The Association of Early Life Factors and Declining Incidence Rates of Dementia in an Elderly Population of African Americans.

Objectives: To explore the possible association of childhood residence, education levels, and occupation with declining incidence rates of dementia in 2 cohorts of elderly African Americans.

Methods: African Americans residing in Indianapolis without dementia were enrolled in 1992 and 2001 and evaluated every 2-3 years. The cohorts consist of 1,440 participants in 1992 and 1,835 participants in 2001 aged 70 years and older.

Tuberculin skin testing: present status.

The incidence of tuberculosis is on the rise, with a reported 18% increase between 1985 and 1992. There is every reason to think that this trend will continue in the 1990s. Expectedly, there is a renewed interest in early detection and prevention of this potentially life threatening disease.

Smear-negative pulmonary tuberculosis.

Diagnostic difficulties arise when sputum smears are negative for acid-fast bacilli in tuberculin-positive patients with compatible symptoms and chest radiographs for tuberculosis. Many of these smear-negative patients yield positive cultures for M tuberculosis, whereas others remain culturally negative. Several studies have shown that many smear-negative/culture-negative patients will develop bacteriologically positive disease later.