Prevalence of dementia and Alzheimer's disease in elders of nursing homes and a senior center of Durango City, Mexico

BACKGROUND: Epidemiological reports about dementia and Alzheimer's disease (AD) in elderly people from developing countries are scarce. Therefore, we sought to determine the prevalences of dementia and AD in a population of nursing home residents and senior center attendees of Durango City, Mexico, and to determine whether any socio-demographic characteristics from the subjects associated with dementia or AD exist. METHODS: One hundred and fifty-five residents of two nursing homes and 125 attendees of a senior center were examined for dementia and Alzheimer's disease. All subjects were tested by the mini-mental state examination, and those who scored twenty-four or less underwent psychiatric and neurological evaluations. Diagnosis of dementia, AD and vascular dementia (VaD) was based on the DSM-IV criteria. Socio-demographic characteristics from each participant were also obtained. RESULTS: Residents of nursing homes found to suffer from dementia were 25 out of 155 (16.1%). Eighteen of them (11.6%) had AD, and seven (4.5%) had VaD. None of the attendees of the senior center suffered from dementia. Dementia (pooled AD and VaD cases) correlated with white ethnicity (OR = 3.2; 95%CI = 1.28–8.31), and a history of unemployment (OR = 6.46; 95%CI = 1.42–25.97), while AD correlated with journeymen occupations (OR = 4.55; 95%CI = 1.00–19.29). CONCLUSION: Prevalence of dementia in residents of nursing homes found in this study is much lower than reported from more industrialized countries. AD was more frequent than VaD. Ethnicity and occupation showed effects on the prevalence figures. The prevalence of dementia found has implications for the optimum kind of health care that nursing homes should provide to their residents

P2RX7 Purinoceptor: A Therapeutic Target for Ameliorating the Symptoms of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

open access articleDuchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is the most common inherited muscle disease, leading to severe disability and death in young men. Death is caused by the progressive degeneration of striated muscles aggravated by sterile inflammation. The pleiotropic effects of the mutant gene also include cognitive and behavioral impairments and low bone density. Current interventions in DMD are palliative only as no treatment improves the long-term outcome. Therefore, approaches with a translational potential should be investigated, and key abnormalities downstream from the absence of the DMD product, dystrophin, appear to be strong therapeutic targets. We and others have demonstrated that DMD mutations alter ATP signaling and have identified P2RX7 purinoceptor up-regulation as being responsible for the death of muscles in the mdx mouse model of DMD and human DMD lymphoblasts. Moreover, the ATP–P2RX7 axis, being a crucial activator of innate immune responses, can contribute to DMD pathology by stimulating chronic inflammation. We investigated whether ablation of P2RX7 attenuates the DMD model mouse phenotype to assess receptor suitability as a therapeutic target