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Biomedical subjects

M K Aronson

Publications and source records attributed to M K Aronson.

24 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1981

Senile dementia, Alzheimer's type: the family and the health care delivery system.

Senile dementia is one of the important medical-social-economic problems facing our society, estimated to affect some 60% of nursing home patients and of persons residing in the community. The course of dementia in these patients is affected not only by their age, medical complications, and the disease itself, but also by where and with whom they live. A study was made of patients with senile dementia, Alzheimer's type (SDAT) in the community, and the kinds of caretakers involved. The implications of these patterns for management of the patients are discussed.

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Identification of normal and pathological aging in prospectively studied nondemented elderly humans.

Results of a standardized histochemical and immunocytochemical analysis of the brains of 14 nondemented elderly humans for whom prospective neurological and neuropsychological data had been collected for 3 to 8 years before death suggested that nondemented elderly humans fall into two pathological subgroups that are not clinically distinguishable. One was associated with moderate to marked cerebral amyloid deposition ("pathological aging"), while the other had either minimal or no amyloid deposition ("normal aging"). Neocortical and hippocampal neurofibrillary degeneration was either completely absent or of very limited degree in both subgroups. Both subgroups had ubiquitin-immunoreactive dystrophic neurites in the cerebral cortex and granular degeneration of myelin in white matter. These ubiquitin-immunoreactive structures seem to be a universal and invariant manifestation of brain aging, but the same cannot be said for amyloid deposition and neurofibrillary degeneration. Pathological aging might be preclinical Alzheimer's disease, but it currently cannot be distinguished from normal aging by even sensitive neuropsychological measures. These findings provide strong support for the hypothesis that cerebral amyloid deposition is not necessarily associated with clinically apparent cognitive dysfunction and that additional factors, such as neuronal or synaptic loss or widespread cytoskeletal aberrations, are necessary for dementia in AD.

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Self-rated health assessment and development of both cardiovascular and dementing illnesses in an ambulatory elderly population: a report from the Bronx Longitudinal Aging Study.

As part of the Bronx Longitudinal Aging Study, a prospective, community-based study designed to assess risk factors for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular morbidity and mortality and all-cause dementia, the investigators sought to determine whether a self-rated health assessment (SRHA) could be used as an independent predictor of new cardiovascular events and dementia (Alzheimer type and multi-infarct). A population of elderly (mean age 79 years) outpatient, ambulatory, nondemented patients (n = 487, 65% women) participated in this longitudinal study. Clinical diagnoses were made according to established criteria. At baseline, participants were asked to rate their current SRHA as excellent, good, fair, or poor, and were evaluated annually for as long as 10 years. Baseline SRHA findings were related to development of cardiovascular events and dementia. The SRHA was reported as excellent by 45 patients (9.4%), good by 212 (44.4%), fair by 178 (37.3%), and poor by 42 (8.8%). Using a multivariate analysis, patients whose SRHA was poor were 4.5 times more likely than those whose SRHA was excellent to have a fatal cardiovascular event, 2.6 times more likely to have a nonfatal cardiovascular event, and 5.3 times more likely to develop Alzheimer type and multi-infarct dementia. Similar findings were observed with dichotomous SRHA responses (comparing excellent/good to fair/poor). In an elderly population, SRHA appears to be an independent predictor of future cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events and development of all-cause dementia, which has possible therapeutic implications for prevention and treatment.

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