Showing papers by "Giuliano Binetti published in 1995"

Predictors of mortality and institutionalization in Alzheimer disease patients 1 year after discharge from an Alzheimer dementia unit.

Abstract: Several factors have been reported to predict death and institutionalization in demented patients, even if the results of the studies are often conflicting. We conducted a study on a group of 86 conse

Semantic Memory in Alzheimer's Disease: An Analysis of Category Fluency

Abstract: In order to study the strategies of access to semantic knowledge and the status of semantic representation, we analyzed the performance in a semantic fluency task (Animal naming) of 70 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD), including 40 mild AD patients and 30 moderate-severe AD patients, and 35 matched elderly normal control subjects. The total amount of words produced, their lexical frequency, the number and type of errors, as well as the presence and the type of clusters of related animal names were recorded. AD patients produced less animal exemplars than controls. In addition to a lower total number of clusters, the AD patients showed a strong limitation in clusters' selection, producing a limited number of different clusters. While normal subjects produced several different clusters, only farm animals were clustered by AD patients. When the total amount of words was considered, the mean lexical frequency was higher in the AD group. On the other hand, the words produced within clusters were comparable to terms of lexical frequency and number. These data confirm the impairment of AD patients in category fluency tasks, and suggest a degradation of semantic knowledge as the most likely underlying mechanism.

Delusions and dementia: clinical and CT correlates.

Abstract: Introduction – Delusions occur frequently during the course of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and multi-infarct dementia (MID) Their clinical significance and their relationship with progression of disease and involvement of selected cerebral areas are still unclear The aim of the study was to determine the clinical and CT correlates of delusions in patients with dementia Material and methods – A series of 67 probable AD and 32 MID patients, underwent computed tomographic scans, psychometric tests, neurologic and psychiatric examination, and blood and serum tests Results – Twenty-four patients were found to have delusions during the clinical evaluation Delusional patients showed a significantly higher age when compared with non-delusional patients The results of a multiple logistic regression (with stepwise deletion of the redundant variables) of the CT lesions on the presence of delusions, showed that only the presence of isolated white matter lesions in the frontal lobes were significantly related to the occurrence of delusions (Exp B = 342; Beta = 12; SE = 06; Sig T = 004) Frontal white matter changes were significantly related to delusions when a multiple regression analysis, entering age and total number of lesions at CT scans, was carried out Conclusions – We found that focal lesions in the frontal areas were the only variable that appeared to be significantly and independently associated with delusional disorders

Computed tomography in the detection of the vascular component in dementia

Abstract: We evaluated the presence and type of vascular lesions with computerized tomography (CT) in 94 cognitively impaired elderly patients who had been defined as degenerative (Alzheimer’s disease, AD) or v

Effect of age and education on performance on the Mini-Mental State Examination in a healthy older population and during the course of Alzheimer's disease.

Abstract: fever, hemolysis,’ hepatitis, myocarditis, pancreatitis, and thrombocytopenia.6 Systemic lupus-like syndrome induced by methyldopa therapy was first reported by Harrington and Davis’ and was later confirmed. This adverse reaction is currently recognized as one of the possible side effects of methyldopa. Case reports have documented retroperitoneal fibrosis in their patients resulting from a less severe, perhaps self-limiting, form of fibroblastic reaction involving a hypersensitivity or immune reaction. Immune fluorescence techniques demonstrated deposits of igG, igM, and igA on the collagen fibrosis.’ Weisenburger3 reported a 71-year-old woman who developed immunoblastic lymphadenopathy, hepatosplenomegaly, and who died of malignant lymphoid proliferation secondary to methyldopa used for 5 years. Enterocolitis,8 atrophic gastritis: and pure red cell aplasia’ have appeared in the literature attributable to hypersensitive reactions to methyldopa. The authors stated that red cell aplasia was caused by direct suppression of colony forming units-erythroid growth by methyldopa. Pai and Pai recently described the case of a patient who developed thrombocytopenia in which the patient had a lupus-like reaction due to methyldopa.6 Published literature indicates that methyldopa is lymphostimulatory, and antinuclear antibodies and hypocomplementemia have been found. An immunologic hyperresponsiveness may exist in patients with pseudolymphoma induced by methyldopa during the period of lymphoproliferation. This may spontaneously abate when the medication is withdrawn or may, in a rare patient, develop into a malignant lymphoma.’-” Gershwin and Steinberg” have suggested that the druginduced pseudolymphoma syndrome may have increased propensity to malignant transformation because of the loss of a normally occurring T-cell suppression, which could result in the unregulated lymphatic proliferation.”

Evaluation of an italian educational programme for dementia caregivers: Results of a small‐scale pilot study

Abstract: The study investigates the role of the characteristics of direct caregivers and of their demented relatives in the effectiveness of an educational programme for caregivers. Measures of stress, depression and knowledge of the disease were employed to monitor the effects of an eight-session programme. Variables related to both the caregiver and the patient were significantly related to the degree of improvement during the course. Our conclusion is that the efficacy of educational programmes is related to caregiver-patient interaction.