Brain Imaging Study Seeks Volunteers!

Drs Kenneth Rockwood and Xioawei Song are currently seeking volunteers for a brain imaging study for perfusion in Alzheimer’s disease. The study is seeking to recruit both cognitively normal volunteers, as well as those who have been diagnosed with mild Alzheimer’s. The study uses a non-invasive brain imaging method called Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).  Brain images of the participants will be obtained while they perform memory tasks and at rest. MRI-brain

The study appointment will take approximately two and a half hours. Participants will receive a contribution toward expenses they may incur due to participation in this study and can receive an image of their brain from the MRI!

Participants are encouraged to have a family member accompany them.  Volunteers must:

1)   be older adults (ages 60 – 90)

2)   be fluent in English

3)   have normal vision OR if you are uncertain about your vision without glasses, there is a sample diagram you can try.

4)   meet all MRI safety criteria (no metal in your body except for fillings)

5)   be either cognitively healthy OR have mild Alzheimer’s Disease with no other cognitive impairments

6)   be a healthy adult meeting the criteria outlined in (1 – 4 above)

Who to Contact: Janet Marshall, Administrator (473 1850), or  Dr. Xiaowei Song, Investigator (473 1876)          

Where:

National Research Council – Institute for Biodiagnostics (Atlantic)

Neuroimaging Research Laboratory

Suite 3900, QEII Health Sciences Centre – Halifax Infirmary

January, 2009 | Version #2 | CDHA-RS/2009-287 | OREB2009-02

Stress raises the risk of cognitive decline in older adults with diabetes.

New research from the University of Edinburgh has shown that stress raises the risk of memory loss and cognitive decline among older people with diabetes. 

The researchers studied more than 900 men and women aged between 60 and 75 with type-2 diabetes and evaluated their mental abilities with a range of tests, including memory function and speed of information processing. This was compared with general intelligence levels to gauge brain function over time.

Their findings showed that brain function slowed in participants who had higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

Dr Rebecca Reynolds, of Edinburgh University’s  Centre for Cardiovascular Science, said: “We know that type 2 diabetes is linked to problems with memory, but the reason behind this is unclear.”

This work is part of the Edinburgh Type 2 Diabetes Study. You can read more about these results here.

What is Frontotemporal Dementia? Free public lecture.

The Geriatric Medicine Research Unit (GMRU) is pleased to host a public lecture on frontotemporal dementia and how doctors can best work with patients and caregivers. The lecture will be given by Dr. Tiffany Chow from the Rotman Institute.

Dr. Tiffany Chow

Dr. Tiffany Chow

Date: March 9th

Time:7:00pm

Location: Royal Bank Theatre, Halifax Infirmary, 1796 Summer St.

Presenter:Tiffany Chow, MD
Clinician Scientist, Rotman Research Institute & Ross Memory Clinic,
Assistant Professor, Depts. of Medicine (Neurology Division) and Psychiatry (Geriatric Psychiatry Division), University of Toronto
Fellow, American Neuropsychiatric Association

This lecture is sponsored by the Canadian Dementia Knowledge Translation Network.

Staying Healthy in Mid-Life and Beyond: blood disorders

The HEALTH Committee (Helping Elderly Adults Live Their Healthiest) and The Centre for Health Care of the Elderly, QEII Health Sciences Centre are pleased to present the first in a series of free 2010 Seniors’ Health Information seriesblood-cells-Large

“Staying Healthy in Mid-Life and Beyond”

Topic:  Blood Disorders

Speaker:   Dr. Ross Langley

Monday, February 22, 2010

1:30 – 3 p.m.

Royal Bank Theatre, QEII Health Sciences Centre

Halifax Infirmary 1796 Summer Street, Halifax.

These presentations will be broadcast across Nova Scotia via the TeleHealth Network at various community locations. Light refreshments provided.   For brochures or inquiries 473-8603

Programs for Positive Ageing Guide 2010 now available

The Nova Scotia Department of Seniors has made the 2010 Programs for Positive Ageing Guide available for download a their website.

prorams for seniors

The guide is a comprehensive publication of everything from useful phone numbers to seniors-serving organizations and events  in Nova Scotia. You can get your copy here.

Social Media – what is it good for?

Confused by Twitter, Facebook, Digg, YouTube? Curious but don’t know where to start? Wondering how any of these could be important to your work or your group/association?GANSlunch and learn FEb 12 copy

Come the the GANS Brown Bag Lunch & Learn on February 12th and Joel Kelly, a digital strategist with Halifax firm Colour will demystify social media and how you how you can use it to share information, spread knowledge and even manage events.

