background: The potential of Ultra-Ma, an ultrasonic head stimulator, for the supplementary treatment of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) was evaluated in patients with various symptoms under poor control by drug therapy.

Methods: Patients with DLB treated with choline esterase inhibitor or L-DOPA, either alone or in combination, and who met inclusion criteria were enrolled. Four weeks of placebo stimulation was followed by 8 weeks of active ultrasonic stimulation and a 4-week follow-up. Primary endpoints were the effects of ultrasonic head stimulation on both cognitive dysfunction and behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD). Cognitive dysfunction was evaluated using the Japanese versions of the Mini-Mental State Examination and Montreal Cognitive Assessment, and BPSD was assessed using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory Brief Questionnaire Form. For cognitive fluctuations, the Cognitive Fluctuation Inventory served as an index. Improvements in parkinsonism, activities of daily living, and caregiver burden were examined as secondary endpoints.

Results: Twelve patients were enrolled. The primary endpoint was significantly improved during the active stimulation period, as were secondary endpoint ratings for parkinsonism and caregiver burden. No notable adverse events occurred.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that ultrasonic head stimulation has supplementary potential when combined with drug treatment in DLB.

Background: Psychosis in Alzheimer disease (AD) is a major burden for patients and their family. Identifying the characteristics of delusions and hallucinations in the AD population is key to understanding the interconnection between the psychiatric and cognitive symptoms in neurocognitive disorders. The aim of this study is to compare the cognitive profiles of AD patients with and without psychosis.

Methods: We conducted a rapid review to explore the relationship between psychotic symptoms and cognitive performances in patients with AD. We used MEDLINE, Embase, and PsychINFO literature databases between January 2015 and January 2023. This rapid review was guided by the Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group.

Results: We identified 2909 records from the initial searches. After reviewing the titles, abstracts, and full texts, we selected 8 cross-sectional and 5 cohort studies for the qualitative analysis. Among them, 6 studies were included in the final quantitative analysis. Most studies suggested a correlation between general cognitive decline and the risk of presenting psychotic symptoms. Three studies found an association between hallucinations and deficits in the visuocognitive domains (visuospatial, visuoperceptual, and visuoconstructive skills). Two studies found a relationship between psychotic symptoms and executive dysfunction. Two studies also found a correlation between psychotic symptoms and language. Our results are in line with previous data in the literature, especially regarding the outcome of psychosis on executive function and visuocognitive abilities.

Conclusions: There appears to be an association between cognitive deficits and psychotic symptoms in AD, but the direction of causality is still unclear, and further studies using longitudinal designs would give more insight into the pathophysiological process of psychosis in AD.

Introduction: Dementia can adversely affect the quality of life (QoL) of family members/partners of those affected. Measuring this often-neglected burden is critical to planning and providing appropriate support services. This study measures this impact using the Family-Reported Outcome Measure (FROM-16).

Methods: A large UK cross-sectional online study through patient research platforms, recruited family members/partners of people with dementia, to complete the FROM-16.

Results: Totally, 711 family members/partners (mean age=58.7 y, SD=12.5; females=81.3%) of patients (mean age=81.6, SD=9.6; females=66.9) with dementia completed the FROM-16. The FROM-16 mean total score was 17.5 (SD=6.8), meaning "a very large effect" on QoL of family members, with females being more adversely impacted.

Conclusions: Dementia profoundly impacts the QoL of family members/partners of patients. Routine use of FROM-16 could signpost provision of care support, reducing family members' burnout. Such routine data could be used in economic analysis of the burden of dementia as well as in predicting institutionalization.

Introduction: People with dementia can have many family and friends who might be affected by their deaths. Pursuing the long-term aim of understanding how dementia deaths affect close family and friends, this project lays groundwork through estimates of who those close family and friends are, with special attention to race and ethnicity.

