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Biomedical subjects

K Hokoishi

Publications and source records attributed to K Hokoishi.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Dementia associated mental and behavioural disturbances in elderly people in the community: findings from the first Nakayama study.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of mental and behavioural disturbances associated with dementia in elderly people living in the Japanese community of Nakayama. METHODS: A door to door three phase population survey was carried out on all persons aged 65 years and older living at home. The study included a psychiatric interview, neurological and neuropsychological examination, and cranial computed tomography. Participants with dementia were rated on the neuropsychiatric inventory. RESULTS: Of 1438 inhabitants, 1162 (81.0%) completed the protocol. The prevalence of dementia was 4.8%. Of the 60 participants with dementia (Alzheimer's disease 35%, vascular dementia 47%, and dementia from other causes 17%), 53 (88.3%) had shown one or more mental and behavioural disturbances. Apathy/indifference (56.7%), followed by agitation/aggression (35%), aberrant motor behaviour (31.7%), and irritability (31.7%) were the common symptoms. More productive (positive) symptoms such as delusions and aberrant motor behaviour were found in the Alzheimer group than in the vascular dementia group. CONCLUSIONS: A wide range of dementia associated mental and behavioural disturbances developed in the majority of community dwelling individuals with dementia. The findings suggest that a screening programme focusing on identifying these symptoms should be included in the physician's diagnostic tools for dementia.

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Increased prevalence of vascular dementia in Japan: a community-based epidemiological study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: It has been suggested that there is a major difference in the ratio of AD to vascular dementia (VaD) between Japan and Western countries. To determine the type-specific prevalence of dementia in community-dwelling elderly from the Japanese community of Nakayama, all patients with dementing illness underwent a CT scan. METHODS: A door-to-door three-phase population survey was carried out on all persons aged 65 years and older residing at home on the prevalence day (January 1, 1997). The ascertainment of cases was made between January 1997 and March 1998. The study included a psychiatric interview; physical, neurologic, and neuropsychologic examinations; comprehensive laboratory tests; and cranial CT. A public health nurse also interviewed a person close to each subject. Dementia was defined according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, third edition-revised, criteria, AD according to the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke-Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association, and VaD according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, combined with information from the patient's neurologic history and CT scanning. RESULTS: Of 1438 inhabitants, 1162 (81.0%) completed the protocol. The prevalence of dementia was 4.8%. Of the 60 subjects with dementia, 35% had AD, 47% had VaD, and 17% had dementia resulting from other causes. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of dementia was similar to previous reports, but, contrary to results of virtually all studies conducted in developed countries and those recently conducted in Japan, almost half of the cases in the present study appeared to have VaD with neuroradiologic confirmation.

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Alteration of rCBF in Alzheimer's disease patients with delusions of theft.

We investigated the neural substrate of the delusion of theft in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Nine AD patients with only one type of delusion (delusions of theft) and nine age, cognitive function-matched AD patients without any type of delusions were selected from 334 consecutive outpatients of Ehime University Hospital. All subjects underwent (99m)Tc-HMPAO SPECT scanning, and SPECT images were analyzed by Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM). AD patients with delusions of theft showed significant hypoperfusion in the right medial posterior parietal region compared to patients without delusions. Our data suggest that attention impairment or lack of awareness of illness caused by right parietal dysfunction might play a role in producing the delusion of theft.

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Interrater reliability of the Physical Self-Maintenance Scale and the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale in a variety of health professional representatives.

This study was performed to assess interrater reliability of the Japanese version of the Physical Self-Maintenance Scale (PSMS) and the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale (IADL), which are simple and efficient assessment instruments of functional abilities in elderly patients. The subjects were 25 consecutive patients with Alzheimer's disease who were outpatients of the Department of Neuropsychiatry in Ehime University School of Medicine and their principal caregivers. One neuropsychiatrist administered the PSMS and IADL, and all sessions were videotaped. Then one clinical psychologist, one public health nurse and one neurologist, and one occupational therapist from another institution, viewed the videotape and performed reassessments. All interrater reliabilities between the neuropsychiatrist and the neurologist, the public health nurse, the clinical psychologist and the occupational therapist were extremely good. Interrater reliability between the public health nurse and the clinical psychologist, between the clinical psychologist and the neurologist and between the public health nurse and the neurologist was also extremely good. The PSMS and IADL showed good interrater reliability between personnel from different disciplines. They are likely to be useful tests for everyday medical consultations and for field research.

