Communication improvement reduces BPSD: a music therapy study based on artificial neural networks.

Background: Literature showed the effects of music therapy on behavioral disturbances, cognitive functions, and on quality of life in people with dementia. Especially, relational active music therapy approach is oriented to reduce behavioral disturbances increasing communication, especially non-verbal communication.

Objective: This study aimed at exploring the connection between the baseline characteristics of responders and the positive outcome of the intervention, but also the close relationship between the behavioral disturbances and the core of the therapeutic intervention (the relationship/communication improvement).

The impact of COVID-19 on health status of home-dwelling elderly patients with dementia in East Lombardy, Italy: results from COVIDEM network.

Background: COVID-19 outbreak has led to severe health burden in the elderly. Age, morbidity and dementia have been associated with adverse outcome.

Aims: To evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on health status in home-dwelling patients.

Daily music listening to reduce work-related stress: a randomized controlled pilot trial.

Background: Literature shows that music can reduce stress conditions. This pilot study investigated the effects of music listening on work-related stress and well-being in healthcare professionals.

Method: A total of 45 subjects were randomly assigned to three treatment groups: No Music, Individualized Music and Melomics-Health Listening.

On the initial value problem for a class of discrete velocity models.

In this paper we investigate the initial value problem for a class of hyperbolic systems relating the mathematical modeling of a class of complex phenomena, with emphasis on vehicular traffic flow. Existence and uniqueness for large times of solutions, a basic requisite both for models building and for their numerical implementation, are obtained under weak hypotheses on the terms modeling the interaction among agents. The results are then compared with the existing literature on the subject.

Assessment of the Incremental Diagnostic Value of Florbetapir F 18 Imaging in Patients With Cognitive Impairment: The Incremental Diagnostic Value of Amyloid PET With [18F]-Florbetapir (INDIA-FBP) Study.

Importance: Cerebral amyloidosis is a key abnormality in Alzheimer disease (AD) and can be detected in vivo with positron emission tomography (PET) ligands. Although amyloid PET has clearly demonstrated analytical validity, its clinical utility is debated.

Objective: To evaluate the incremental diagnostic value of amyloid PET with florbetapir F 18 in addition to the routine clinical diagnostic assessment of patients evaluated for cognitive impairment.

Association of brain amyloidosis with pro-inflammatory gut bacterial taxa and peripheral inflammation markers in cognitively impaired elderly.

The pathway leading from amyloid-β deposition to cognitive impairment is believed to be a cornerstone of the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, what drives amyloid buildup in sporadic nongenetic cases of AD is still unknown. AD brains feature an inflammatory reaction around amyloid plaques, and a specific subset of the gut microbiota (GMB) may promote brain inflammation.

Effect of Active Music Therapy and Individualized Listening to Music on Dementia: A Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial.

Objectives: To assess the effects of active music therapy (MT) and individualized listening to music (LtM) on behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSDs) in persons with dementia (PWDs).

Design: Randomized controlled trial.

Setting: Nine Italian institutions.

Global music approach to persons with dementia: evidence and practice.

Music is an important resource for achieving psychological, cognitive, and social goals in the field of dementia. This paper describes the different types of evidence-based music interventions that can be found in literature and proposes a structured intervention model (global music approach to persons with dementia, GMA-D). The literature concerning music and dementia was considered and analyzed.

Music therapy, emotions and the heart: a pilot study.

Background: The autonomic nervous system plays an important role in the control of cardiac function. It has been suggested that sound and music may have effects on the autonomic control of the heart inducing emotions, concomitantly with the activation of specific brain areas, i.e.

Music, music therapy and dementia: a review of literature and the recommendations of the Italian Psychogeriatric Association.

This study reviews the most recent (from 2000 to 2011) Clinical Controlled Trials (CCT) and Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) concerning the use of music and music-therapy (MT) in the context of dementia and related issues. Studies which explored the efficacy of music and MT on behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) are prevalent, while those aiming at assessing a potential effect of these approaches on cognitive and physiological aspects are scant. Although with some limitations, the results of these studies are consistent with the efficacy of MT approach on BPSD.

Addendum to 'Efficacy of music therapy treatment based on cycles of sessions: a randomised controlled trial' (Raglio et al., 2010).

Objectives: The aim of this paper is to provide further detail about the results of a randomised controlled study published in this journal (Raglio et al., 2010, 14, 900-904), in which we assessed the efficacy of music therapy (MT) on the behavioural disturbances in people with moderate-severe dementia.

Methods: Sixty patients were randomly assigned to the experimental (MT and standard care) and control group (standard care only).

[Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia syndrome and thrombosis in patients undergoing periodic haemodialysis].

Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) is the most important immunological drug reaction that patients face today. Being unfractionated heparin the standard anticoagulation used in haemodialysis, acute or chronic uremic patients starting haemodialysis are at risk of developing HIT. Through the accurate description of two patients, one with chronic and the other with acute uraemia, who developed this complication at the start of haemodialysis, we compare the distinct clinical problems of haemodialysis-related HIT with the general clinical features of HIT.