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F van Harskamp

Publications and source records attributed to F van Harskamp.

42 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
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Blood pressure and risk of dementia: results from the Rotterdam study and the Gothenburg H-70 Study.

The association between blood pressure and dementia is debated. Results from population-based studies on blood pressure and dementia are inconclusive, and most are performed in subjects younger than 80 years of age. We examined the relation between blood pressure and dementia and the possible effect modification of this relation by age in a pooled dataset based on two prospective population-based studies. Subjects came from the Rotterdam study (n = 6,668), a longitudinal population-based study among subjects aged 55 years and over, and from the Gothenburg H-70 Study (n = 317), a study on subjects aged 85 years at baseline. Screening and diagnostic procedures for assessment of dementia were similar at baseline and follow-up and comparable between studies. We estimated relative risks of dementia using Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, adjusted for age, gender and study location. The average follow-up was 2.1 years. During this period, 196 subjects developed dementia. The risk of dementia decreased with increasing blood pressure level (per 10 mm Hg systolic blood pressure: RR = 0.93, 95% CI = 0.88-0.99; per 10 mm Hg diastolic blood pressure: RR = 0.89, 95% CI = 0.79-1.00). This association was confined to subjects who used anthypertensive medication. Persons who were demented at baseline had a stronger blood pressure decline during follow-up than those who were non-demented. This study suggests an inverse association between blood pressure and dementia risk in elderly persons on antihypertensive medication. Possibly, they may need higher blood pressure levels to maintain an adequate cerebral perfusion. Alternatively, lower blood pressure may be secondary to brain lesions in preclinical stages of dementia.

Age Factors↗
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Lisuride treatment of Alzheimer's disease. A preliminary placebo-controlled clinical trial of safety and therapeutic efficacy.

In this article, the authors examine the effect of lisuride on 22 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (NINCDS/ADRDA criteria) in a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel group design. Ten patients received lisuride and 12 patients received placebo. Lisuride was administered in a dose-finding phase of four weeks and an efficacy phase of eight weeks, with a maximum dose of 0.3 mg daily. Outcome measures included global clinical impression, general cognitive function, mood, verbal and visual memory, attention, and psychomotor function. Average decline in Mini-Mental State Examination score after 12 weeks treatment was less often statistically significant in lisuride treated patients than in patients receiving a placebo (p < 0.05). Patients treated with lisuride improved their average total score and short-delay cued recall score on the California Verbal Learning Test, a test of verbal memory, whereas placebo-treated patients showed worse performance compared with baseline. These differences approached statistical significance, with p = 0.06 and p = 0.05, respectively. No other differences between the treatment groups were evident. The authors failed to find a consistent effect of lisuride on symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. However, this study's sample size was relatively small, and larger studies are needed to ascertain the treatment effects of serotonergic antagonists on Alzheimer's disease.

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