Dementia News and Research

Latest Dementia News and Research

UC Davis School of Medicine and UTHealth receive NIH grant for dementia research

A team of brain scientists from UC Davis School of Medicine and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston has been awarded a six-year grant expected to total $53.6 million from the National Institutes of Health.

7 Oct 2020

Why do we need sleep?

In this interview, Dr. Gina Poe speaks to News-Medical about why we sleep, and the importance of REM sleep for brain development.

7 Oct 2020

Many hospitalized COVID-19 patients exhibit neurological symptoms, study finds

Nearly a third of hospitalized COVID-19 patients experienced some type of altered mental state and function, ranging from delirium to confusion, and in some cases, unresponsiveness, a new study has found.

7 Oct 2020

New project aims to improve quality of life for dementia patients in care homes

£1.2 million in government funding will help researchers develop an innovative online program to improve and personalise care for people with dementia in care homes, which were hard-hit by the COVID-19 crisis.

7 Oct 2020

Study provides greater detail about the characteristics of COVID-19 patients

Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 were more likely male, younger, and, in both the US and Spain, had fewer comorbidities and lower medication use than hospitalized influenza patients according to a recent study published by the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics community.

6 Oct 2020

Nursing home residents face considerable risk when disasters strike

Government officials vastly undercounted the death toll among Florida nursing home residents after the destruction of Hurricane Irma in 2017, according to new research led by a Brown University scholar who studies disaster management in the long-term care industry.

6 Oct 2020

NIH awards $3.8 million to predict dementia in patients with Parkinson's disease

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health has awarded a grant expected to total $3.8 million to Virendra Mishra, Ph.D., associate staff at Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, to identify biomarkers - or disease indicators - to predict dementia in patients with Parkinson's disease.

6 Oct 2020

Tuned lighting helps improve sleep in nursing home residents, study finds

Nursing home residents tend to fall asleep at all hours of the day, and during the night, their sleep may be interrupted by periods of wakefulness.

6 Oct 2020

IL-21 protein is a major part of immune response to chronic infections in the central nervous system

Researchers at Penn State College of Medicine now better understand the role of a protein, interleukin-21 (IL-21), in the immune system response to infections in the nervous system.

6 Oct 2020

NIH awards $13.8 million to conduct studies on pre-dementia and Alzheimer's disease

Joe Verghese, M.B.B.S., M.S., , an international leader in aging and cognition research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System, has received two grants from the National Institutes of Health totaling $13.8 million to conduct studies on pre-dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

5 Oct 2020

New, rare genetic form of dementia discovered

A new, rare genetic form of dementia has been discovered by a team of Penn Medicine researchers. This discovery also sheds light on a new pathway that leads to protein build up in the brain -- which causes this newly discovered disease, as well as related neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's Disease -- that could be targeted for new therapies.

1 Oct 2020

Study finds 94% of dementia caregivers in Australia are sleep deprived

New Edith Cowan University research has found 94 per cent of Australians caring for a loved one with dementia are sleep deprived.

1 Oct 2020

Social isolation worsens the effects of Alzheimer's disease, study shows

A study in mice conducted by the UAB shows that social isolation worsens the effects of Alzheimer's disease, with hyperactivity levels reaching up to twice as much as in the pathology itself.

1 Oct 2020

Study links poorer cognitive performance with greater risk for impaired daily life activities

Subtle differences in cognition may help identify individuals at risk for becoming dependent years later upon others to complete daily activities, such as managing medications or finances and other essential activities.

30 Sep 2020

Study pinpoints heating element in vaping devices as cause for lung injuries

Early results of an experimental vaping study have shown significant lung injury from E-cigarette (eC) devices with nickel-chromium alloy heating elements.

28 Sep 2020

Study finds identical signs of brain damage in sleep apnea and Alzheimer's disease

New research has confirmed long-suspected links between sleep apnea and Alzheimer's disease, finding identical signs of brain damage in both conditions.

28 Sep 2020

Risk factors for mortality among hospitalized patients with COVID-19

A new study by scientists at biotechnology company Genentech, Inc., and published on the preprint server medRxiv in September 2020 attempts to identify the factors which may shape the risk for death in COVID-19 disease.

27 Sep 2020

Personality traits are associated with cognitive resilience in older adults

Our aging brains collect tangles and sticky plaques that can interfere in our cognition and memory. But some older adults with this neuropathology have more cognitive resilience than others, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.

25 Sep 2020

Alzheimer’s disease-associated protective genetic variant enhances key functions of immune cells

A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Eastern Finland found that the PLCG2-P522R genetic variant, which protects against Alzheimer's disease, enhances several key functions of immune cells. The results obtained in the study highlight the importance of immune cells as a target of future development of new therapies for Alzheimer's disease.

25 Sep 2020

Late-life depression not linked with increased amyloid deposits in the brain

Depression in elderly people can include symptoms such as memory loss, making it hard to distinguish from the early stages of Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia.

23 Sep 2020