Treatment of pain in patients with complicating disorders: case report from Norway, with commentaries from Germany and Belgium.

A 70-year-old male with a history of bipolar disorder, alcohol misuse, and polyneuropathy is presented. His treatment was complicated by multiple drugs, and by instability and falls. The advantages and disadvantages and dosing considerations with short- and long-acting analgesics are discussed.

A novel blood test for the early detection of Alzheimer's disease.

Despite a variety of testing approaches, it is often difficult to make an accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), especially at an early stage of the disease. Diagnosis is based on clinical criteria as well as exclusion of other causes of dementia but a definitive diagnosis can only be made at autopsy. We have investigated the diagnostic value of a 96-gene expression array for detection of early AD.

A gene expression pattern in blood for the early detection of Alzheimer's disease.

A whole genome screen was performed using oligonucleotide microarray analysis on blood from a large clinical cohort of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and control subjects as clinical sample. Blood samples for total RNA extraction were collected in PAXgene tubes, and gene expression analysis performed on the AB1700 Whole Genome Survey Microarrays. When comparing the gene expression of 94 AD patients and 94 cognitive healthy controls, a Jackknife gene selection based method and Partial Least Square Regression (PLSR) was used to develop a disease classifier algorithm, which gives a test score indicating the presence (positive) or absence (negative) of AD.