Associations between conflictual relationships, psychopathology, and the use of psychotropic drugs among older people living in residential facilities.

Background: Psychiatric symptoms and conflictual relationships (CR) may negatively affect the delivery of care in residential facilities (RF). This study aims to analyze neuropsychiatric symptoms, their correlations with CR among older people living in RF, and their associations with the prescription of psychotropic drugs.

Methods: A total of 1215 RF residents in five Italian regions were selected for this cross-sectional study.

Elderly subjects with type 2 diabetes show altered tissue electrical properties.

Objective: The aim of the present research was to show the characteristics of body composition in a sample of elderly subjects with type 2 diabetes compared with healthy controls matched by age and body mass index (BMI) by bioelectrical impedance vector analysis.

Methods: The sample consisted of 144 free-living patients (84 women and 60 men) with type 2 diabetes 60 to 84 y old and 209 age-matched controls (116 women and 93 men). Anthropometric measurements (weight; height; upper arm, hip, waist, and calf circumferences; biceps; triceps; and subscapular and suprailiac skinfolds) were taken.

Changes in cholesterol metabolism-related gene expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from Alzheimer patients.

Background: Cholesterol homeostasis dysfunction has been reported to have role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease (AD). Therefore, changes in cholesterol metabolism in blood components may help to develop new potential AD biomarkers. In this study changes in cholesterol metabolism-related gene expression genes were evaluated in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from AD subjects, their first degree relatives (FDR) and two groups of age matched controls (C1 > 80 years, C2 < 60 years).

Body composition variations in ageing.

Age-related physiological variations of body composition concern both the fat-free mass (FFM) and the fat mass (FM). These variations expose the elderly person to the risk of malnutrition and could lead to conditions of disability. This paper aims to review the current state of knowledge on body composition in the aged population.

Accumulation of neutral lipids in peripheral blood mononuclear cells as a distinctive trait of Alzheimer patients and asymptomatic subjects at risk of disease.

Background: Alzheimer's disease is the most common progressive neurodegenerative disease. In recent years, numerous progresses in the discovery of novel Alzheimer's disease molecular biomarkers in brain as well as in biological fluids have been made. Among them, those involving lipid metabolism are emerging as potential candidates.

Somatotype in elderly type 2 diabetes patients.

Somatotyping is a practical technique for the description of physique. Individuals with Type 2 diabetes are characterized by physical peculiarities, such as overweight, obesity and a central pattern of body fat distribution. Somatotype applications to diabetes are limited.

Alzheimer's disease: case-control association study of polymorphisms in ACHE, CHAT, and BCHE genes in a Sardinian sample.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by an extensive loss of cholinergic neurons, and their cortical projections, from the basal forebrain area. The resulting reduction in cholinergic activity is associated with decreased levels of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACh), decreased activity of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), choline acetyltransferase (ChAT), and increased butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) activity. In the present study, we investigated whether the BCHE, ACHE, and CHAT genes were associated with AD and the possibility of a synergistic effect with APOE-epsilon4 in a Sardinian sample.

Somatotype in Alzheimer's disease.

Background: The clinical picture of Alzheimer's disease includes anthropometric and body composition variations. Somatotyping is a practical non-invasive method to assess body type.

Objective: The objective of this study was to describe the somatotype of a sample of Alzheimer's patients.

Reversible Pisa syndrome (pleurothotonus) due to the cholinesterase inhibitor galantamine: case report.

We report on a case of reversible Pisa syndrome developed after treatment with galantamine in a patient with Alzheimer's disease without previous exposure to neuroleptic or other cholinesterase inhibitors. Complete and persistent resolution of the syndrome was achieved several weeks after botulinum toxin type-A injection.