The influence of inflammation and frailty in the aging continuum.

Inflammaging is a low-grade inflammatory state that can be considered an adaptive process aimed at stimulating appropriate anti-inflammatory response. Frailty is determined by the accumulation of molecular and cellular defects accumulated throughout life; therefore, an appropriate frailty computation could be a valuable tool for measuring biological age. This study aims to analyse the association between inflammatory markers and both chronological age "per se" and frailty.

The Free Triiodothyronine/Free Thyroxine Ratio Is Associated with Frailty in Older Adults: A Longitudinal Multisetting Study.

Various models have been proposed to predict frailty, including those based on clinical criteria and phenotypes. However, a simple biomarker associated with frailty has been not yet identified. The aim of this study is to evaluate the relationship between free triiodothyronine (fT3)/free thyroxine (fT4) ratio value and the degree of frailty among three different cohorts of older individuals: (1) acutely ill hospitalized patients, (2) nursing-home (NH) residents, and (3) home-dwelling centenarians.

Autonomic function predicts cognitive decline in mild cognitive impairment: Evidence from power spectral analysis of heart rate variability in a longitudinal study.

Background: Despite the emerging clinical relevance of heart rate variability (HRV) as a potential biomarker of cognitive decline and as a candidate target for intervention, there is a dearth of research on the prospective relationship between HRV and cognitive change. In particular, no study has addressed this issue in subjects with a diagnosis of cognitive status including cognitive impairment.

Objective: To investigate HRV as a predictor of cognitive decline in subjects with normal cognition (NC) or Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI).

A scoping review of the changing landscape of geriatric medicine in undergraduate medical education: curricula, topics and teaching methods.

Purpose: The world's population is ageing. Therefore, every doctor should receive geriatric medicine training during their undergraduate education. This review aims to summarise recent developments in geriatric medicine that will potentially inform developments and updating of undergraduate medical curricula for geriatric content.

Biological Frailty Index in centenarians.

This study measured the subclinical frailty of centenarians by looking at the accumulation of their biological abnormalities. For this aim, a biological Frailty Index (FI) was computed in centenarians living in Northern Italy. The median value of the biological FI was 0.

Socially desirable responding in geriatric outpatients with and without mild cognitive impairment and its association with the assessment of self-reported mental health.

Background: Socially desirable responding is a potentially relevant issue in older adults and can be evaluated with the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS). However, the eight-item MCSDS has never been specifically administered to geriatric subjects, and there is a dearth of literature on the relationship between social desirability and cognitive impairment. Also, the connection between social desirability and subjective measures of psychological well-being is a matter of controversy.

Novel Insight in Idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (iNPH) Biomarker Discovery in CSF.

Idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) is a potentially reversible neurological disease, causing motor and cognitive dysfunction and dementia. iNPH and Alzheimer's disease (AD) share similar molecular characteristics, including amyloid deposition, t-tau and p-tau dysregulation; however, the disease is under-diagnosed and under-treated. The aim was to identify a panel of sphingolipids and proteins in CSF to diagnose iNPH at onset compared to aged subjects with cognitive integrity (C) and AD patients by adopting multiple reaction monitoring mass spectrometry (MRM-MS) for sphingolipid quantitative assessment and advanced high-resolution liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) for proteomic analysis.

No association between frailty index and epigenetic clocks in Italian semi-supercentenarians.

Centenarians experience successful ageing, although they still present high heterogeneity in their health status. The frailty index is a biomarker of biological age, able to capture such heterogeneity, even at extreme old age. At the same time, other biomarkers (e.

Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Fatty Acid Amide Hydrolase Inhibition in Monocytes/Macrophages from Alzheimer's Disease Patients.

Growing evidence shows that the immune system is critically involved in Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathogenesis and progression. The modulation and targeting of peripheral immune mechanisms are thus promising therapeutic or preventive strategies for AD. Given the critical involvement of the endocannabinoid (eCB) system in modulating immune functions, we investigated the potential role of the main elements of such a system, namely type-1 and type-2 cannabinoid receptors (CB and CB), and fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH), in distinct immune cell populations of the peripheral blood of AD patients.

Can Serum Nitrosoproteome Predict Longevity of Aged Women?

Aging is characterized by increase in reactive oxygen (ROS) and nitrogen (RNS) species, key factors of cardiac failure and disuse-induced muscle atrophy. This study focused on serum nitroproteome as a trait of longevity by adopting two complementary gel-based techniques: two-dimensional differential in gel electrophoresis (2-D DIGE) and Nitro-DIGE coupled with mass spectrometry of albumin-depleted serum of aged (A, = 15) and centenarian (C, = 15) versus young females (Y, = 15). Results indicate spots differently expressed in A and C compared to Y and spots changed in A vs.

