Geriatrics
Loss of cognitive ability
January 15, 2012 | 
Author 
Human cognitive abilities begin to decline after 45 years, long before the age of 60 as generally believed, according to a study by the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) French and University College London .
“Our ability to reason and understanding begins to decline after age 45,” the Inserm in a statement accompanying the appearance, on Friday, an article in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
A series of tests of memory, vocabulary, reasoning, and oral expression were conducted with 5198 men and 2192 women aged 45 to 70 years, as part of a larger study, called “Whitehall II cohort” based on ten years of follow-up care and individual tests.
“The results show that cognitive performance (except for vocabulary tests) declines with age and this increasing rapidly as people age,” he says.
In 10 years, the performance in terms of reasoning declined by 3.6% for men aged 45 to 49, and 9.6% for the 65 to 70 years.
For women, the decline is the same (-3.6%) for the first age group and less pronounced (-7.4%) for women 65 to 70 years.
According to Singh-Manoux Archana, who headed the Inserm team that conducted the study, it is important “to determine the Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Geriatrics, Medical News, Neurology | 
Tags: cognitive, cognitive ability, cognitive aging, Loss | 
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Genes and Longevity
To live 100 years is not so important what you eat each day as genetics has. Your genes hold the key or at least this is the conclusion reached by a group of experts from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University (New York, USA) after analyzing the lifestyles of 477 people aged between 95 and 106 years.
Unlike previous studies, it is retrospective, ie instead of tracking them to evaluate their habits and attained age, were asked about what their habits 30 years ago when they were 70. To assess the results were compared with data from a group of people who were born at the same time and when around 70 participated in the epidemiological study nHancer (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey).
According to the article reveals in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, ‘people with exceptional longevity had no healthier habits than others. For example, body mass index was similar, there was Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Geriatrics, Health and Society, Medical News | Tags: aging, Genes, genetics, healthy life, long lives, Longevity | No Comments »
Cellular therapy and Arthrosis
Osteoarthritis is a chronic disease that develops over many years.
90% of people with osteoarthritis have limited mobility and 30% is even unable to perform normal activities of daily living. In fact this condition is considered the fourth leading cause of disability among women and eighth among men.
The joints are skeletal components that allow movement and, therefore, be functionally independent and relate to others. They are formed by the union of two bones through the joint capsule. Inside of them there is generally a fluid called synovial fluid that is produced by the synovium. The bone ends that join to form the joint are covered with articular cartilage.
Osteoarthritis is a disease that damages the articular cartilage and causes pain, stiffness and functional disability.
Since not long ago we have a new therapeutic approach based on the use of plasma rich in growth factors (PRGF) that could stop or at least delay its progression.
Your application can revolutionize treatments currently available.
PRGF and optimizes mimics physiological repair mechanisms are in place spontaneously in all tissues, including articular cartilage of the knee and hip after an injury.
It was noted that five days after application of the PRGF is, depending on the tissue, up to 40 times more cells in the treated area to work (rebuilding, healing, regenerating, and ultimately, healing it).
The sex and age of the patients did not influence the response to this therapy but involved the degree of osteoarthritis. The most important clinical improvement occurs in patients whose arthritic process is less advanced at the time of the treatment.
The PRGF replaces the pathological synovial fluid spill situations, inflammation and joint pain. Also acts on cells of the synovium and synoviocytes (responsible for the production of synovial fluid that bathes the joint completely) by stimulating the production of hyaluronic acid and other bioactive molecules. The result is improved quality of synovial fluid acts as anti-inflammatory and reduces pain.
The clinical efficacy of PRGF in the joint can be attributed to several important effects:
· Effect anabolic metabolism (formation) of cartilage.
· Lock the degradation of cartilage.
· Returning a physiological environment in inhibiting joint inflammation and reducing pain.
It causes problems of rejection or allergy, or adverse side effects are and can be applied safely as often as necessary.
Posted in Geriatrics, Rheumatology | Tags: Arthrosis, bones, Cellular therapy, chronic disease, clinical efficacy, Osteoarthritis | No Comments »
Alzheimer’s disease advances
Alzheimer’s disease is one of the great challenges of society. Today there is no cure and little is known about the origin of one of the most devastating neurodegenerative diseases. But the reality is that there are 600,000 people affected in Spain and will be 1,200,000 in 2025, according to the Spanish Confederation of Families of Alzheimer’s and other Dementias (CEAFA).
Andrew, 59, did not think twice when he volunteered to participate in a project aimed at early diagnosis of a disease is detected late. The key to the implementation of effective treatments is just ten years before the first symptoms, when the brain starts to record small changes that predict the future onset of Alzheimer’s.
The Center for Research and Advanced Therapies (CITA-Alzheimer’s), located in San Sebastian, analyzes the brain through the images. The project aims to identify Alzheimer Gipuzkoa genetic markers through one of the most advanced imaging systems, a scanner nearly 12 tons and 3 tesla (the usual is 1.5 on those used in hospitals). The study, one of the most comprehensive being carried out, has managed in less than three months to mobilize 500 volunteers. “The medicine of the future tends to be personalized, predictive and participatory,” said Gurutz Linazasoro, a neurologist and scientific director of CITA-Alzheimer’s, a foundation created in 2007.
Andrew has just emerged from the lumbar puncture test. The extraction of a sample of cerebrospinal fluid is one of the key parts of the study, in its first phase, because this fluid is analyzed the deposition of amyloid-b protein in the brain, one of the more specific signs Alzheimer’s pathology.
