Orthostatic Blood Pressure Behavior in People with Mild Cognitive Impairment Predicts Conversion to Dementia.

Objectives: To compare the patterns of blood pressure (BP) behavior during orthostasis in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) with those of controls and to investigate whether orthostatic BP behavior differs between individuals with MCI who convert to dementia and those who do not.

Design: Longitudinal study with 3 years of follow-up.

Setting: Memory clinic in Dublin, Ireland, between 2007 and 2012.

Age-related normative changes in phasic orthostatic blood pressure in a large population study: findings from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA).

Background: In this report, we provide the first normative reference data and prevalence estimates of impaired orthostatic blood pressure (BP) stabilization, initial orthostatic hypotension, and orthostatic hypotension based on beat-to-beat blood pressure methods in a population-representative sample.

Methods And Results: Participants were recruited from a nationally representative cohort study (≥50 years). Beat-to-beat systolic BP, diastolic BP, and heart rate records were analyzed among those who underwent an active stand test (n=4475).

A concept for extending the applicability of constraint-induced movement therapy through motor cortex activity feedback using a neural prosthesis.

This paper describes a concept for the extension of constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) through the use of feedback of primary motor cortex activity. CIMT requires residual movement to act as a source of feedback to the patient, thus preventing its application to those with no perceptible movement. It is proposed in this paper that it is possible to provide feedback of the motor cortex effort to the patient by measurement with near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS).