Alzheimer’s Disease/Dementia News

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force wrote in JAMA that there is insufficient evidence to assess the benefits and harms of screening for cognitive impairment — its collective term for dementia and mild cognitive impairment — in older adults.

The number of patients with dementia will likely double in Europe by 2050, according to a recent report by Alzheimer Europe.

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.

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 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.

Individuals with three or more adverse childhood experiences are at increased risk for dementia in old age, according to results of a large-scale cohort study conducted in Japan and 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.

Healio Psychiatry has compiled a list of the top five most-viewed stories in January.

Patients taking oral anticoagulants had a lower risk for dementia/cognitive impairment compared with those not taking oral anticoagulants, according to a study published in HeartRhythm.