16 Ways to Get a Dementia Patient to Eat More Food
Alzheimer's and dementia patients often eat less, and have difficulty eating, because of problems like chewing, swallowing or digesting food.Alzheimer's and dementia patients sometimes lose interest in eating. This can happen for a long list of reasons including loss of taste, the ability to smell, memory loss, and thinking they already ate.Medications can also effect appetite, and can increase constipation.When a person has Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia, these problems can becomemore pronounced, and often effect mood, behavior, and physical functioning.Topic -How to Get an Alzheimer's Patient to Eat More FoodB...
Source: Alzheimer's Reading Room, The - November 19, 2018 Category: Neurology Tags: assisted living and memory care facility care of dementia patients dementia care dementia patients refusing to eat do people with Alzheimer's forget they ate help alzheimer's senior care Source Type: blogs

As If We Needed It, More Evidence Emerges Showing That The Government Has Changed The Opioid Crisis Into a Fentanyl Crisis
Speaking last week at a National Opioid Summit in Washington, DC, Attorney General Jeff Sessions reported opioid prescriptions  fell another 12 percent during the first eight months of 2018, saying ‘We now have the lowest opioid prescription rates in 18 years.” Some of this was no doubt the result of the chilling effect that prescription surveillance boards have had on the prescribing patterns of physicians. For example, Sessions announced th e Trump administration has charged 226 doctors and 221 medical personnel with “opioid-related crimes,” and this has not gone unnoticed by health care practitioners.Sessions ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 1, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs

Nowinski rebuts book which questions football's role in chronic traumatic encephalopathy
On Tuesday, I posted about a new book out which questions the conclusions drawn by Boston University researchers regarding the connections between football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Today, BU ' s Chris Nowinskiresponded in the pages of USA Today.Chris Nowinski, PhD, CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation which has connections to Boston University researchers, said the following in the USA Today article: " I ' m happy to ask Merril Hoge who to draft No. 1 next year, but we shouldn ' t be asking him how to design research studies. "Chris Nowinski, PhD (Source: neuropathology blog)
Source: neuropathology blog - October 25, 2018 Category: Radiology Tags: trauma Source Type: blogs

Optoacoustic Guidewire System for Breast Cancer Localization
Breast lumpectomy for breast CA is an imprecise procedure that too often results in cancerous tissue being left behind. About a quarter of patients have to come back and go through the surgery yet again. This is in large part due to the fact that guidewires are the standard way to point to the location of a tumor. While guidewires are better than nothing, they are crude and not very precise. Radioactive seeds are another option, but they have safety concerns and radio-based technologies are limited in their targeting and they can interfere with other equipment. Engineers at Boston University have now developed an optoacous...
Source: Medgadget - October 25, 2018 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Editors Tags: Oncology Radiology Surgery Source Type: blogs

A New Biology of Alzheimer's disease?
Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) describe a unique model for the biology of Alzheimer's disease (AD) which may lead to an entirely novel approach for treating the disease.What is the Difference Between Alzheimer ’s and DementiaBy Alzheimer's Reading RoomSubscribe to the Alzheimer's Reading RoomEmail:Researchers describe new biology of Alzheimer's diseaseScientists have known for a long time that two proteins (amyloid and tau) clump and accumulate in the brains of Alzheimer patients, and this accumulation is thought to cause nerve cell injury that results in dementia.Recent work by these BUSMre...
Source: Alzheimer's Reading Room, The - October 24, 2018 Category: Neurology Tags: Alzheimer's disease biology brain dementia memory science TIA1 tau Source Type: blogs

Neuropathologist teams up with former NFL player to write provocative book questioning the extent and cause of CTE among football players
Dr. Peter CummingsIn an Op-Ed piece published today onYahoo! Sports, neuropathologistPeter Cummings and former NFL playerMerril Hoge discuss their skepticism about the science behind the connection between chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and football. Cummings and Hoge just released a book entitled “Brainwashed: The Bad Science Behind CTE and the Plot to Destroy Football” (Amplify, Oct. 23, 2018), describing their take on the conclusions that have been drawn regarding the connection between football and CTE. " We believe that when people know what we know, they ’ll start asking tougher, smarter quest...
Source: neuropathology blog - October 23, 2018 Category: Radiology Tags: trauma Source Type: blogs

Intensive CBT: How fast can I get better?
A highly effective psychotherapy called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) focuses on how our thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes can affect our feelings and behavior. Traditional CBT treatment usually requires weekly 30- to 60-minute sessions over 12 to 20 weeks. A faster option now emerging is intensive CBT (I-CBT), which employs much longer sessions concentrated into a month, week, or weekend — or sometimes a single eight-hour session. CBT helps people learn tools to reframe different types of thinking, such as black-and-white thinking (I can’t do anything right) and emotional reasoning (I feel you dislike me, so it mu...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - October 23, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Soo Jeong Youn, PhD Tags: Adolescent health Anxiety and Depression Behavioral Health Mental Health Parenting Source Type: blogs

