Predictors of prolonged hospital stay for the treatment of severe neuropsychiatric symptoms in patients with dementia: a cohort study in multiple hospitals.

Background: Long hospitalization is often needed to treat severe behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD), which places heavy demands on hospital resources. Consequently, patients with severe BPSD usually wait for a long time to be admitted. There is a need to identify factors related to long hospitalization to better manage resources of a psychiatric hospital.

Pacing and lapping movements among institutionalized patients with dementia.

Wandering is a complex behavior, and defining wandering has been challenging. The current study used the integrated circuit (IC) tag monitoring system to describe the distance moved per day and the spatial movements of patients with dementia. The study was conducted in a 60-bed semiacute dementia care unit in a general hospital in Japan over a 3-month period in 2006.

[Validity and reliability of the Japanese Version of the Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Nursing Home Version (NPI-NH)].

Objective: Neuropsychiatric disturbances are common and burdensome symptoms of dementia. Assessment and measurement of neuropsychiatric disturbances are indispensable to the management of patients with dementia. Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) is a comprehensive assessment tool that evaluates psychiatric symptoms in dementia.

Environmental control interventions for frontotemporal dementia with reversed sleep-wake cycles.

Background: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of environmental control interventions using an integrated chip tag monitoring system for a frontotemporal dementia (FTD) patient.

Method: The subject was a male FTD patient (Pick type) with reversed sleep-wake cycles. For a 2-week period, the doors to all patients' rooms in the unit were kept open as a form of environmental control, and in the following 2 weeks, all doors were kept closed (intervention A).

Spatial working memory deficit correlates with disorganization symptoms and social functioning in schizophrenia.

Both spatial working memory deficit and disorganization symptoms have been considered significant components of schizophrenic impairment involved with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationships among spatial working memory, psychiatric symptoms including disorganization symptoms, and social functioning in schizophrenia. Fifty clinically stable patients with schizophrenia and 34 healthy controls participated in the study.

[MRI findings in schizophrenic patient with frontal lobe atrophy].

In schizophrenic patients, cognitive and behavioral deficits are often associated with frontal lobe dysfunction. By functional neuroimaging studies, abnormalities of the frontal lobe (especially the prefrontal lobe) have been detected in schizophrenic patients. As for morphological changes on neuroimaging, lateral lobe atrophy and enlargement of the lateral ventricles or third ventricle are often reported, but there is no consensus as to whether frontal lobe atrophy is seen more frequently in schizophrenic patients compared with normal controls.