Differential effects of pharmaceuticals and insecticides on swimming behaviour and survival in Gammarus pulex.

Many freshwater systems are continuously exposed to waste streams like municipal wastewater and agricultural runoff, leading to exposure to chemicals that can cause mortality and behavioural changes in aquatic organisms. While research has advanced our understanding of pesticide effects on behaviour of aquatic organisms, the impacts of pharmaceuticals are less understood. Psychopharmaceuticals are particularly interesting because they can act on nervous systems, potentially affecting the behaviour of aquatic organisms.

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mortality rate in memory clinic patients.

Introduction: We investigated whether mortality in memory clinic patients changed due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Methods: We included patients from the Amsterdam Dementia Cohort: (1)  = 923 pandemic patients (baseline visit: 2017-2018, follow-up: until 2021), and (2)  = 830 historical control patients (baseline visit: 2015-2016, follow-up: until 2019). Groups were well-balanced.

The reporting of neuropsychiatric symptoms in electronic health records of individuals with Alzheimer's disease: a natural language processing study.

Background: Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) are prevalent in the early clinical stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) according to proxy-based instruments. Little is known about which NPS clinicians report and whether their judgment aligns with proxy-based instruments. We used natural language processing (NLP) to classify NPS in electronic health records (EHRs) to estimate the reporting of NPS in symptomatic AD at the memory clinic according to clinicians.

Steeper memory decline after COVID-19 lockdown measures.

Background: During COVID-19 lockdown measures, memory clinic patients reported worries for faster cognitive decline, due to loss of structure and feelings of loneliness and depression. We aimed to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on rate of cognitive decline in a mixed memory clinic population, compared to matched historical controls.

Methods: We included patients who visited Alzheimer Center Amsterdam 6 months to 1 week before the first Dutch COVID-19 lockdown, and had a second visit 1 year later, after this lockdown period (n = 113; 66 ± 7 years old; 30% female; n = 55 dementia, n = 31 mild cognitive impairment (MCI), n = 18 subjective cognitive decline (SCD), n = 9 postponed diagnosis).

A caregiver's perspective on clinically relevant symptoms in behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia: tools for disease management and trial design.

Background: Adequate detection of symptoms and disease progression in behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is complex. Dementia cohorts usually utilize cognitive and functional measures, which fail to detect dominant behavioural and social cognitive deficits in bvFTD. Moreover, since patients typically have a loss of insight, caregivers are important informants.