Dementia

...ba href=/dementia/a/b.Anna Walker, Chief Executive of the Healthcare Commission, said: 'Older people are the biggest users of healthcare, occupying almost two thirds of our hospital beds.

Yet they continue to be a low priority in both the planning and development of our health service.

'The challenge now is to provide much better care for older people closer to home.

Health and social care organisations and local authorities need to work better together on behalf of older people.'If you have a comment on any of our stories or would like to contact the Inside Public newsdesk then please email editorial@insidepublic.co.uk Published: 27 March 2006 !

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...ba href=/dementia/a/b, are associated with falls.

Cognitive tests could help doctors assess risk for falls; conversely, slow gait could alert them to check for cognitive impairment.

The findings are in the March issue of Neuropsychology, which is published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

Roee Holtzer, PhD, and his colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study of 186 cognitively normal, community-dwelling adults aged 70 and older at New York City's Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Gait speed was tested with and without interference.

In the interference conditions, participants had to walk while reciting alternate letters of the alphabet.

Performance on cognitive tests of executive control and memory, and to a lesser extent of verbal ability, predicted "gait velocity" (walking speed) tested without interference.

For gait velocity tested with interference, only executive control and memory were predictive.

Adding interference to the tests of gait allowed the researchers to better simulate the real world, in which walkers continually deal with distractions.

The authors conclude that executive control and memory function are important when the individual has to walk in a busy environment.

The findings suggest that in old age, walking involves higher-order executive-control processes.

That is, the intersecting cognitive and motor processes involved in walking may both rely on a common brain substrate, or set of structures.

As a result, changes in that substrate would affect ...

...ba href=/dementia/a/b, debilitation and Alzheimer's.

35.5% of Britons shared their opinion.

The loss of independence and mobility were central to their concerns.

29.7% of Germans deemed that dependence was a particular problem in old age.Men aged 65+ saw the loss of libido as especially worrying.

The 65+ also rated dependence highly (40%) because they were 'already old'.

Younger British respondents aged 20-49 were especially worried about incontinence (45%) and heart disease.As for monetary matters, both Britons and Germans are worried about the impact of their finances on their quality of life.

Germans were more concerned about the lack of mobility during their retirement.

25% of Britons answered that they had not saved enough money for their retirement whereas only 4,1% of Germans thought they had not provided for their retirement.

The 65+ were generally less worried about their financial situation and more worried about their health and independence.If retirement is seen as a time when one can travel and start new hobbies, many respondents are worried that they had not saved enough money to finance these new activities.(PR Newswire, 03/22/2006 : "Golden years or golden fears") Retour Haut de page Envoyer cet article Votre nom* : Votre adresse e-mail* : Adresse e-mail du destinataire* : Votre message : * = champs obligatoires A vos agendas Le Salon des Seniors, organisé par Notre Temps, aura lieu du jeudi 30 mars au samedi 1er avril 2006 à Paris (Parc des exposit...