[The health policy of the "Council of the People's Representatives": the German revolution 1918/1919 in medical historical perspective II: health policy as a factor of continuity and stability].

Most important for the events at the turn of 1918/19 was the coincidence of the revolution and the end of the war. This meant that in a very short time the troops had to be withdrawn from the front, the size of the army had to be reduced, and the wartime economy had to be transformed into a peace economy. Apart from the resulting economical and social problems, military demobilisation was closely linked with medical and health political difficulties.

Longitudinal study on the relationship between symptomatology of dementia and levels of subjective burden and depression among family caregivers in memory clinic patients.

The objective was to evaluate the course and severity of dementia-related symptoms and their relationship to caregivers' subjective burden and depression over time. Forty-five patients with dementia and their caregivers were followed over a period of 2 years. Patients' cognition, function, and behavioral/psychological symptoms were assessed by the Mini Mental State Examination, Syndrome Kurz Test, Geriatric Depression Screening scale, Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale, Physical Self Maintenance Scale, Behavioral Abnormalities in Alzheimer's Disease Rating Scale, and Nurses Observation Scale for Geriatric Patients.

[The health policy of the "Rat der Volksbeauftragten": the German revolution of 1918/19 in medical historical perspective--part I: Legislation on health policy].

After the fall of the monarchy and the proclamation of the republic on 9 November 1918, the "Rat der Volksbeauftragten" ("Council of People's Representatives") was established as a provisional revolutionary government. It consisted of three members of the Majority Social Democratic Party (MSDP) and three members of the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD). Because of irreconcilable political-ideological differences, the members of the USPD left government on 28 December, so that from this time until 10 February 1919 the MSPD governed alone.

No effects of a combination of caregivers support group and memory training/music therapy in dementia patients from a memory clinic population.

Objectives: To evaluate the impact of a combination of caregiver support group and memory training/music therapy in dementia patients on behavioural and psychological symptoms (BPSD) and caregiver burden compared to a control group.

Method: Eighteen patient-carer-dyads in the treatment group and 18 patient-carer-dyads as controls were studied in the setting of a memory clinic of a psychiatric university hospital over a period of 2 years. Controls were matched for age, gender, diagnosis, dementia severity, living arrangement and medication.

Olfactory function in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease: an investigation using psychophysical and electrophysiological techniques.

Objective: To clarify the olfactory deficit hypothesis regarding Alzheimer's disease, the authors compared olfactory function in patients with Alzheimer's disease, subjects with mild cognitive impairment, and healthy comparison subjects.

Method: Olfactory function of 14 patients with mild Alzheimer's disease, eight subjects with mild cognitive impairment, and eight healthy age-matched comparison subjects was assessed with both psychophysical tests and olfactory event-related potentials.

Results: Group comparison of the psychophysical test results showed a significant main effect of diagnosis for odor detection threshold, odor discrimination, and odor identification.

Psychometric properties of Clock Drawing Test and MMSE or Short Performance Test (SKT) in dementia screening in a memory clinic population.

Objective: To evaluate five different scoring methods of the Clock Drawing Test (CDT) and to examine whether a combination of Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) or Short Performance Test (Syndrom Kurz Test, SKT), respectively, with CDT can be used for cognitive screening.

Methods: Retrospective blinded analysis of clock drawing performance using five scoring methods (Shulman et al. (1986), Sunderland et al.