[Variables associated with mortality in a selected sample of patients older than 80 years and with some degree of functional dependence hospitalized for COVID-19 in a Geriatrics Service].

Objective: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic conditions high mortality rates in hospitalized elderly. Currently, a few studies include octogenarian patients and none of them analyze the impact of functional status on this health outcome. Our objective is to describe the characteristics of patients older than 80 years hospitalized for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), to determine the mortality rate and to identify associated factors.

Immunotherapy for Alzheimer's disease: rational basis in ongoing clinical trials.

Amyloid-β (Aβ) immunotherapy has recently begun to gain considerable attention as a potentially promising therapeutic approach to reducing the levels of Aβ in the Central Nervous System (CNS) of patients with Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Despite extensive preclinical evidence showing that immunization with Aβ(1-42) peptide can prevent or reverse the development of the neuropathological hallmarks of AD, in 2002, the clinical trial of AN-1792, the first trial involving an AD vaccine, was discontinued at Phase II when a subset of patients immunized with Aβ(1-42) developed meningoencephalitis, thereby making it necessary to take a more refined and strategic approach towards developing novel Aβ immunotherapy strategies by first constructing a safe and effective vaccine. This review describes the rational basis in modern clinical trials that have been designed to overcome the many challenges and known hurdles inherent to the search for effective AD immunotherapies.

Plasmatic level of neurosin predicts outcome of mild cognitive impairment.

Background: Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is a disorder considered to be a transitional stage from health to dementia. Diagnosis of dementias at these early stages is always troublesome because the pathophysiologic events leading to dementia precede clinical symptoms. Thus, the development of biomarkers that can be used to support the diagnosis of dementias at early stages is rapidly becoming a high priority.