People with Parkinson disease can be apathetic without being depressed
People with Parkinson disease can be apathetic without being depressed, and apathy may be a core feature of the disease, according to a study published in the July 11, 2006, issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Apathy is a mental state characterized by a loss of motivation, loss of interest, and loss of effortful behavior. In apathy, the mood is neutral and there is a sense of indifference. In depression, the mood is negative and there is emotional suffering. Because apathy and depression share some of the same symptoms, the disorders can be misdiagnosed.
“This study shows that it’s important to screen for both apathy and depression so patients can be treated appropriately,” said study author Lindsey Kirsch-Darrow, MS, of the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Healthy Lifestyle Reduces Women’s Stroke Risk
Women who are non-smokers, exercise regularly, have a healthy diet, including moderate alcohol consumption, and otherwise live a healthy lifestyle may have a reduced risk of stroke, according to a report in the July 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
About 700,000 strokes occur each year in the United States, approximately one-fourth of which are fatal and an additional one-fourth of which leave patients permanently disabled, according to background information in the article. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, the more common type, in which a blocked artery causes a lack of blood flow to the brain; and hemorrhagic, which occurs when a ruptured blood vessel causes blood to leak into the brain. Several individual risk factors, including smoking, exercise and body mass index (BMI), have been linked to stroke. However, in contrast to studies assessing risk for heart disease and diabetes, researchers have not previously examined how the combination of these behaviors may contribute to stroke.
Study finds sleep vital for memory
Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the University of Pennsylvania found that sleep benefits an individual’s ability to recall recently learned declarative memories, even when recall of these memories is challenged hours later by competing information.
This finding is particularly important for individuals with mentally demanding lifestyles, such as doctors, medical residents and college students, who often do not get adequate amounts of sleep.
The study appears in the July 11, 2006 issue of Current Biology.
Apathy often a part of Parkinson’s disease
Patients with Parkinson’s disease may exhibit apathetic behavior without being depressed, a group of clinicians report. They suggest in the medical journal Neurology that apathy may therefore be a “core” feature of the disease.
“It’s important to screen for both apathy and depression so patients can be treated appropriately,” noted Dr. Lindsey Kirsch-Darrow in an American Academy of Neurology statement.
“It will also be important to educate family members and caregivers about apathy to help them understand that it is a characteristic of Parkinson’s disease,” she continued. “Apathetic behavior is not something the patient can voluntarily control, and it is not laziness or the patient trying to be difficult—it is a symptom of Parkinson’s disease.”
Anti-herpes drug reduces need for Caesarean sections in infected women
Giving an anti-viral drug to pregnant women who have a history of genital herpes significantly lowers the rate of Caesarean sections needed to protect the infant from becoming infected with the virus, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
The UT Southwestern study is the first large-scale confirmation that the drug valacyclovir hydrochloride (Valtrex) is effective in the last month of pregnancy, the researchers said. The study appears in this month’s issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.
“I think this will help immensely in giving doctors stronger evidence in using this treatment,” said Dr. Jeanne Sheffield, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UT Southwestern and lead author of the study. “Besides reducing the number of herpes outbreaks at birth, we also dropped the numbers of women without symptoms who were shedding the virus into the birth canal.”
Protein may help detect Alzheimer’s - study
Sampling spinal fluid for a protein that makes up the plaques that clog the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients may help diagnose the mind-wasting disease, researchers said on Monday.
As plaques build up in the brain, levels of the protein—A beta 42—are thought to decline elsewhere in the body, including the spinal fluid, according to the study appearing in the Archives of Neurology.
Other than giving suspected Alzheimer’s patients mental tests, a diagnosis can only be confirmed after death from the telltale plaques found in the brain.
In-home eating “rules” may improve teens’ diet
A team of dietitians and nutritionists in California say they’ve identified a number of promising ways to help adolescents make healthier food choices—like reaching for fruits and vegetables instead of cookies and sweets.
Dr. Marion F. Zabinski from the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues used an online questionnaire to determine psychological and social factors that correlated with fruit, vegetable, and dietary fat intake among 878 girls and boys ages 11 to 15 years.
The researchers also interviewed the adolescents on multiple occasions to ask about what they had eaten the day before.
Hallucinogen in mushrooms creates mystical/spiritual experiences
Using unusually rigorous scientific conditions and measures, Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that the active agent in “sacred mushrooms” can induce mystical/spiritual experiences descriptively identical to spontaneous ones people have reported for centuries.
The resulting experiences apparently prompt positive changes in behavior and attitude that last several months, at least.
The agent, a plant alkaloid called psilocybin, mimics the effect of serotonin on brain receptors-as do some other hallucinogens-but precisely where in the brain and in what manner are unknown.
Second-generation airbags safer for kids
A new study confirms that newer airbags designed to be less hazardous to children and small adults are indeed safer for young children, without putting adults at greater risk.
The first generation of air bags, built to protect an average-size male, “have been lethal for children and adults in some crashes,” Dr. Carin M. Olson of the University of Washington in Seattle and her colleagues note in the July 15 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Second-generation air bags developed to deal with this problem were included in most cars built in 1998 and nearly all passenger cars of subsequent model years, they add. These air bags include depowered air bags, which inflate with less force, and advanced air bags.
Strategy for Creating Actively Programmed Anti-Cancer Molecules Unveiled
The new study, which was published July 5 in an advanced, online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, achieved a significant enhancement of the treatment of metastatic breast cancer in animal models. The study showed the new hybrid compound remained in circulation for a week. In comparison, the small molecule drug was cleared in a matter of minutes.
“Although the study focused specifically on breast cancer, these new findings could have broad application in the treatment of a number of other cancers, potentially increasing the efficacy of a number of existing or undeveloped small molecule therapies,” said Subhash C. Sinha, Ph.D., associate professor in the Scripps Research Department of Molecular Biology and the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, who led the research with Scripps Research President Richard A. Lerner, M.D., Lita Annenberg Hazen Professor of Immunochemistry, Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Chair in Chemistry, and a member of the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology.
In the study, the scientists created what is known as a “chemically programmed antibody” by using small cell-targeting molecules and a non-targeting catalytic monoclonal aldolase antibody in a novel self-assembly strategy.
Focus on Multiple Sclerosis
The authors describe how the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Centers of Excellence use healthcare information technology to care for veterans with MS. The approach is based on a chronic-disease model that was effective for diabetes, asthma, and depression. In this model, the approach to healthcare delivery focuses on two essential elements: “prepared, proactive, practice teams” who use tools such as evidence-based guidelines, and patients who actively participate in their healthcare. Through use of an organized healthcare information system, this model will capitalize on the advantages of information technology and lead to improved healthcare outcomes.
Veterans Health Administration multiple sclerosis surveillance registry: The problem of case-finding from administrative databases, pg. 17
The authors discuss the development of a Veterans Health Administration (VHA) multiple sclerosis (MS) surveillance registry. Numerous VHA registries target specific patient populations as part of programs for improving the quality and availability of veteran care. These registries are often compiled from administrative data based on diagnostic codes that rarely precisely identify veterans in the target patient population. In this study, the authors compare classification of patients (not MS vs MS/possible MS) by chart review and by application of a statistical database algorithm. Results suggest that the algorithm reliably eliminates non-MS cases from the initial surveillance registry and is a reasonable case-finding method.
