• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.29-38
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• 1997

Dementia is defined as a syndrome which is characterized by various impairments in cognitive functions, especially memory function. Most of the diagnostic criteria for dementia include memory impairment as on essential feature. Memory decline can be present as a consequence of the aging process. But it does not cause significant distress or impairment in social and occupational functionings while dementiadoes. Depression may also be associated with memory impairment. However, unlike dementia, depression dose not cause decrease in delayed verbal learning and recognition memory. In dementia, different features of memory impairment may be present depending on the involved area. Memory impairment in cortical dementia is affected by the disturbance of encoding of information and memory consolidation, while memory imparnene in subcortical denentiy is affected by the disturbance of retrieval in subcortical dementia.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.9-13
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• 2002

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the most common and devastating dementing disorders of old age. Most AD patients showed significant alternation of sleep structure as well as cognitive deficit. Typical findings of sleep architecture in AD patients include lower sleep efficiency, higher stage 1 percentage, and greater frequency of arousals. The slowing of EEG activity is also noted. Abnormalities in REM sleep are of particular interest in AD because the cholinergic system is related to both REM sleep and AD. Several parameters representing REM sleep structure such as REM latency, the amount of REM sleep, and REM density are change in patients with AD. Especially, measurements of EEG slowing during tonic REM sleep can be used as an EEG marker for early detection of possible AD. In addition, a structural defect in the suprachiasmatic nucleus is suggested to cause various chronobiological alternations in AD. Most of alternations related to sleep make sleep disturbances common and disruptive symptoms of AD. In this article, the author reviewed the alternation of sleep structure and circadian rhythm in AD patients.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.sup1
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• pp.166-171
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• 2008

PET of the cerebral metabolic rate of glucose is increasingly used to support the clinical diagnosis in the examination of patients with suspected major neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease. $^{18}F-FDG$ PET has been reported to have high diagnostic performance, especially, very high sensitivity in the diagnosis and clinical assessment of therapeutic efficacy. According to clinical research data hitherto, $^{18}F-FDG$ PET is expected to be an effective diagnostic tool in early and differential diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. Since 2004, Medicare covers $^{18}F-FDG$ PET scans for the differential diagnosis of fronto-temporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) under specific requirements; or, its use in a CMS approved practical clinical trial focused on the utility of $^{18}F-FDG$ PET in the diagnosis or treatment of dementing neurodegenerative diseases.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.629-638
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• 2002

The impact of chronic diseases on patients and their families depends on how well the family members cope with it. Therefore, research on strategies for facilitating the coping of the families in a desirable manner is very important. Dementia management strategies refer to specific means families of dementia patients use to cope with dementing illness of their family members. This study was designed to examine type of dementia management strategies utilized by families and to identify factors influencing them. The subjects in this study were 103 conveniently selected demented patients and their primary caregivers who were registered to a public health center located in Chungcheong Province. The subjects were visited by 20 home visiting nurses, and the data were collected using a structured questionnaire. The data were collected form May 2, 2001 to June 2, 2001. The findings of this study were as follows. 1. The most frequently used types of dementia management strategies were active management (M=3.36, S.D=.96), and encouragement (M=2.94, S.D=.99). Criticism was least used type of dementia management strategy (M=2.71, S.D=.99). 2. The factors influencing each management strategy were as follows; 1) The criticism management strategy was most frequently used by the primary caregivers who graduated elementary school (F=3.21, p<.05). 2) The encouragement strategy was most frequently used by the primary caregivers in a case when the patients were in the mild stage of dementia (F=2.76, p<.05), when the patients never had any treatment experiences (F=2.01, p<.05), when the family could afford the provision of treatment for the patients (F=-2.44, p<.050), and when the primary caregiver had a job (t=2.90, p<.01). 3) The active management strategy was most widely used by the primary caregivers who could afford the provision of treatment for the patients (F=-2.31, p<.05) and were in their 70s (F=3.04, p<.05). This type of management strategy was significantly more used by those who discussed the difficulties of caring with their family members (F=3.46, p<.05). 3. The use of criticism management strategies was significantly correlated with the total level of burden of the primary caregivers. But the types of encouragement and active management strategies had negative correlations with the caregivers' burden although they were not significant. Since the findings of this study showed that the criticism management strategy had a significant positive relationship with caregivers' burden, those who are more likely to use the negative management strategy should be identified in future studies. The primary caregivers who are more likely to use negative strategy should be more closely monitored and be focused as the group who should be intervened in future studies.