For centuries, hands, eyes and ears were the physicians’ most important instruments when it came to detecting and diagnosing disease. Today, one of the traditional techniques, percussion, is being revived, supported by state-of-the-art technology and dressed in a new name: optoacoustics. In one of the most exciting visionary ideas in modern healthcare short laser pulses (optics) are transmitted…
Exercising twice a week may improve thinking ability and memory in people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), according to a guideline released by the American Academy of Neurology. The recommendation is an update to the AAN’s previous guideline on mild cognitive impairment and is published in the online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The…
While cognitive abilities naturally decline with age, eating one serving of leafy green vegetables a day may aid in preserving memory and thinking skills as a person grows older, according to a study by researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. The study results were published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Adding a daily serving of…
Walking more than 4,000 steps a day can improve attention and mental skills in adults ages 60 and older, according to UCLA research published December 12 in a preprint edition of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. Various studies have found that physical activity is important in preventing cognitive decline and dementia in older adults. Cognitive decline occurs when people start having…
The chemical compound “anle138b” eases cognitive deficits and normalizes gene expression in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. Furthermore, the drug seems to close harmful openings in the membrane of nerve cells. An international collaboration reports these findings in the journal “EMBO Molecular Medicine”. The scientists suggest that anle138b should be validated in clinical trials…
The holidays are supposed to be a happy time of the year, but many isolated seniors often are left feeling lonely — which can be harmful to their health. Loneliness is linked to serious medical conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and heart disease as well as a higher risk of premature death. But loneliness can be easily overlooked as a health risk because healthcare providers…
If you're between 55 and 75 years old, you may want to try playing 3D platform games like Super Mario 64 to stave off mild cognitive impairment and perhaps even prevent Alzheimer's disease. That's the finding of a new Canadian study by Université de Montréal psychology professors Gregory West, Sylvie Belleville and Isabelle Peretz. Published in PLOS ONE, it was done in cooperation with the…
About 15 million Americans will have either Alzheimer’s dementia or mild cognitive impairment by 2060, up from approximately 6.08 million this year, according to a new study by researchers at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. The findings highlight the need to develop measures that could slow the progression of the disease in people who have indications of neuropathological changes…
Researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have identified a peptide that could lead to the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The discovery, published in Nature Communications, may also provide a means of homing drugs to diseased areas of the brain to treat AD, Parkinson’s disease, as well as glioblastoma, brain injuries and stroke. “Our goal was to…
A common feature of neurodegenerative diseases are deposits of aggregated proteins in the patient's cells that cause damage to cellular functions. Scientists report that, even in normal cells, aberrant aggregation-prone proteins are continually produced due to partial failure of the respiratory system. Unless they are removed by degradation, aggregates accumulate preferentially in the…
Blood-thinning drugs not only reduce the risk of stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) but are also associated with a significant reduction in the risk of dementia, according to new research published today in the European Heart Journal.
Scientists drilling down to the molecular roots of Alzheimer’s disease have encountered a good news/bad news scenario. A major player is a gene called TREM2, mutations of which can substantially raise a person’s risk of the disease. The bad news is that in the early stages of the disease, high-risk TREM2 variants can hobble the immune system’s ability to protect the brain from amyloid beta,…
A long-term study of nearly 3,000 adults, aged 57 to 85, found that those who could not identify at least four out of five common odors were more than twice as likely as those with a normal sense of smell to develop dementia within five years. Although 78 percent of those tested were normal – correctly identifying at least four out of five scents – about 14 percent could name just three out…
Researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) are tackling Alzheimer’s disease with a new study that intervenes decades before the disease develops.
Brain scientists from Edinburgh have identified a genetic programme that controls the way our brain changes throughout life. The programme controls how and when brain genes are expressed at different times in a person’s life to perform a range of functions, the study found.
Columbia University Medical Center researchers have found that it may be possible to access memories “lost” to Alzheimer’s disease, if their discoveries about memory loss in mice also apply to people with the disease.
A largely aged population is already a reality in some countries, and this will become a worldwide problem by 2047, when the number of the Earth’s old people is likely to surpass the number of young people.
Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) have a larger caudate nucleus, a brain area involved in habits and used to navigate in the environment on an autopilot mode, shows for the first time a Canadian-Norwegian study published in Acta Neurologica Scandinavica. Not good news, you may think. Hold on, this could open new research avenues for AD.
Experts say that one-third of the world’s dementia cases could be prevented by managing lifestyle factors such as hearing loss, hypertension and depression.
The Alzheimer's Association announced the launch of a $20 million U.S. two-year clinical trial to test the ability of a multi-dimensional lifestyle intervention to prevent cognitive decline and dementia in 2,500 older adults with no current cognitive symptoms but who are at increased risk for later cognitive decline. The announcement was made at the 2017 Alzheimer's Association International…
Genetics isn’t just for geneticists anymore. With the rise of direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies like 23andMe, anyone can rifle through their genotypes at hundreds of thousands of positions throughout their DNA. However, these new possibilities may have some serious drawbacks, says Alzheimer's-specialized site Alzforum.
A natural compound in strawberries could help treat age-related mental decline and conditions like Alzheimer’s, a new study found.
Long before symptoms of Alzheimer's disease become apparent to patients and their families, biological changes are occurring within the brain. Amyloid plaques, which are clusters of protein fragments, along with tangles of protein known as tau, form in the brain and grow in number, eventually getting in the way of the brain's ability to function. These biological changes can be detected early in…
New research led by the University of Hertfordshire, may significantly change the understanding of cognitive processes that are most impaired at very early stages of Alzheimer's disease. The findings could potentially be used to detect the condition at an earlier stage and improve diagnostic accuracy, by creating new cognitive tests that are more sensitive to brain pathology than ones currently…
Scientists are hoping that a single drug can treat two devastating brain diseases: Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. The drug is nilotinib, which is approved to treat a form of leukemia.