In a room where he is recovering from the puncture, Andrew, one of 63 volunteers who passed some tests, has relaxed his experience: “The truth is coming a little nervous but I hardly heard. Why am I encouraged? It is a way of learning, beyond talking about football or have a drink with friends. ”
Arigita Ernesto Sanz, director of imaging, highlights the success of achieving hundred healthy volunteers: “The response has been spectacular. In a similar project in the Netherlands took me a year to find a 20 “.
Along with lumbar puncture, which 60% of volunteers have agreed, add blood tests and neuroimaging two sessions, one structural and one functional. Aged between 50 and 65 years, volunteers are split almost 50% among people at risk (family history, memory problems, etc.) and healthy individuals. Each patient will know the outcome of the tests.
The study will collect clinical data, neurological, statistical, psychological and nutritional. This last section also provide valuable information about food habits, according to the researchers, may influence the disease and rarely covered by other similar studies. The project, which began with the economic contribution of a family from San Sebastian and maintained in times of crisis thanks to the collaboration of central administrations, regional and provincial levels, in addition to the Kutxa Social Work, will monitor the volunteers during the next few years to check the status of their cognitive performance, brain volume and the changes that are experiencing.
After the first data from the first phase of research, Alzheimer’s CITA-start the second phase, which already had 2,000 or 3,000 people. It will be then that will test these potential specific markers for more decisive conclusions and validated as effective screening tools.
“It is frustrating to new treatments aimed at combating the disease mechanisms are not working. Diagnostic tests such as PET are expensive and difficult to make and doctors in general are not doing the work of a lumbar punctures apparently healthy person who only has memory lapses. And even less, if not demented. It’s the same debate that is open in the scientific community, “explains neurologist Pablo Martinez Lage.
The ultimate goal is to know when symptoms occur, when they start these first neurons to die, the first changes in the brain to neuronal degeneration. In this sense, the study is accompanied by a side project called risk Networks is to find the mechanisms that the brain uses to mask the failures.
The CITA-Alzheimer’s researchers work with the hope that one day could pose a real specific prevention of Alzheimer’s. To this end, the only way is to define populations at risk. “No one is free of Alzheimer’s, a disease is more democratic. But a trained brain responds better, “notes Martínez Lage.
Posted in Geriatrics, Psychiatry | Tags: Alzheimer, Alzheimer's disease, brain, disease, lumbar puncture | No Comments »
DASH Diet and Hypertension
With an optimistic approach, a book proposes an alternative healthy lifestyle, but pleasant. It was created by the director of the Hypertension Center Hospital Universitario Austral (HUA), Carol Kotliar, along with professionals from different disciplines.
In Argentina there are 7 million hypertensives. Only half knows about the problem and, worse still, 1 million and half receive treatment. In total, some 870 000 have reached a controlled pressure.
“Every individual is born with a genetic identity that gives some protection or strengths and some weaknesses or vulnerabilities in health and disease.” But it is vulnerable on the ground where we work to improve the lifestyle, said Dr. Carol Kotliar.
“Our habits are the keys that allow or prevent manifest cardiovascular disease,” he said.
Kotliar is director of the Hypertension Center, Hospital Universitario Austral (HUA) and creative, along with Dr. Sergio Volman and licensed nutritionist Maria Emilia Mazzei, the manual handling of high blood pressure healthy. The book, aimed at both healthy and sick people of all ages, it develops in 152 pages what to do to live healthier, so as to control the pressure.
“These are basic guidelines of what is known as lifestyle medicine, summarized Kotliar. Our goal is to provide education for people with hypertension and promote a healthy lifestyle. ”
Food is the highlight of the book. Apply a “family care plan health”, with a diet for 15 days. The two most original, according Kotliar, is that it includes a table unpublished sodium content in foods 4 000, which targets those who are following a strict diet, and each recipe of the day contains the table of calories. It also describes the effects on the pressure of daily meals and the positive aspects of the meat, coffee, wine, among others.
Physical activity and stress management are important topics of the manual. In addition, there are practical tips (how to measure blood pressure outside the office) and answers to common questions, such as My children are hypertensive? Is there a cure hypertension? Should I eliminate the salt? What if I have high blood pressure during pregnancy?
In each chapter attended by professionals from different disciplines who are pursuing the Master of Hypertension offered by the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, Austral University.
The first edition will be sold in the HUA or custom, through the website of the institution: www.hospitalaustral.edu.ar
The DASH diet
Having high blood pressure involves reducing sodium intake, fat and calories, which for many is a daunting challenge. Therefore, the manual focuses on what you can eat, the pleasures that can be a person with this problem. “We told him what to add to that a diet is rich, attractive and healthy. What is best to eat to prevent atherosclerosis and lower blood pressure as if it were a drug, and ideas for seasoning without salt, among others, “Kotliar forward.
At the base of the food plan guides are the “DASH” (in Castilian: “Approaches to reduce hypertension food”).
Besides helping to reduce pressure without medication, the DASH plan is a way of life-power, highly beneficial, recommended by the Argentina Society of Hypertension and the American Heart Association. It can adapt to the caloric needs of each person and, unlike other diets, food does not contain strange or difficult to obtain. It’s an easy plan, low in saturated fat, cholesterol and total fat. Its pillars are fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, milk and dairy fat or nonfat. Include foods rich in vitamins and minerals such as calcium, potassium and magnesium.
Changing habits is to Kotliar, “the hardest.” “Starting with physical activity, changing grocery shopping … Begin to understand that it is not one to change, but change the whole family.” Still, says society today “has more conscience” and perceived a “return to nature”.
“The world is changing the image of a happy life, which is no longer the man smoking and drinking whiskey while watching TV, but of an active and healthy,” he said.
Posted in Cardiology, Geriatrics, Nutrition | Tags: alternative healthy, DASH Diet, Hypertension, hypertensives, lifestyle | No Comments »