Most Doctors Are Ill-Equipped to Deal With the Opioid Epidemic. Few Medical Schools Teach Addiction. - The New York Times
To the medical students, the patient was a conundrum.According to his chart, he had residual pain from a leg injury sustained while working on a train track. Now he wanted an opioid stronger than the Percocet he'd been prescribed. So why did his urine test positive for two other drugs — cocaine and hydromorphone, a powerful opioid that doctors had not ordered?It was up to Clark Yin, 29, to figure out what was really going on with Chris McQ, 58 — as seven other third-year medical students and two instructors watched."How are you going to have a conversation around the patient's positive tox screen results?&...
Source: Psychology of Pain - September 14, 2018 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs

Psychology Around the Net: August 11, 2018
Gear up and get ready for the latest in mental health news, Psych Central readers! This week’s Psychology Around the Net covers a disturbing new trend involving selfies and plastic surgery, why some mental health professionals believe shopping addiction should be recognized as a mental illness, how mindfulness might not be the best practice for boosting productivity, and more. ‘Snapchat Dysmorphia’: How Chasing the Perfect Selfie Can Lead to Plastic Surgery: Ever heard of “Snapchat dysmorphia”? It’s a new term dubbed by researchers from Boston University School of Medicine’s Department of Derm...
Source: World of Psychology - August 11, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Alicia Sparks Tags: Addiction Brain and Behavior Celebrities Mindfulness Psychology Around the Net Research Technology Alyssa Petersel Brent Smith Compulsive buying disorder Eric Bass Get Up Innate Fear learned fear Meditation Mindfulness Medita Source Type: blogs

4 Top Risk Factors Associated with Dementia
By studying data from the Framingham Heart Study (FHS), researchers from Boston University School of Medicine identified combinations of factors that were linked to an increased risk of dementia in older age. The findings were published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease on May 8th. The researchers stated they wanted to focus on modifiable risk factors which could help people plan the right interventions to effectively reduce their chances of developing this neurological disease.  The top four prominent life-related risk factors are listed below: 1. Age. Not surprisingly, age is considered the most significan...
Source: World of Psychology - July 25, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Emily Waters Tags: Aging Alzheimer's Memory and Perception Research Source Type: blogs

Methadone and Mixed Messages
As a physician licensed to prescribe narcotics, I am legally   permitted to prescribe the powerful opioid methadone (also known by the brand name Dolophine  ) to my patients suffering from severe, intractable pain that hasn ’t been adequately controlled by other, less powerful pain killers. Most patients I encounter who might fall into that category are likely to be terminal cancer patients. I’ve often wondered why I am approved to prescribe methadone to my patients as a treatment for pain, but I am not allowed to prescribe methadone to taper my patients off of a physical dependence they may have developed from lo...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 13, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs

NIH Disbands Alcohol Clinical Trial Because of Scientific and Ethical Breaches
In a decision that I applaud, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins announced yesterday that based on the recommendation of his Advisory Committee after an extensive investigation, he is discontinuing the MACH15 (Moderate Alcohol and Cardiovascular Health) clinical trial of moderate alcohol consumption (see original news reportshere andhere).In itsreport, the NIH Advisory Committee to the Director concluded as follows:" To understand the context that led NIAAA to embark on the MACH trial, the ACD WG considered the nature and extent of interactions among NIAAA staff, select extramural investigators, and industry representatives ...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - June 16, 2018 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs

Age of First Football Tackles Tied to Neurobehavioral Symptom Onset
Younger age of exposure to tackle football predicts earlier neurobehavioral symptom onset among players with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), according to a study recently published online in the Annals of Neurology.Michael L. Alosco, Ph.D., from Boston University, and colleagues examined the brains of 246 tackle football players donated for neuropathological examination. Of the 211 who were diagnosed with CTE, 126 were without comorbid neurodegenerative diseases. Age of first exposure and age of cognitive and behavioral/mood symptom onset were determined through informant interviews. (Source: neuropathology blog)
Source: neuropathology blog - May 16, 2018 Category: Radiology Tags: trauma Source Type: blogs

AI-Driven Interactive Patient Engagement: Interview with TeleHealth ’s Richard Bootes
Discussions are guided by the patient’s EMR and data analytics created through interactions with the patient. iCare Navigator is unique in that our system differentiates between a patient’s participation and engagement levels. For example, while a patient may appear participative by interacting with health-agnostic functions of the system, such as watching television, at the same time they may demonstrate a low level of engagement toward their health condition. In such patient situations, iCare Navigator leverages a patient’s overall participation to introduce motivational-type activities designed to increase their i...
Source: Medgadget - May 8, 2018 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Alice Ferng Tags: Exclusive Informatics Medicine Public Health Source Type: blogs

Do we need to take tackling out of youth football?
Follow me on Twitter @drClaire As we learn more about the frequency and effects of concussions in football, we are increasingly being forced to face the question: do we need to take the tackling out of youth football? A study published in the Annals of Neurology definitely begs that question. Researchers from Boston University examined the brains of 246 deceased football players, 211 of whom were diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. They found that the younger the players started playing tackle football, the earlier they started showing symptoms of CTE such as neurological and behavioral problems. In fa...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 8, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Claire McCarthy, MD Tags: Brain and cognitive health Children's Health Injuries Parenting Source Type: blogs