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[A case of Marchiafava-Bignami disease caused by anorexia nervosa].

A 29-year-old female without alcoholism whose height and weight were 152 cm and 28 kg had complained of severe anorexia since about 10 years ago. The splenium of the corpus callosum showed symmetrically low-intensity area in T1 WI and high-intensity area in T2 WI on her brain MRI. These findings could be reversible by the recovery of her nutritional condition. The findings of neurological and neuropsychological examinations were normal. To our knowledge, this is the first case report of Marchiafava-Bignami disease caused by Anorexia Nervosa.

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[A case of corticobasal degeneration of which movemental disturbances were improved by administration of amantadine].

Corticobasal degeneration(CBD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterised clinically by apraxia, cortical sensory loss, alien limb, dementia, oculomotor abnormalities, dysarthria, postural instability, akinesia, rigidity, and pyramidal signs. Brain imaging may demonstrate greater abnormalities contralateral to the more affected side. We reported a case of corticobasal degeneration of which praxic impairments were improved by administration of amantadine. The patient was a 63-year-old right-handed woman. She showed marked dysfunction including rigidity, limb kinetic apraxia, cortical sensory loss, ideomotor apraxia, and dressing apraxia. A brain MRI scan revealed bilateral cortical atrophy centered in the postcentral gyrus, more pronounced in the left hemisphere than the right. A SPECT scan showed a decrease in blood flow in the temporo-parieto-occipital regions, more pronounced in the left hemisphere than the right. An EEG showed a diffuse slowness. L-dopa had no effect on the symptoms of rigidity, limb kinetic apraxia, cortical sensory loss, ideomotor apraxia, and dressing apraxia. By administration of amantadine, rigidity and cortical sensory loss did not improve, but some praxic impairments, such as dressing apraxia and ideomotor apraxia, and the EEG improved. Upon withdrawal of amantadine, the improved symptoms deteriorated. Amitriptyline did not improve the deteriorated symptoms. After amantadine was re-administered, the same praxic impairments and the EEG improved again. This suggested that administration of amantadine had some effect on certain praxic impairments and the EEG.

Amantadine↗

Interrater reliability of the short-memory questionnaire in a variety of health professional representatives.

A study was performed to assess interrater reliability of the Japanese version of the Short-Memory Questionnaire (SMQ), which is an easily-administered, informant-based scale of cognitive function. The subjects were 18 consecutive patients with Alzheimer's disease who were outpatients of Department of Neuropsychiatry in Ehime University School of Medicine and their principal caregivers. One neuropsychiatrist (NP) administered the SMQ, and all sessions were videotaped. Then one nurse (Ns), one clinical psychologist (CP), one occupational therapist (OT), and one neurologist (NL) from another institution viewed the videotape and performed reassessments independently. Interrater reliability between the NP and Ns, CP, OT, or NL were all extremely good. Interrater reliability between the Ns and CP, between the Ns and OT, between the Ns and NL, between the CP and OT, between the CP and NL, and between the OT and NL were also extremely good. The SMQ is a convenient, quantitative scale, and in this study it showed good interrater reliability between personnel from different fields. Therefore, it is a very useful test for everyday medical consultations and for clinical research.

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Validity of the Short-Memory Questionnaire in vascular dementia.

PURPOSE: To determine whether the Short-Memory Questionnaire (SMQ) being administered by caregivers to patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) is also valid when given to patients with vascular dementia (VaD). METHODS: Subjects were 58 patients with VaD, 26 patients with cerebrovascular disorders free of cognitive deficit (CVD) and 62 healthy controls. All subjects received the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and their primary caregivers (or family members with same household) received the SMQ. RESULTS: In the VaD patients, the SMQ score was highly correlated with the MMSE score. When 39/40 was defined as a cutoff point based on the results of previous study, the SMQ properly classified 55 of the 58 VaD patients and 61 of the 62 controls, but only about half of the 26 CVD patients, as cases. CONCLUSION: The SMQ, a simple quantitative rating test for memory disturbance, is useful for the assessment and screening of VaD patients as well as AD patients, although careful attention should be paid to the assessment of CVD patients.

