Feasibility of Alerting Systems and Family Care Partner Support for Postoperative Delirium Prevention.

Background: The objective of this study was to determine whether postoperative pager alerts to the Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP), a delirium prevention service, would accelerate program enrollment for older surgical patients. This study also tested feasibility of family care partner interventions for delirium prevention.

Methods: This single-center, pilot clinical trial factorially randomized 57 non-cardiac surgical patients ≥70 years of age to 4 arms: (1) standard care, (2) pager alerts to accelerate HELP enrollment, (3) family care partner-based delirium prevention interventions, or (4) a combined arm with both HELP and family interventions.

Temporal control of acute protein aggregate turnover by UBE3C and NRF1-dependent proteasomal pathways.

A hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) is the progressive loss of proteostasis, leading to the accumulation of misfolded proteins or protein aggregates, with subsequent cytotoxicity. To combat this toxicity, cells have evolved degradation pathways (ubiquitin-proteasome system and autophagy) that detect and degrade misfolded proteins. However, studying the underlying cellular pathways and mechanisms has remained a challenge, as formation of many types of protein aggregates is asynchronous, with individual cells displaying distinct kinetics, thereby hindering rigorous time-course studies.