Long-term, low-dose lithium treatment does not impair renal function in the elderly: a 2-year randomized, placebo-controlled trial followed by single-blind extension.

Background: Recent studies evaluated the disease-modifying properties of lithium in mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Although potentially effective for these purposes, chronic lithium use in regard to safety in the elderly needs to be better explored.

Objective: To evaluate the effect of long-term lithium treatment at subtherapeutic doses on renal function in older adults.

Assistance to children in palliative care in the Brazilian scientific literature.

Objective: To describe what has been published in Brazilian scientific literature regarding pediatric palliative care.

Data Sources: Bibliographic review with a descriptive approach. In LILACS and SciELO databases, the descriptors "palliative care", "child", "pediatrics", "terminal illness" and "death" were sought, from January 2002 to December 2011.

Planning cancer control in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Non-communicable diseases, including cancer, are overtaking infectious disease as the leading health-care threat in middle-income and low-income countries. Latin American and Caribbean countries are struggling to respond to increasing morbidity and death from advanced disease. Health ministries and health-care systems in these countries face many challenges caring for patients with advanced cancer: inadequate funding; inequitable distribution of resources and services; inadequate numbers, training, and distribution of health-care personnel and equipment; lack of adequate care for many populations based on socioeconomic, geographic, ethnic, and other factors; and current systems geared toward the needs of wealthy, urban minorities at a cost to the entire population.

The physician and updates in cancer treatment: when to stop?

The issue of life-ending has been a source of considerations since the dawn of civilization, and calls for great circumspection when one attempts to fit it socially throughout the history of human thinking. The development and improvement of Medicine might modify, in most cases, the natural history of disease. We have managed to prolong life and the process of dying.

Effects of a multidisciplinary cognitive rehabilitation program for patients with mild Alzheimer's disease.

Objective: To evaluate the effects of a multidisciplinary rehabilitation program on cognition, quality of life, and neuropsychiatry symptoms in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease.

Method: The present study was a single-blind, controlled study that was conducted at a university-based day-hospital memory facility. The study included 25 Alzheimer's patients and their caregivers and involved a 12-week stimulation and psychoeducational program.

Disease-modifying properties of long-term lithium treatment for amnestic mild cognitive impairment: randomised controlled trial.

Background: Two recent clinical studies support the feasibility of trials to evaluate the disease-modifying properties of lithium in Alzheimer's disease, although no benefits were obtained from short-term treatment.

Aims: To evaluate the effect of long-term lithium treatment on cognitive and biological outcomes in people with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI).

Method: Forty-five participants with aMCI were randomised to receive lithium (0.

Quality of life and Alzheimer's disease: Influence of participation in a rehabilitation center.

Unlabelled: Quality of life is seldom explored in evaluations of therapeutic interventions in Alzheimer's disease.

Objective: To verify whether participation in a cognitive and functional rehabilitation program improves quality of life (QOL) among Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients.

Methods: 19 AD patients participated in this study, 12 of whom attended 24 multi-professional intervention sessions - the experimental group - whereas the remaining 7 comprised the control group.

Clinical features of elderly patients submitted to coronary artery bypass graft.

Objective: To describe the clinical features as well as morbidity and mortality of elderly patients submitted to coronary artery bypass graft (CABG).

Design: Randomized, single-center, observational study.

Methods: A prospective study was carried out in a tertiary referral teaching hospital (Heart Institute-Brazil).

Risk factors for delirium in the elderly after coronary artery bypass graft surgery.

Objective: To investigate the risk factors for delirium in the elderly during the post-operative period of coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG).

Methods: A total of 220 inpatients submitted to CABG were evaluated prior to and after surgery. In order to investigate the possible risk factors, data were collected from pre- intra- and post-operative periods.