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.

Determining the Minimal Important Change of Everyday Functioning in Dementia: Pursuing Clinical Meaningfulness.

Background And Objectives: Decline in everyday functioning is a key clinical change in Alzheimer disease and related disorders (ADRD). An important challenge remains the determination of what constitutes a clinically meaningful change in everyday functioning. We aimed to investigate this by establishing the minimal important change (MIC): the smallest amount of change that has a meaningful effect on patients' lives.

Psychosocial Effects of COVID-19 Measures on (Pre-)Dementia Patients During Second Lockdown.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic poses enormous social challenges, especially during lockdown. People with cognitive decline and their caregivers are particularly at risk of lockdown consequences.

Objective: To investigate psychosocial effects in (pre-)dementia patients and caregivers during second lockdown and compare effects between first and second lockdown.

Clinical Phenotypes of Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia by Age at Onset.

Background: Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is generally considered a young-onset dementia, although age at onset is highly variable. While several studies indicate clinical differences regarding age at onset, no biomarker validated cohort studies with updated clinical criteria have been performed.

Objective: We aimed to examine behavior, cognition, and mortality over the full age spectrum in a cohort of bvFTD patients with neuroimaging, genetic, or histopathological confirmation and exclusion of positive Alzheimer's disease biomarkers or severe cerebrovascular damage.

Psychosocial Effects of Corona Measures on Patients With Dementia, Mild Cognitive Impairment and Subjective Cognitive Decline.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic is not only a major healthcare problem in itself, but also poses enormous social challenges. Though nursing homes increasingly receive attention, the majority of people with cognitive decline and dementia live at home. We aimed to explore the psychosocial effects of corona measures in memory clinic (pre-)dementia patients and their caregivers.

Influence of pH on the toxicity of ionisable pharmaceuticals and personal care products to freshwater invertebrates.

The majority of pharmaceuticals and personal health-care products are ionisable molecules at environmentally relevant pHs. The ionization state of these molecules in freshwater ecosystems may influence their toxicity potential to aquatic organisms. In this study we evaluated to what extent varying pH conditions may influence the toxicity of the antibiotic enrofloxacin (ENR) and the personal care product ingredient triclosan (TCS) to three freshwater invertebrates: the ephemeropteran Cloeon dipterum, the amphipod Gammarus pulex and the snail Physella acuta.

Horizontal and vertical diversity jointly shape food web stability against small and large perturbations.

The biodiversity of food webs is composed of horizontal (i.e. within trophic levels) and vertical diversity (i.

Patients' and caregivers' views on conversations and shared decision making in diagnostic testing for Alzheimer's disease: The ABIDE project.

Introduction: This study aims to assess patients' and caregivers' views on and experiences with (1) decisions about diagnostic testing for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and (2) receiving test results.

Methods: We conducted separate focus groups with patients from three hospitals who underwent diagnostic testing for AD ( = 11) and their caregivers ( = 11). Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using MaxQDA.

Effects of temperature, genetic variation and species competition on the sensitivity of algae populations to the antibiotic enrofloxacin.

Primary producers are amongst the most sensitive organisms to antibiotic pollution in aquatic ecosystems. To date, there is little information on how different environmental conditions may affect their sensitivity to antibiotics. In this study we assessed how temperature, genetic variation and species competition may affect the sensitivity of the cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa and the green-algae Scenedesmus obliquus to the antibiotic enrofloxacin.

[Doctor, is my mother suffering from dementia?].

- The Netherlands health service features a stepwise diagnostic course in primary, secondary and tertiary care. In the diagnostic process for dementia the patient can go to the general practitioner, then to one of the 100 memory clinics and finally to one of the 4 academic Alzheimer centres.- The diagnostic process for dementia is described in the care practice guideline 'Dementia', the NHG (Dutch College of General Practitioners) practice guideline 'Dementia' and the multidisciplinary guideline 'Dementia diagnostics'.

Factors associated with sustainability of 2 quality improvement programs after achieving early implementation success. A qualitative case study.

Rationale, Aims, And Objectives: Sustainability of innovations is a relatively new concept in health care research and has become an issue of growing interest. The current study explored factors related to the sustainability of 2 multidisciplinary hospital-based programs 3 to 6 years after achieving early implementation success.