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[Japanese version of the Short-Memory Questionnaire and Mini-Mental State Examination in relation to demographic variables: community survey of elderly healthy residents in Nakayama, Japan].

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The Short-Memory Questionnaire (SMQ) developed by Koss et al. is a standardized, validated reliable informant-based scale to assess everyday memory problems. In the previous study, we prepared its Japanese version and validated the reliability in assessing patients with Alzheimer Disease. In the present study, we examined the relations between the performance evaluated by the Japanese version of the SMQ combined with the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and demographic variables (age, sex, and education). SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Subjects were a total of 613 elderly healthy individuals living in the rural residency of Nakayama, Japan. They consisted of 287 males and 326 females and ranged from 65 to 94 years in age and from 0 to 16 years in education. The MMSE was conducted by neuropsychiatrists to assess the severity of cognitive impairment, and the SMQ was conducted by public health nurses, who asked a family member of each subject. The effects of age, sex and education on the MMSE and SMQ scores were analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) using post-hoc Scheffé test. RESULTS: The mean MMSE and SMQ scores (+/- SD) were 27.6 (+/- 2.5) and 44.5 (+/- 2.1), respectively. The post-hoc Scheffé test revealed significantly higher MMSE scores for individuals with 8 years or more in education than for those with less than 8 education years. Between males, no significant differences were observed in MMSE score; however, among females, significantly higher scores were noted in those aged 69 or younger than in those aged 70-74 or those aged 80 or older. Of individuals aged 80 or older, males showed significantly higher scores than females, whereas no significant differences were observed between sex in other age groups. As to the SMQ, higher scores were shown by persons with longer education years and by females than males. CONCLUSION: Low MMSE scores were related to low education level and older females. Low SMQ scores were not related to aging, but linked to low education level and males. Both the MMSE and SMQ, which can be easily administered, are affected by education years and sex. In addition, MMSE score depends on age. Therefore, careful consideration should be paid to age, education level and sex for future execution of the MMSE and SMQ.

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[Two cases of fronto-temporal dementia without remarkable lobar atrophy].

Front-temporal dementia (FTD), advocated by Lund and Manchester groups, includes Pick type corresponding to the conventional frontal Pick's disease, motor-neuron type associated with neural symptoms, and frontal lobe degeneration type. In Japan, however, there have been few case reports of the frontal lobe degeneration type. Here we examined clinical characteristics and imaging findings of 2 cases of FTD frontal lobe degeneration type. Neurological examinations were normal. CT and MRI scans revealed no obvious frontal lobar atrophy, while HMPAO-SPECT scans demonstrated remarkable hypoperfusion in anterior hemisphere. Neuropsychological examination revealed frontal symptoms, including personality change, stereotypes, and disinhibition. These symptoms can not be distinguished from the cases of FTD Pick type, because those cases of FTD Pick type have obvious lobar atrophy.

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[Japanese version of the Short-Memory Questionnaire: memory evaluation in Alzheimer's disease].

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Memory deficit is a common sign of Alzheimer's disease (AD), which appeared generally in the early stage of the disease. Therefore, evaluation of memory is important for management of patients and for clinical research of AD. The Short-Memory Questionnaire (SMQ), an easily administered, informant-based scale, which was developed by Koss et al. (1993), is a standardized, validated, and reliable tool to assess everyday memory problems. In the present study, we prepared a Japanese version of the SMQ and examined its reliability and validity in assessing AD patients. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: The subjects consisted of 42 patients with NINCDS-ADRDA probable AD whose diagnosis was made on the basis of the results of comprehensive examinations including cranial CT/MRI and SPECT and age- and education-matched 53 healthy controls. Patients had no history of stroke, head injury, or any other prior neurological events. Patients and controls were between the ages of 51 and 90 years, and they had from 6 to 16 years education. The Japanese version of the SMQ was given to a family member by either neuropsychiatrist, public nurse or case worker. To evaluate test-retest reliability of the test, interview was repeated in 16 randomly selected patients by two different examiners (neuropsychiatrist and another) in two weeks interval. The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) was used to assess the severity of cognitive impairment. RESULT: The test-retest reliability was acceptably high with intraclass correlation coefficients. There was a high correlation between scores of SMQ and MMSE. The SMQ had excellent specificity and sensitivity in discriminating patients from controls. Caregiver appraisals of memory deficits significantly correlated with generalized cognitive dysfunction. CONCLUSIONS: Similarly to the original version, the present Japanese version of the SMQ is a reliable and valid tool in assessing memory function in AD, which can be effectively used in clinical settings and epidemiologic studies to screen out persons with memory problems.