This event is open to the public, so come along and bring a friend! For those outside HRM, this will be uploaded as a video to this site in the near future.

Topic: Demystifying Social Media – how can it benefit you and your group?

Presenter: Joel Kelly, Digital Strategist

Date: February 12, 2010

Time: 12-1pm

Place: Royal Bank Theatre, 1st floor, Halifax Infirmary Building.

Social factors impact excessive drinking in older adults.

New research, due to be published in the April edition of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, reports that older adults who “have more money, engage in more social activities, and whose friends approve more of drinking are more likely to engage in excessive or high-risk drinking.”drinks

Rudolf H. Moos, senior research career scientist for the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Palo Alto, California says “Our findings show that, one, certain social factors may enhance the chances of an individual engaging in high-risk drinking and, two, once high-risk drinking has developed, social choices may be made to facilitate continuing this behavior.”

One of these choices, Moos reports, includes surrounding oneself with friends who also drink:  “Older adults who engage in high-risk alcohol consumption tend to select friends who are more likely to drink and to approve of drinking. They may also experience a decline in the quality of relationships with extended family members, that is, high-risk drinking may impair some family relationships. ”

Moos also notes a gender difference: “Compared to older women, older men may be more vulnerable or susceptible to some social influences on drinking. Specifically, having more money, and friends who approve more of drinking, seem to be more closely related to high-risk drinking among older men than among older women.”

Read the full article here.

Irrelevant information? Older brains love it.

New research published this week in Psychological Science has shown that while older brains have more difficulty filtering out extraneous information than younger brains, they appear to make great use of this information.brain

Karen Campbell, a PhD student in psychology at the University of Toronto, working with the Rotman Institute, says “We found that older brains are not only less likely to suppress irrelevant information than younger brains, but they can link the relevant and irrelevant pieces of information together and implicitly transfer this knowledge to subsequent memory tasks.

Dr. Lynn Hasher, whose work at the Rotman Institute focuses on inhibitory control over the contents of working memory, explains the advantage of this process: 

“This could be a silver lining to aging and distraction. Older adults with reduced attentional regulation seem to display greater knowledge of seemingly extraneous co-occurrences in the environment than younger adults. As this type of knowledge is thought to play a critical role in real world decision- making, older adults may be the wiser decision-makers compared to younger adults because they have picked up so much more information.

Read the full article here.

Vitamin D for nursing home patients can reduce falls.

A new systematic review from the Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney in Ryde, Australia, has shown that giving people living in nursing facilities vitamin D can reduce the rate of falls. The Cochrane review, led by Dr. Ian Cameron examined 41 previous trials involving 25,422 older people, who were mostly women. walkingstick

“Five trials tested the effects of giving vitamin D to patients in nursing facilities, where it was found to be an effective measure for preventing falls. The researchers found that multifactorial interventions, which often incorporated exercise, medication, or environmental factors including appropriate equipment, reduced the risk of falls in hospitals. In nursing homes, the effects of multifactorial interventions were not significant overall. However, the researchers concluded that multifactorial interventions provided by multidisciplinary teams in these facilities may reduce the rate and risk of falls.”

Dr. Cameron points out the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach:”In our review, we saw limited evidence that these combined interventions work, but we could more confidently recommend them if they were delivered by a multidisciplinary team. Currently, there’s no one component of any of these programmes that stands out as more important than any other and we’re also missing data on whether increased supervision or new technologies such as alarm systems are of any benefit.”

Read the full article here.

In Halifax, there is the Geriatric Day Hospital and Falls Clinic. Click here for their information.

Do you know of any other falls prevention programs in Nova Scotia? Email us at info@cakens.com and we will include them in our links.

Lunch&Learn with GANS – Emergency preparedness and older adults

On Friday January 22, 2010, GANS will host their first Lunch and Learn session of 2010. GANS Lunch and Learn January 22 2010  small copy

Topic:Emergency Preparedness: do older adults help or need help in emergencies?
Speaker: John Webb, the Provincial Director of Emergency Social Services.
Time:12:00-1:00pm
Date: Friday January 22, 2010
Place: Royal Bank Theatre, 1st floor, Halifax Infirmary, Summer St, Halifax.

A light lunch will be provided courtesy of the Department of Seniors.

For those of you who cannot attend this session, we will be capturing it on video and hosting it here at CAKEns.com. When it has been uploaded to the site, we will email our members to let you know.
For those who do plan to attend,  feel free to bring a friend!

We are planning a continuing series of Lunch and Learns through May of  this year, and will be posting the times, dates and topics for this in the very near future.