Method: An exploratory qualitative study was conducted into 2 implementation cases, an Enhanced Recovery After Surgery program for colorectal surgery and a short-stay program for breast cancer surgery.

Identification of promising strategies to sustain improvements in hospital practice: a qualitative case study.

Background: A quality improvement collaborative is an intensive project involving a combination of implementation strategies applied in a limited "breakthrough" time window. After an implementation project, it is generally difficult to sustain its success. In the current study, sustainability was described as maintaining an implemented innovation and its benefits over a longer period of time after the implementation project has ended.

Sustainability of an enhanced recovery after surgery program (ERAS) in colonic surgery.

Background: Between 2006 and 2008 the enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) program was implemented in colonic surgery in one-third of all hospitals in the Netherlands (n = 33). This resulted in enhanced recovery and a decrease in hospital length of stay (LOS) from a median of 9 days at baseline to 6 days at one-year follow-up. The present study assessed the sustainability of the ERAS program 3-5 years after its implementation.

Explaining PAH desorption from sediments using Rock Eval analysis.

Here, we provide Rock Eval and black carbon (BC) characteristics and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) distribution coefficients (KD) for sediments from the Danube, Elbe, Ebro, and Meuse river basins. PAH desorption kinetic parameters were determined using sequential Tenax extractions. We show that residual carbon (RC) from Rock Eval analysis is an adequate predictor of fast, slow, and very slow desorbing fractions of 4-ring PAHs.

Sustainability of short stay after breast cancer surgery in early adopter hospitals.

Between 2005 and 2007 a short stay programme for breast cancer surgery was successfully implemented in early adopter hospitals. The current study evaluates the sustainability of this success five years following implementation. A retrospective audit of 160 consecutive patients undergoing breast cancer surgery was performed five years following implementation of short stay.

Structured synchronous implementation of an enhanced recovery program in elective colonic surgery in 33 hospitals in The Netherlands.

Background: It has been clearly shown that after elective colorectal surgery patients benefit from multimodal perioperative care programs. The Dutch Institute for Health Care Improvement started a breakthrough project to implement a multimodal perioperative care program of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS). This pre/post noncontrolled study evaluated the success of large-scale implementation of the ERAS program for elective colonic surgery using the breakthrough series.

Sustainability of healthcare innovations (SUSHI): long term effects of two implemented surgical care programmes (protocol).

Background: Two healthcare innovations were successfully implemented using different implementation strategies. First, a Short Stay Programme for breast cancer surgery (MaDO) was implemented in four early adopter hospitals, using a hospital-tailored implementation strategy. Second, the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) programme for colonic surgery was implemented in 33 Dutch hospitals, using a generic breakthrough implementation strategy.

A new informant-based questionnaire for instrumental activities of daily living in dementia.

Background: Interference in everyday functioning is part of the diagnostic criteria for dementia. Questionnaires measuring "instrumental activities of daily living" (IADL) are used to measure this interference, but the psychometric quality of these questionnaires is often questioned. In addition, these questionnaires are less suited for early-onset patients.

A comparative study on three analytical methods for the determination of the neurotoxin BMAA in cyanobacteria.

The cyanobacterial neurotoxin β-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA) has been considered a serious health threat because of its putative role in multiple neurodegenerative diseases. First reports on BMAA concentrations in cyanobacteria were alarming: nearly all cyanobacteria were assumed to contain high BMAA concentrations, implying ubiquitous exposure. Recent studies however question this presence of high BMAA concentrations in cyanobacteria.

Impacts of manipulated regime shifts in shallow lake model ecosystems on the fate of hydrophobic organic compounds.

Regime shifts in shallow lakes may significantly affect partitioning of sediment-bound hydrophobic organic chemicals (HOCs) such as polychlorobiphenyls (PCB) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). In replicated experimental model ecosystems mimicking the alternative stable states 'macrophyte-dominated' and 'suspended solid - phytoplankton dominated', we tested the effects of macrophytes and benthivorous fish presence on mass distribution and bioaccumulation of hexachlorobenzene, PCBs and PAHs. HOC mass distributions and lipid-normalized concentrations in sediment (Soxhlet- and 6-h Tenax-extractable), suspended solids, macrophytes, periphyton, algae, zooplankton, invertebrates and carp revealed that mobile, i.