Method: Regression models estimated associations between dementia, race/ethnicity, and close family and friend network size, controlling for age, sex, education, marital status, and household wealth for 1386 deceased people with dementia from the Health and Retirement Study (2004 to 2018).

Results: Persons with dementia had an average of 9.4 close family and friends at death. But patterns of close family and friends were different among non-Latino Black (10.8), Latino (9.9), and non-Latino White (9.2) people with dementia at death. Notably, non-Latino White persons with dementia had the fewest close family (3.7), followed by non-Latino Black (5.1), and Latino (7.7) persons with dementia.

Discussion: Knowing who might be affected by dementia deaths is the first step to explore how dementia-related deaths impact close family and friends. Future work can now sample bereaved family and friends of people with dementia to explore their experiences and develop culturally appropriate supports.

Background: Mutations in the LRRK2 gene are the most common genetic cause of Parkinson disease but are believed to play no significant role in Lewy body disease (LBD).

Objectives: As the frequency of G2019S LRRK2 mutation is extremely high in North African patients with Parkinson disease, we postulate that the high prevalence of LBD in North Africa might be due to the same mutation because LBD and Parkinson disease share many clinical, pathological, and genetic features.

Methods: We screened patients with LBD or prodromal LBD for the G2019S mutation of LRRK2.

Results: A total of 162 patients were tested for the mutation, which was present in 5 of the 47 patients with North African ancestors. This is a much higher prevalence (10.6%) than in healthy North African subjects (1.45%) but lower than in North African patients with Parkinson disease (36% to 39%). Carriers tended to develop more often orthostatic hypotension and swallowing problems.

Conclusions: Where previous studies in European and North American patients found no link between LRRK2 mutations and LBD, we found an LRRK2 mutation associated with Lewy body disease, namely the G2019S mutation that might be restricted to patients with North African ancestors. Our study illustrates the need to introduce ethnic diversity as stratifying factor in the analysis of genetic causes of neurodegenerative disorders. The current development of disease-modifying drugs modulating LRRK2 kinase activity could justify to screen North African patients with LBD for the G2019S LRRK2 mutation.

Purpose: Standardization of neuropsychological tests is crucial for consistency in cognitive assessment, as well as for validity and comparability of results across different populations. We examined the applicability and measurement equivalence of the Alzheimer Disease Research Centers' Neuropsychological Test Battery (version 3) (ADRC-NTB3) in Singapore.

Methods: The ADRC-NTB3 was administered to 978 older persons with normal cognition in Singapore. To provide comparison between Singapore and US samples, a US sample with similar profile was retrieved from the National Alzheimer Coordinating Center (NACC) database.

Patients: Scores were compared with 1853 participants with similar profile from the United States. Score-difference between the populations was computed using multiple linear regression (adjusted for covariates), with equivalent score considered present when 90% CI of the score-difference fell within the predefined margin of equivalence.

Results: Tasks assessing for memory, processing speed, and executive functioning showed equivalence in scores between US and Singapore samples (adjusted-score difference=-0.94 to 0.09). Singapore sample performed marginally better on the visuospatial task (adjusted-score difference=0.50), but poorer on the language task (adjusted-score difference=-3.22).

Discussion: Nonequivalence of visuospatial and language tasks, which may increase potential misinterpretation of cognitive profiles and misdiagnosis, are related to educational and cultural differences. This highlights the need for different normative data for more accurate diagnostic accuracy as well as research priorities.

There is no consensus on how long antidementia medications should be administered to patients with Alzheimer disease (AD). To clarify this issue, we investigated the discontinuation of antidementia medications in Japanese home care settings, including community-dwelling and institutionalized patients. Using medical records from April 2017 to March 2022 at 3 clinics in Tokyo and Chiba prefectures, we selected patients with AD who started receiving home care medicine. Forty-nine patients discontinued antidementia medications during the observation period, there was no apparent deterioration in cognitive function or new occurrence of behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia caused by the discontinuation of medications. More aggressive discontinuation of AD medications probably is recommended for patients with activities of daily living dysfunction, such as those receiving home care medicine.

