0000000000419321
AUTHOR
Luca Cuffaro
showing 5 related works from this author
Behavioral and psychological effects of coronavirus disease-19 quarantine in patients with dementia
2020
Background: In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic due to the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and several governments planned a national quarantine in order to control the virus spread. Acute psychological effects of quarantine in frail elderly subjects with special needs, such as patients with dementia, have been poorly investigated. The aim of this study was to assess modifications of neuropsychiatric symptoms during quarantine in patients with dementia and their caregivers. Methods: This is a sub-study of a multicenter nation-wide survey. A structured telephone interview was delivered to family caregivers of patients with diagnosis of Alzheimer disease (AD),…
Modulating Long Term Memory at Late-Encoding Phase: An rTMS Study
2021
Despite a huge effort of the scientific community, the functioning of Long-Term Memory (LTM) processes is still debated and far from being elucidated. Functional and neurophysiological data point to an involvement of Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (DLPFC) in both encoding and retrieval phases. However, the recently proposed Explicit/Implicit Memory Encoding and Retrieval (EIMER) model proposes that LTM at the encoding phase consists of anatomically and chronologically different sub-phases. On this basis, we aimed to investigate the role of right DLPFC during a late-encoding phase by means of low-frequency rTMS. Thirty right-handed healthy subjects were divided into three experimental groups…
Diagnostic accuracy of cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers measured by chemiluminescent enzyme immunoassay for Alzheimer disease diagnosis.
2020
In the last decades, an important role of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers for Alzheimer disease (AD) diagnosis has emerged. The evaluation of the triad consisting of 42 aminoacid-long amyloid-beta peptide (Aβ42), total Tau (tTau) and Tau phosphorylated at threonine 181 (pTau) have been recently integrated into the research diagnostic criteria of AD. For a long time, the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) has represented the most commonly used method for the measurement of CSF biomarkers levels. This study aimed to assess the diagnostic accuracy of CSF biomarkers, namely Aβ42, tTau and pTau and their ratio, measured by fully automated CLEIA assay (Lumipulse). We included 96 patie…
A rapidly progressive motor neuron disease associated to a natural killer cells leukaemia
2019
une system play a complex role, either protective or toxic, in ALS pathogenesis [1–3]. In particular, compelling evidence indicate that increased blood level of natural killer (NK) and NK-T cells may contribute to the disease development and progression [2,3]. Here, we report on a patient with an aggressive Motor Neuron Disease (MND) associated with NK/NK-T cells leukaemia. 1. Case report A 79-year-old man presented with several months-history of a progressive atrophy and weakness of the upper limbs, which quickly spread to the lower limbs. Onset was subtle and apparently occurred in the month of July (the specific date is not shown for privacy), when the patient noticed a mild weakness in …
The Impact of COVID-19 Quarantine on Patients With Dementia and Family Caregivers: A Nation-Wide Survey
2021
IntroductionPrevious studies showed that quarantine for pandemic diseases is associated with several psychological and medical effects. The consequences of quarantine for COVID-19 pandemic in patients with dementia are unknown. We investigated the clinical changes in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, and evaluated caregivers’ distress during COVID-19 quarantine.MethodsThe study involved 87 Italian Dementia Centers. Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB), Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), and Vascular Dementia (VD) were eligible for the study. Family caregivers of patients with dementia were interviewed by phone in April 2020, 45 days after …