[The elderly and dementia: clinical approach].

When you take care of elderly, you need to evaluate cognitive functions due to the frequency of dementia. However, before this evaluation, you must be aware of difficulties that you will encounter. You have to determine general characteristics of elderly patients and use geriatric reasoning in order to list pathologies that can interfere with cognitive functions.

[Myopericarditis during Horton disease].

Introduction: Myopericarditis is an rare form of Horton disease. We report two new cases.

Method: Two patients, more than 60-years-old, had developed global cardiac insufficiency with predominant left insufficiency, with physical alteration and biological inflammation.

Brain tuberculomas.

Although brain tuberculomas have become rare in developed countries, diagnosis should be kept in mind when confronted with brain space-occupying lesion(s), particularly in immigrants from endemic countries. Surprisingly, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection does not seem to have affected the incidence of this tuberculous lesion. Clinical, biological and radiological signs are only suggestive.

Antioxidant status of elderly chronic renal patients treated by continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis.

Background: An oxidative stress has been reported in patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) treated by haemodialysis. To our knowledge, only scant information is available concerning CRF patients treated by continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) with regard to their redox and nutritional status.

Methods: The oxidative stress and the biological nutritional status were evaluated in 20 elderly CRF patients treated by CAPD, compared with a control group of 30 elderly non-CRF patients.

[Study of oxidative stress in the elderly].

Objectives: Determine the oxidative stress status and its significance in elderly subjects.

Methods: Six parameters marking oxidative stress evaluated in 52 elderly patients (mean age 85 +/- 6 years; range 74 to 98) admitted to a medium-term and long-term nursing home (n = 30) or a hospital ward (n = 22) were compared with those in 30 disease-free young subjects (age range 20-40 years). Plasma levels of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances vitamin E and selenium and activity of free-radical protective enzymes (erythrocyte superoxide dismutase, plasma and erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase) were assessed.