Biomarkers.

Background: Mild cognitive impairment(MCI) is characterized by an impairment in one or more cognitive domains greater than expected for a person's age and educational background with preserved functional independence. Functional Near Infra-Red Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a modality of non-invasive neuroimaging that utilizes the optical properties of oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin in the tissue to measure their absolute or relative concentrations following neuronal activity. fNIRS has been used to evaluate neurohemodynamics in MCI.

Dementia Care Practice.

The population of older adults in India is projected to increase from the current estimate of 150 million to 350 million by the year 2050. The prevalence of older adults with mental health problems including dementia is also increasing rapidly. The socio-cultural changes in the joint family system have necessitated the increasing requirement of formal caregivers for supporting the care of older adults in home as well as residential care institutions.

Auditory Event-related Potentials for Word Stimuli in Kannada Language Among Native Kannada Speakers with Dementia.

Background: The P300 is a positive auditory event-related potential appearing around 300 msec post-oddball stimulus onset. Tone and monosyllabic stimuli have been widely used in P300 research, providing valuable insights into auditory perception, phoneme discrimination, language processing, and other cognitive processes. Bi-syllabic minimal pairs may be more challenging for some individuals because they require processing and discrimination of more complex phonemic structures.

Efficacy of Psychosocial Care Training Programme for the Staff Working in Old Age Homes.

Background: Training the old-age home staff is essential in raising geriatric mental health care standards in India. Inadequate knowledge on ageing and psychosocial interventions is a significant issue in old-age homes. Old-age home staff must know how to provide individualized psychosocial care and support for older adults.

Potential Utility of Plasma Biomarker Panels in Differential Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease.

Blood tests are in need, in the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) as minimally invasive and less expensive alternatives to cerebrospinal fluid and neuroimaging methods. On these lines, single molecule array (Simoa) analysis of amyloid-β (Aβ), total tau (t-tau), phospho-tau (p-tau 181), and neurofilament L (NfL) in the plasma samples of AD subjects, healthy controls (HC), and non-AD subjects was conducted. Findings from this study suggest that a panel of multiple plasma biomarkers (NfL, Aβ, t-tau, and p-tau 181) combined with the clinical assessments could support differential diagnosis of AD and other dementias from healthy controls.

Pathological (Dis)Similarities in Neuronal Exosome-Derived Synaptic and Organellar Marker Levels Between Alzheimer's Disease and Frontotemporal Dementia.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are pathologically distinct neurodegenerative disorders with certain overlap in cognitive and behavioral symptoms. Both AD and FTD are characterized by synaptic loss and accumulation of misfolded proteins, albeit, in different regions of the brain.

Objective: To investigate the synaptic and organellar markers in AD and FTD through assessment of the levels of synaptic protein, neurogranin (Ng) and organellar proteins, mitofusin-2 (MFN-2), lysosomal associated membrane protein-2 (LAMP-2), and golgin A4 from neuronal exosomes.

Video consultations from an Indian academic hospital: First 3 years of experience from telepsychiatric after-care clinic.

Background Continuity of care for psychiatric disorders by conventional in-person consultation by psychiatrists is associated with several challenges. There is a need to develop alternative models of specialist care. We studied our 3 years' experience of live video consultations (VCs) from the tele after-care clinic to patients with psychiatric disorders at an Indian academic hospital.

Intimate Partner Violence, Lifetime Victimization, and Sociodemographic and Clinical Profile of Women with Psychiatric Illness at a Tertiary Care Psychiatric Hospital in India.

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is one of the major public health problems. Little is known about the extent of violence experienced, its severity, or history of childhood abuse or exposure to intergenerational family violence in women with mental illness.

Methods: One hundred women seeking in-patients (IP) or out-patients (OP) services at a tertiary care psychiatric setting were recruited using consecutive sampling.

Future-Proofing Geriatric Mental Health Care Services in India: Training and Policy Directions.

Background: A burgeoning rise in the elderly subpopulation is being noted in India. This rise has already earned the designation as a shining nation by the United Nations/World Health Organization. This growth will take the elderly subpopulation to 324 million persons above 60 years by 2050.

Forensic Aspects of Substance Use in Older Adults.