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The validity of the MMSE and SMQ as screening tests for dementia in the elderly general population-- a study of one rural community in Japan.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the validity of the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Short-Memory Questionnaire (SMQ) as screening tests to detect dementia in the elderly general population. SUBJECTS: Six hundred and sixty-two subjects and their informants from the elderly general population sample who had completed these tests. SETTING: One rural community survey in Japan. METHOD: We used receiver-operating characteristic analysis to compare the performance of the MMSE and the SMQ with the clinical diagnosis of dementia according to DSM-III-R. RESULTS: The areas under the receiver-operating characteristic curve of the MMSE and the SMQ were 0.980 (SE = 0.006) and 0.982 (SE = 0.008), respectively. This differed from chance to a highly significant degree for both the MMSE and the SMQ, but the difference between the two scales was not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: As screening tests to detect dementia in the elderly general population, the SMQ which is assessed by informants demonstrates a statistically significant discriminating ability as well as the MMSE.

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Utility of (99m)Tc-HM-PAO SPECT hippocampal image to diagnose early stages of Alzheimer's disease using semiquantitative analysis.

OBJECTIVE: Examination of the utility of (99m)Tc-hexamethylpropylene amine oxide ((99m)Tc-HM-PAO) SPECT hippocampal image to diagnose early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) using semiquantitative analysis. SUBJECTS: 10 early-stage AD patients and 8 normal sex-matched elderly controls. SETTING: Outpatient division of the Ehime University Hospital. METHOD: We performed (99m)Tc-HM-PAO SPECT perfusion imaging in each subject. A semiquantitative method of assessing regional variation was used. The regions of interest for temporal regions were set at images parallel to the long axis of the hippocampal formation which were reconstructed at 30 degrees negative to the orbitomeatal line and those for other regions were set on ordinary transaxial images. RESULTS: The regional cerebral blood flow ratio of the bilateral medial temporal lobe at the hippocampal image was significantly lower in the AD subjects than in the normally aged controls without any other differences in ordinary transaxial images. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that (99m)Tc-HM-PAO SPECT hippocampal images might be a helpful tool for the diagnosis of very-early-stage AD.

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Relationship between blood flow kinetics and severity of Alzheimer's disease: assessment of severity using a questionnaire-type examination, Alzheimer's disease assessment scale, cognitive sub-scale (ADAS(cog)).

We assessed hemokinetics associated with changes in Alzheimer's disease (AD) severity in 90 AD patients by researching the relationship between AD Assessment Scale, cognitive sub-scale (ADAS(cog)) scores and regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF). In the present study, we employed the questionnaire-type ADAS(cog) examination to accurately assess the severity of AD. Between five groups classified on the basis of ADAS(cog) score, significant differences were observed in parietal, lateral temporal and superior frontal rCBF. In addition, in parietal and lateral temporal regions, significant correlations were also observed between ADAS(cog) score and rCBF. In superior frontal rCBF, significant differences were noted only between group 5 (> or =40 ADAS(cog) points) and each of the other groups; there was no significant correlation between rCBF and ADAS(cog) score. Thus, we propose the following mechanism for blood flow kinetics associated with changed severity: In an early stage of AD, blood flow in the medial temporal cortex is impaired, and gradually involves the temporoparietal regions. While the medial temporal impairment of blood flow reaches a plateau, temporoparietal blood flow continues to be impaired well into a severe stage, at which point blood flow impairment in the frontal region is initiated.

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