Geriatric Medicine News

Combined declines in gait speed and memory were associated with an increased risk for dementia among older adults who had not previously showed signs of the condition, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.

This year, Biogen is expected to submit a Biologics License Application to the FDA for its anti-amyloid antibody, aducanumab. If approved, it will be the first new drug available to patients with Alzheimer’s disease in 16 years.

Initiating Alzheimer’s disease treatment before amyloid-beta levels become pathological provides patients with significant benefit, according to study findings published in Biological Psychiatry. Researchers noted that noninvasive, low-cost cognitive measures may help determine patients at risk for progressing to amyloid-beta positivity.

A blood test that the FDA approved in 2018 for mild traumatic brain injury had the same sensitivity and negative predictive value in older patients as it did in younger patients, thus providing clinicians with what one researcher called a “valuable” triaging tool in a vulnerable population.

Early improvements of individual symptoms might contribute to later treatment response among patients with Alzheimer’s disease receiving antipsychotics for neuropsychiatric symptoms, according to findings of a re-analysis study published in Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

A third of Medicare beneficiaries did not receive home health rehabilitation after being discharged from the intensive care unit, according to research presented at the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s Critical Care Congress.

A patient’s risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias can be predicted using information collected during routine doctor’s visits, according to findings from a pair of studies.

Although most family caregivers of older adults with activity restrictions said health care workers listened to them and asked if they understood the older adult’s treatments, many were not asked if they needed help managing their care, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.

Sustained blood sugar elevations were linked to an increased risk for cognitive decline in older adults, according to results of a population-based study published in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Researchers also found that the hormone adiponectin was likely a risk factor for cognitive decline in older adults without abdominal obesity.

Patients with chronic pain and insomnia who frequently used medicinal cannabis to relieve those symptoms said the substance helped them maintain their sleep in the short term, researchers reported in BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care. However, over longer periods of time, these same patients appeared to develop a tolerance to the drug’s sleep-inducing properties.