Background: This study extends prior research from the MRI substudy of the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study (WHIMS-MRI) linking BMI to reduced brain atrophy and ischemic lesion load by examining DXA-based measurements of total body fat, total abdominal adipose tissue (TAT), abdominal visceral (VAT) and subcutaneous (SAT) adipose tissue, gynoid fat, and overall leg fat.

Methods: The analytic sample consisted of 61 postmenopausal women (baseline mean age 69.5 [3.6]) enrolled in WHIMS-MRI who had undergone DXA scans. DXA scans were completed at years 0, 3, and 6, and MRI scans were conducted ~8 years after baseline. Adjusted linear regression models were used to analyze the association between adiposity averaged across the 3-time points and volumes of brain regions previously linked to dementia.

Results: Higher levels of total body fat, TAT, VAT, SAT, gynoid, and overall leg fat were associated with larger hippocampal volume (β 0.02 [95% CI, 0.004-0.04]; 0.11 [0.02-0.21]; 0.26 [0.04-0.47]; 0.18 [0.03-0.33]; 0.18 [0.05-0.30]; 0.07 [0.009-0.12], respectively). No other significant associations were observed.

Conclusion: Higher levels of adiposity were positively associated with hippocampal volume. Additional research with larger sample sizes is needed to ascertain the significance of this association.

Introduction: There was limited evidence on the ability of people with Alzheimer disease (AD) to perceive their own emotions. We aimed to compare socioemotional self-perception in persons with mild and moderate AD to their caregivers' perspective.

Method: Cross-sectional assessment of people with mild (n=102) and moderate (n=59) AD and caregivers. Each participant and their caregivers completed the socioemotional questionnaire (SEQ); a 30-item rating scale assessing five dimensions of socioemotional cognition (empathy, emotion recognition, social conformity, antisocial behavior, sociability). We evaluated global cognition, awareness of disease, dementia severity, functionality, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and caregiver burden.

Results: Participants in the mild and moderate groups showed a similar pattern of socioemotional self-perception. They differed in the anger domain of the emotion recognition subscale, in the antisocial behavior dimension, and in the sociability subscale. In contrast, the caregivers' perspective of people with mild and moderate AD showed a significant difference in the emotion recognition domain for fear, disgust, and sadness. There were also significant differences in the empathy subscale for disgust and in the sociability subscale. Cognition was correlated with self-reported reduced perception in social conformity, antisocial behavior, and sociability. Awareness was correlated with emotion recognition, antisocial behavior, and sociability. Neuropsychiatric symptoms were correlated with empathy, emotion recognition, and social conformity.

Conclusions: Significant differences were found between caregivers' perspectives of socioemotional functioning in people with mild and moderate AD. Meanwhile, there were minimal differences in self-perception between the mild and moderate groups.

Purpose: The National Institute of Health Toolbox Cognition Battery (NIHTB-CB) is increasingly used in Alzheimer disease (AD) research. We examined the relation of AD biomarkers with performance in the NIHTB-CB in late middle age.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional analysis of 334 Hispanic participants aged 64.22±3.35 years from a study of AD biomarkers. White matter hyperintensities (WMH), infarcts, and cortical thickness in AD regions (CT) were assessed with 3T magnetic resonance imaging. Amyloid and tau were assessed with 18F-Florbetaben and 18F-MK6240 positron emission tomography, respectively.

Results: Lower CT and infarcts were associated with worse Oral Reading Recognition and Cognition Crystallized Composite scores. Lower CT and higher WMH were associated with worse Pattern Comparison Processing Speed. Amyloid and tau were not associated with any test.

Discussion: Amyloid and tau, the culprits of AD, are not related to the NIHTB-CB in late middle age. Continued follow-up will reveal if AD impacts performance on the NIHTB-CB.