A phenomenon that could contribute to the understanding and prediction of disturbances in higher level gait and gait-related
motor activity in the various subtypes of dementia is paraphrased as ‘last in-first out’. ‘Last in-first out’ refers to the principle that neural circuits that mature late in development are the most vulnerable check details to neurodegeneration. The strength of relating symptoms to the ‘last in-first out’ principle is that a future symptom can be predicted and anticipated in a therapeutic way, even if the disease process has not already started.
Therefore, the aim of this review is to provide new strategies for rehabilitation of higher level gait disturbances in dementia based upon the ‘last in-first out’ principle. These new strategies emerge from five neural networks: the superior longitudinal fasciculus, the uncinate fasciculus, the fronto-cerebellar and fronto-striatal connections, and the cingulum. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Dual-task
methodology has been increasingly used to assess cognitive motor interference while walking. However, whether the selleck products observed dual-task-related gait changes are systematically related to methodological variations remains unclear and researchers still lack knowledge of what cognitive task to use in different groups for clinical purposes or for research. We systematically reviewed experimental studies that measured gait performance with and without performing concurrent cognitive task. Our results suggest that cognitive tasks that involve internal interfering factors seem to disturb gait performance more than those involving external interfering factors. Meta-analysis results show that the overall effect of different cognitive tasks was prominent in gait speed. In healthy participants, meta-regression analysis suggests strong associations between age and speed reduction under dual-task conditions and between the level of cognitive state
and speed reduction under dual-task conditions. Standardizing research methodologies, as well as improving their ecological validity, enables better understanding of dual-task-related gait changes in different populations Selleck Tubastatin A and improves, in turn, our understanding of neural mechanisms and gait control in general in content. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“For some cancer survivors chemotherapy treatment is associated with lasting cognitive impairment, long after treatment cessation. Several candidate mechanisms have been suggested, yet clinical research has been unable to clearly tease apart these hypotheses. Rodent research has allowed a systematic study of these underlying mechanisms in the absence of potential patient confounds.