Dementia

...ba href=/dementia/a/b, are detected.

There are no tests for the disease.

Price does not yet know if she has the disease, but wonders daily whether she will develop it, Grant said.

"She worries whether or not she'll be able to watch her children grow up and worries whether or not she'll continually be able to be there for her children and her husband," Grant said.

"It was 100 percent avoidable." The last time patients were infected by the disease from surgical instruments was in 1976 and those cases all involved sterilization standards different from what's used in today's hospitals.

Prior to 1976, two people were infected by contaminated brain electrodes that were sterilized with alcohol alone.

The other four cases used a sterilization processes similar to today's practices, but at much lower germ-killing temperatures, Bornstein said.

At Emory and other medical centers across the country, surgical instruments are first placed in a disinfecting solution and then are placed in an autoclave, a device that uses vacuum and steam pressure to quickly heat objects to 270 degrees Fahrenheit.

Grant said the Emory instruments should also have been sterilized with sodium hydroxide but were not because the chemical can be corrosive to the instruments.

Standard sterilization procedures require surgical instruments to be sterilized for four minutes; but World Health Organization guidelines recommend surgical instruments for CJD patients to remain in the autoclave for 18 minutes.

Emory officials say all ...

...ba href=/dementia/a/b Defense and prosecution experts have agreed that Lucille Fung, a former barrister and the elderly wife and co- defendant of a retired judge on trial for fraud, suffers from ba href=/dementia/a/b.

Justin Mitchell Thursday, March 30, 2006 Defense and prosecution experts have agreed that Lucille Fung, a former barrister and the elderly wife and co- defendant of a retired judge on trial for fraud, suffers from ba href=/dementia/a/b.The two sides also agreed Wednesday that Fung's social life did not rival that of bad-girl model Kate Moss.But whether her ba href=/dementia/a/b is mild or moderate and severe enough to affect her ability to assist in her own defense continued to be debated in Kowloon City Magistracy where she and her spouse, retired Court of First Instance judge Miles Henry Jackson-Lipkin, 82, are being tried on three counts of fraud in connection with their joint application for Comprehensive Social Security Assistance.Fung, 81, who is seeking a stay of prosecution on mental grounds, was excused along with her husband from afternoon testimony after complaining of feeling ill.

Psychiatrist and physician K Singer who examined Fung three times in December for a total of four hours and 25 minutes said his diagnosis of moderate ba href=/dementia/a/b and clinical depression meant that it would be difficult for Fung to supply a defense attorney with a lucid, coherent version of the facts related to her case.

He also disparaged another diagnosis commissioned by the prosecution and done by Dr Linda Lam at Chinese Un...

...ba href=/dementia/a/b and about how to care more safely and easily for their spouses or parents gradually losing memory and independence.

The researchers hope to determine if such telephone support groups might also save money by reducing trips to the emergency room or nursing home placement, and safeguard the health and well-being of caregivers.

"If we improve the caregiver's life, we'll improve the care recipient's life," said Dr.

Linda Nichols, the principal investigator of the Memphis Veterans Medical Center study.

"We hope it will keep people at home longer." An estimated 6 million Americans have memory problems.

More than half are cared for at home, usually by a relative.

This study tracks factors like caregiver well-being and stress levels, medical costs and use of the health system.

Eventually it will involve 150 caregivers assigned either to participate in a yearlong phone support group or to receive written information about caring for someone with memory loss without the regular phone education and support sessions.

It is funded with a $1.2 million grant from the Veterans Administration.

Results are expected in 2007.

"No one's evaluated phone support for ba href=/dementia/a/b and caregivers," said Nichols.

An earlier national study found that more intensive intervention, which included support via the telephone, provided those caring for ba href=/dementia/a/b patients at home with an extra hour each day by teaching coping skills and how to better manage behaviors such as wandering, feeding and bat...