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"Diagnosis-Independent Alzheimer Disease Biomarker Signature in Cognitively Normal Elderly People"

I heard Trojanowski (the senior author) talk about this last month at the annual meeting of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry. It's a very interesting topic with a lot of social ramifications. The statement in the absrract that among people with mild cognitive impairment, the biomarker profile had a 100% sensitivity for development of AD needs to be carefully considered. First, the metric that is of greater interest is the positive predictive value. Second, it is known that some patients who have the classic AD findings at autopsy did not have mental impairment in life. We know this from the Nun study.

Photos of happy, smiling faces on patient education websites may engage readers, but they also may have a negative impact on older adults' comprehension of vital health information, especially those elderly patients who are the least knowledgeable about their medical condition to begin with, suggests a new study.

"Growing up in a family run care home, Andy Bradley discusses how his experiences with the elderly have helped him to better understand how we can provide compassionate care within our institutions."

A great short animation about death and a doctor fighting over an elderly lady, might be useful for introducing end of life issues.

Talking to the elderly

At a time when baby boomers are approaching the age of 65, some physicians attuned to this economic reality have simply stopped accepting Medicare patients.