Different dimensions of social support differentially predict psychological well-being in late life: opposite effects of perceived emotional support and marital status on symptoms of anxiety and of depression in older outpatients in Italy.

Background: Social support is important to psychological well-being in late life. However, findings in the literature regarding its effects are mixed, less information is available for anxiety than for depressive symptoms, and few studies have been carried out in Italy. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the influence of social support on symptoms of anxiety and of depression in a sample of geriatric outpatients in Italy.

Corrigendum to "Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells as a Laboratory to Study Dementia in the Elderly".

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1155/2014/169203.].

Supervised Digital Neuropsychological Tests for Cognitive Decline in Older Adults: Usability and Clinical Validity Study.

Background: Dementia is a major and growing health problem, and early diagnosis is key to its management.

Objective: With the ultimate goal of providing a monitoring tool that could be used to support the screening for cognitive decline, this study aims to develop a supervised, digitized version of 2 neuropsychological tests: Trail Making Test and Bells Test. The system consists of a web app that implements a tablet-based version of the tests and consists of an innovative vocal assistant that acts as the virtual supervisor for the execution of the test.

Vitamin D Receptor Polymorphisms in Sex-Frailty Paradox.

The "male-female health-survival paradox" evidences that the survival advantage observed in women is linked to higher rates of disability and poor health status compared to men, a phenomenon also called the "sex-frailty paradox". The depletion of vitamin D seems to play a role in the fragilization of old persons, and genetic polymorphisms of the () gene seem to be involved in regulating the vitamin D pathway. This study correlated the gene polymorphisms (FokI, ApaI, BsmiI, and TaqI) with frailty, computed by frailty index (FI), in 202 persons (127 women and 75 men, aged from 60 to 116 years), aiming to capture the involvement of vitamin D in the sex-frailty paradox.

Autonomic function in amnestic and non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment: spectral heart rate variability analysis provides evidence for a brain-heart axis.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a heterogeneous syndrome with two main clinical subtypes, amnestic (aMCI) and non-amnestic (naMCI). The analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) is a tool to assess autonomic function. Cognitive and autonomic processes are linked via the central autonomic network.

Socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive performance in oldest old subjects asking for driving license renewal.

Background: No papers have examined the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and cognitive performance in oldest old subjects (i.e, > = 80 years old) asking for driving license renewal. We hypothesize that, even in this highly functioning population, age, sex, and education influence cognitive performance, expressed as total or single domain (raw) test scores.

Author Correction: Particular CSF sphingolipid patterns identify iNPH and AD patients.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Thyroid hormones and frailty in persons experiencing extreme longevity.

Context: The aging phenotype is quite heterogeneous, being the result of the capability of each individual to successfully or unsuccessfully response to stressors. The reduction of homeostatic reserve characterizing aging is accompanied by a remodeling of the endocrine system. Frailty has been indicated as a promising way for capturing the physiological decline as well as the biological aging of the individuals.

Quantitative mitochondrial DNA copy number determination using droplet digital PCR with single-cell resolution.

Mitochondria are involved in a number of diverse cellular functions, including energy production, metabolic regulation, apoptosis, calcium homeostasis, cell proliferation, and motility, as well as free radical generation. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is present at hundreds to thousands of copies per cell in a tissue-specific manner. mtDNA copy number also varies during aging and disease progression and therefore might be considered as a biomarker that mirrors alterations within the human body.

Does the Right Focal Variant of Alzheimer's Disease Really Exist? A Literature Analysis.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a clinically heterogeneous disease. Multiple atypical syndromes, distinct from the usual amnesic phenotype, have been described. In this context, the existence of a right variant of AD (RAD), characterized by enduring visuospatial impairment associated with right-sided asymmetric brain damage, has been proposed.

Validation study of the Italian version of Communication Activities of the Daily Living (CADL 2) as an ecologic cognitive assessment measure in older subjects.

Introduction: Communication can be affected by age related cognitive decline and mental deterioration. The second edition of the Communication Activities of the Daily Living (CADL 2) appears as an interesting ecological assessment tool of cognitive functions in old age.

Objective: The aim of this work is to (1) develop an Italian version of CADL 2, (2) to test its psychometric properties in terms of reliability and validity, and (3) to measure CADL 2 discriminative capacity between cognitively healthy and cognitively impaired older subjects.