Older adults are at high risk of developing more severe consequences of substance use. Due to aging, they may also have multiple medical and psychiatric comorbidities as well as cognitive impairment. This may lead to forensic issues both in terms of civil and criminal matters.

Telemedicine in Geriatric Psychiatry: Relevance in India.

Telemedicine has evolved as a novel tool in delivering health care in the modern world. With the advancement in video conferencing technology at an affordable price and innovative digital medical instruments, it has grown from guiding paramedics in managing patients to aiding physicians in providing direct consultation. Delivering care for older adults has always been challenging due to comorbidities that may warrant a multidisciplinary approach leading to frequent visits across specialties.

Public Health Perspectives of Geriatric Mental Health Care.

Background: In older adults (aged 60 years and above), mental health problems are gaining public health importance because of the increasing prevalence, disease burden, disability, morbidity, and mortality. Epidemiological studies on major mental health disorders such as depression and dementia in older adults have contributed to a better understanding of the distribution and determinants of these conditions. Identifying potential risk factors has stimulated interventional research on preventing these conditions under the public health framework towards their management.

Geriatric Depression and Cognitive Impairment-An Update.

Background: Depression and cognitive impairment often coexist in older adults. The relation between depression and cognitive impairment is complex. The objective of this article is to review recent literature on cognitive impairment in older adults with depression and provide clinicians an update.

Shape Profile of Corpus Callosum As a Signature to Phenotype Different Dementia.

 Phenotyping dementia is always a complex task for a clinician. There is a need for more practical biomarkers to aid clinicians.  The aim of the study is to investigate the shape profile of corpus callosum (CC) in different phenotypes of dementia.

Geriatric Telepsychiatry: Promoting Access to Geriatric Mental Health Care Beyond the Physical Barriers.

Psychiatric illnesses are an important contributor of morbidity and mortality in older adults. There is increase in older adults with psychiatric disorders paralleling their growth in absolute numbers. This leads to challenges in mental health care and service delivery.

Study of neuropsychological deficits in late onset depression.

Background: Older adults with depression often have cognitive deficits contributing to higher morbidity and increased risk for conversion to dementia. Research on this area is limited from India.

Objective: The objective of the current study is to examine the neuropsychological measures in older adults with Late-onset depression (LOD) compared to healthy controls (HC).

Anticholinergic Burden Among Hospitalised Older Adults with Psychiatric Illnesses- A Retrospective Study.

Background: Drugs with anticholinergic properties are known to be associated with deleterious effects on cognition in older adults. There is a paucity of literature in this aspect in older adults with psychiatric disorders.

Objective: To examine the anticholinergic cognitive burden and its predictors in hospitalised older adults having psychiatric disorders.

Clinical utility of 18F-FDG-PET/MRI brain in dementia: Preliminary experience from a geriatric clinic in South India.

Background: F-FDG-PET is a potential sensitive biomarker indicating neuronal damage. F-FDG-PET has proven to be useful in subtyping dementia. Utility of simultaneous F-FDG-PET and MRI-brain was investigated in the evaluation of dementia in this facility.

Implications of Mental Healthcare Act 2017 for geriatric mental health care delivery: A critical appraisal.

The prevalence of mental health problems in older adults is increasing globally as well as in India due to population ageing. Mental Healthcare Act (MHCA) 2017 has a rights-based approach and came into force in India in May 2018. Its provisions have significant implications for promoting mental health care and protecting the rights of persons with mental illness (PMI).

Pathways to care among persons with dementia: Study from a tertiary care center.

The prevalence of dementia is increasing rapidly, specifically in low and middle income countries (LAMIC) due to demographic aging. Help seeking is delayed and usually sought at an advanced stage of illness and many are yet to receive a formal diagnosis. We interviewed 35 caregivers of persons with Dementia (as per ICD-10) using a semi-structured questionnaire, the Short Explanatory Model Interview (SEMI).

Predictors of Desire to Institutionalization in Dementia Caregivers From a Developing Country.

Older adults with dementia have higher rates of institutionalization than those without dementia. Desire to institutionalization (DTI) is an important factor influencing the actual institutionalization but is less well studied. This cross-sectional study examines the DTI with the scale of same name developed by Morycz, in 1985, in a sample of 50 caregivers of patients with dementia in a tertiary clinical care setting in a developing country.