Blood biomarker shows “great promise” predicting progression to Alzheimer’s disease in at-risk population

Neuroscience researchers at Wayne State University published a review article that confirms the usefulness of neurofilament light (NfL) blood levels to predict the likelihood and rate of progression of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease.

Wayne State University designated as age friendly

Wayne State University has been named a member of the Age-Friendly University Global Network, an innovative consortium of universities dedicated to promoting equity, inclusion and opportunity for older adults. A strategic focus of the university is diversity, equity and inclusion. The AFU designation confirms that “age” is an important dimension of that strategy.

There’s a Better Way to Detect High-Risk Medications in Older Adults with Cancer According to New Study in JNCCN

Gerontology researchers teamed up with hematologic-oncology investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to look at the association between older patients with blood cancers who were taking multiple medications and their corresponding frailty. They also created a new scale based on a list of Potentially Inappropriate Medications (PIMs) from the NCCN Guidelines® for Older Adult Oncology—called the Geriatric Oncology-Potentially Inappropriate Medications (GO-PIMs) Scale—and found it to be more effective at predicting frailty than conventional methods.

Low-dose Aspirin No Longer Recommended to Prevent Cardiovascular Disease

New draft recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommend against taking aspirin to prevent heart attacks and strokes for most people. The Oct. 12, 2021 guidelines are based on new evidence showing that the risks of daily low-dose…

Evidence of sustained benefits of pimavanserin for dementia-related psychosis

Evidence of the sustained benefits of an investigational antipsychotic treatment for people with dementia-related psychosis has been published. Up to half of the 45 million people worldwide who are living with Alzheimer’s disease will experience psychotic episodes, a figure that…

New guidance on how to diagnosis and manage osteoporosis in chronic kidney disease

Patients with advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) typically suffer from impaired bone quality and quantity, with a non-vertebral fracture risk which is 4-to 6-fold higher than the fracture risk of matched controls. However, despite their high risk of fragility fractures,…

What is the evidence on how to improve older adults’ functional abilities at home?

A new analysis called an evidence and gap map has mapped what we know about improving the functional ability of older adults living at home or in nursing homes, retirement homes, or other long-term care facilities. A total of 548…

Understanding frailty will lead to better care for older adults

Frailty is a better predictor than factors such as age when determining how older adults fare one year after receiving critical care. A team led by researchers from the University of Waterloo analyzed data from more than 24,000 community-dwelling older…

The sense of smell in older adults declines when it comes to meat, but not vanilla

Contrary to what science once suggested, older people with a declining sense of smell do not have comprehensively dampened olfactory ability for odors in general – it simply depends upon the type of odor. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen…

Self-reported declines in cognition may be linked to changes in brain connectivity

A team from Wayne State University recently published the results of a three-year study of cognitive changes in older adults who complained that their cognitive ability was worsening though clinical assessments showed no impairments. MRIs at 18-month intervals showed significant changes in functional connectivity in two areas of the brain.

State of the art and future directions in the clinical application of HR-pQCT in adults

A new international guidance on the clinical application of high-resolution peripheral computed tomography (HR-pQCT) offers an important overview of current clinical applications in adults and direction on the interpretation of results

FDA advisory panelist outlines issues with aducanumab’s approval for Alzheimer’s disease

Below please find a summary for a new article that will be published today in Annals of Internal Medicine . The summary is not intended to substitute for the full article as a source of information. This information is under…

Depression in old age: Smoking and other risk factors less decisive

People who smoke, suffer from high blood pressure, obesity, or diabetes are not only at greater risk of suffering a stroke, heart attack, or dementia. For them, the risk of being affected by depressive mood or depression also increases. The…

New heart metric may increase survival for heart-failure patients

A new physiological measurement of heart function developed at UVA Health could improve survival for people with heart failure by identifying high-risk patients who require tailored treatments, a new study suggests. The study is the first to show a survival…