A team of researchers at Lund University in Sweden have identified that a simple blood test, couple with brief memory tests, showed who will develop Alzheimer’s disease in the future (within 2-6 years) with a high degree of accuracy (90%). “We show for the first time that a time- and cost-effective diagnostic algorithm clearly outperforms the clinical work-up typically done …
Gluten has become a bad word in our society, everywhere you look, labels say “gluten-free”, you can even order a pizza with a gluten-free crust! Most recently, the concept that gluten could affect cognitive function was popularized by a best-selling book “Grain Brain”. Concern for such an association is in part due to the patients with celiac disease. Current findings …
Care home settings, such as nursing homes or residential care homes, present unique challenges to patient safety. This systematic review published by the National Library of Medicine identified several gaps in the available safety measures used for quality monitoring and improvement in older adult care homes, including patient experience (i.e., quality of life or other resident-reported indicators of safety, psychological …
A project supported by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging (grant U19AG063893) called “Long Life Family Study” has gathered some interesting data that was published in Medicalxpress.com this month. Their website also has a lot of interesting information, a definite read for those of us caring for elders! In response to a request for applications from the …
“Bacterial colonization and secondary infection have been described in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. At University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, MD.. since early April 2020, critically ill COVID-19 patients had been housed in 3 dedicated units which included 2 intensive care units (ICUs) and 1 intermediate care unit. Units were designed as closed, negative-pressure areas where staff remained in …
In a study published in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, 89% of the SARS-CoV-2-positive, mildly symptomatic patients who had a sudden onset of altered sense of smell or taste, experienced a complete resolution or improvement of these symptoms. Persistent loss of smell or taste was not associated with persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection. At 4 weeks from the initial survey of mildly …
Many of us suffer from insomnia on the best of days but with the pandemic, many suffer from COVID sleep deprivation. You know that feeling, you lay in bed and your mind is racing a thousand miles an hour, doom is hovering overhead right? Well if this describes you, you will be unhappy to know that most humans spend one-third …
According to a recent study published in the Lancet, there is a crisis in the under-treatment of osteoporosis with a decline in the prescribing of oral and intravenous bisphosphonates in the United States. The rates of initiation of osteoporosis medication within 6 months of hospitalization for hip fracture have declined over the past 15 years from 10 to 3%. In …
A recent JAMA article discusses how delirium emerged as a well-recognized complication of COVID-19, with particular importance due to its high prevalence and mortality. Unfortunately, early signs of delirium (also referred to as acute brain failure) are often “missed”. During the COVID-19 pandemic, reversible contributors to delirium must be addressed and approaches for delirium prevention and management can be built …
In a recent podcast posted on NPR, the practice of mixing different kinds of COVID-19 vaccines was discussed. Typically, if you get a COVID-19 vaccine that requires two doses, you should get two of the same vaccine. Two Pfizer shots, or two Moderna shots, not one and then the other. “In the U.K. at the moment, we’re sort of calling …
