Receptive music interventions improve apathy and depression in elderly patients with dementia

Individuals with dementia and their families often experience poor quality of life due to patient's behavioral and psychological symptoms. Increasing evidence has mounted on the potential role of music in improving social, emotional and cognitive skills. In the present study we aim to investigate whether a receptive music intervention might reduce apathy and depression in elderly patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) or vascular dementia (VaD) and improve their caregivers' burden. Among patients attending to a Memory Clinic, we have enrolled 48 AD or VaD elderly subjects. They were divided into two groups on the basis of family agreement to musictherapy. The experimental group (n=15) was asked to listen to a 80-minute audio CD, for at least 15 minutes per day, at least once a week, for three months. The overall sample was evaluated at baseline, at week 4 and at week 12 through the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), the Cornel- Brown Scale QoL in Dementia (CBSQoLD) and the Apathy Evaluation Scale (AES); caregiver stress was assessed using the Caregiver Burden Inventory (CBI). Apathy and depression were significantly improved among patients treated with music interventions compared to control group (treatment effect =43.667; P<0.001 and treatment effect =61.238; P<0.001 respectively). Caregiver burden was significantly reduced after three months of receptive music approach (treatment effect =15.759; P<0.001). The results of this study are consistent with the efficacy of receptive music interventions on improving apathy and depression in AD or VaD elderly patients and lowering associated caregiver's burden

Musical hallucinations in elderly patients with visuospatial impairment: two case reports

Musical hallucinations are an uncommon type of auditory hallucinations, they widely occur in elderly. Our group analyzed medical history, pharmacological therapy, neuropsychological pattern, audiometric testing, electroencephalogram, cerebral magnetic resonance and cerebral fludeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) of two patients. FDGPET showed in both patients hypometabolism pronounced in posterior regions. In particular the medial-inferior temporal cortex and the occipital associative areas were affected. Moreover, neuropsychological pattern suggested a visuospatial-executive deficit, conformed to the occipital involvement. Our reported cases might suggest that musical hallucinations have been arisen from a combination of peripheral and central dysfunction. A further explanation might be that musical hallucinations result from multiple white matter lacunar lesions due to small vascular events. A question is whether musical hallucinations might be primarily associated with occipital areas hypometabolism and visuospatial alterations typically associated with Levy body dementia (LBD)

β-HHVs and HHV-8 in Lymphoproliferative Disorders.

Similarly to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), the human herpesvirus-8 (HHV-8) is a γ-herpesvirus, recently recognized to be associated with the occurrence of rare B cell lymphomas and atypical lymphoproliferations, especially in the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected subjects. Moreover, the human herpesvirus-6 (HHV-6), a β-herpesvirus, has been shown to be implicated in some non-malignant lymph node proliferations, such as the Rosai Dorfman disease, and in a proportion of Hodgkin's lymphoma cases. HHV-6 has a wide cellular tropism and it might play a role in the pathogenesis of a wide variety of human diseases, but given its ubiquity, disease associations are difficult to prove and its role in hematological malignancies is still controversial. The involvement of another β-herpesvirus, the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), has not yet been proven in human cancer, even though recent findings have suggested its potential role in the development of CD4(+) large granular lymphocyte (LGL) lymphocytosis. Here, we review the current knowledge on the pathogenetic role of HHV-8 and human β-herpesviruses in human lymphoproliferative disorders

Idelalisib impairs T-cell-mediated immunity in chronic lymphocytic leukemia

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Capecitabine in combination with preoperative radiation therapy in locally advanced, resectable, rectal cancer: a multicentric phase II study

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Use of a high sensitive nanofluidic array for the detection of rare copies of BCR-ABL1 transcript in patients with Philadelphia-positiveacute lymphoblastic leukemia in complete responseIlaria

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Parvoviruses in Blood Donors and Transplant Patients, Italy

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Circulating functional T cells specific to human herpes virus 6 (HHV6) antigens in individuals with chromosomally integrated HHV6

Circulating functional T cells specific to human herpes virus 6 (HHV6) antigens in individuals with chromosomally integrated HHV

Il Fenomeno delle Dipendenze nella Regione Liguria. Anno 2010

-Il Report analizza il fenomeno delle dipendenze nella regione Liguria. La descrizione del fenomeno si sviluppa intorno all\u27analisi degli indicatori individuati dall\u27Osservatorio Europeo delle Dipendenze di Lisbona (OEDT): 1-uso di sostanze nella popolazione generale (questo indicatore va a rilevare i comportamenti nei confronti di alcol e sostanze psicoattive da parte della popolazione generale); 2-prevalenza d\u27uso problematico delle sostanze psicoattive; 3-domanda di trattamento degli utilizzatori di sostanze; 4-mortalit? degli utilizzatori di sostanze; 5-malattie infettive. Altri due importanti indicatori che si stanno sviluppando, e che vengono qui illustrati, sono l\u27analisi delle Schede di Dimissione Ospedaliera (SDO) e gli indicatori relativi alle conseguenza sociali dell\u27uso di droghe (criminalit? droga correlata). Inoltre sono state applicate diverse metodologie standard di stima sia per quantificare la quota parte sconosciuta di utilizzatori di sostanze che non afferiscono ai servizi, sia per identificarne alcune caratteristiche