Group and individual cognitive therapies in Alzheimer's disease: the ETNA3 randomized trial.

Background: Although non-drug interventions are widely used in patients with Alzheimer's disease, few large scale randomized trials involving a long-term intervention and several cognitive-oriented approaches have been carried out. ETNA3 trial compares the effect of cognitive training, reminiscence therapy, and an individualized cognitive rehabilitation program in Alzheimer's disease to usual care.

Methods: This is a multicenter (40 French clinical sites) randomized, parallel-group trial, with a two-year follow-up comparing groups receiving standardized programs of cognitive training (group sessions), reminiscence therapy (group sessions), individualized cognitive rehabilitation program (individual sessions), and usual care (reference group).

[Refusal of application to care in Alzheimer's disease and related diseases: establishment of a mobile unit hospital extra].

Unlabelled: Refusal of care and support in these patients with Alzheimer's disease and related illnesses at home is a cause of accelerated loss of autonomy and increases the risk of a crisis with early institutionalization. Factors contributing to the denial of care are poorly understood and very few epidemiological data exist.

Materials And Methods: we compared age, diagnosis, level of severity of the disease, the type of behavioral, family status of 101 patients living in denial of care and support as seen by a mobile home (group UPEPc) to 136 control patients seen at the memory clinic (group CM).

[Role of personality, familial environment, and severity of the disease on the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia].

The phenomenology of Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD) occurring in the Alzheimer's disease and related syndromes remains not well known. The goal of this study was to assess the role of disorders of personality, psychiatric disorders and home environment in the occurence of the BPSD; 99 inpatients from a short-term Alzheimer unit were included in the study. BPSD were assessed by the NeuroPsychiatric Inventory, the severity of dementia by the MMSE.

[Diogenes syndrome in the elderly: clinical form of frontal dysfunction? Report of 4 cases].

Purpose: Diogenes syndrome is characterised by self-neglect and domestic squalor which leads to unhealthy living conditions. It seems that no single model satisfactorily explains the development of Diogenes syndrome.

Methods: We report four cases of Diogenes syndrome discovered during a short-stay geriatric hospitalization.

[Self health evaluation using a visual analog scale for elderly patients presenting with pain or early dementia].

Purpose And Methods: Sixteen elderly patients with early dementia and 20 elderly patients with pain, all hospitalized in a geriatric hospital, evaluated their memory, health and mood, using a visual analog scale. Observations of their families and of the medical staff were also recorded for subsequent comparison. The patients' complaints were also compared to those of a control group including 16 healthy elderly subjects.