Quality of care varies for older adults with depression

When thinking about the well-being of older adults, most people focus on medical care, but mental health care is a growing, pressing concern for older adults and their families. “At least one in five older adults suffer from a mental disorder and experts in geriatric mental health anticipate an ‘unprecedented explosion’ of older adults with disabling mental disorder,” says Enola K. Proctor, Ph.D., mental health care expert and professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis. “While older adults may receive adequate medical and psychiatric care, they rarely receive the care necessary to deal with the general ‘problems with living,’ or social stresses. These psychosocial problems, such as isolation and family stress, may exacerbate psychiatric problems, depression in particular, and contribute to functional decline.”

Researcher gives hard thoughts on soft inheritance

Richards has observed the inheritance of epigenetic factors in plants.Eric Richards, Ph.D., professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis, writing in the May issue of Nature Reviews Genetics, analyzes recent and past research in epigenetics and the history of evolution and proposes that epigenetics should be considered a form of soft inheritance, citing examples in both the plant and mammalian kingdoms.

Researchers find new learning strategy

In the Thoroughman laboratory, volunteers play games on a computer screeen using a robotic arm so that Thoroughman and his colleagues can study how people learn motor skills.Central to being human is the ability to adapt: We learn from our mistakes. Previous theories of learning have assumed that the size of learning naturally scales with the size of the mistake. But now biomedical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have shown that people can use alternative strategies: Learning does not necessarily scale proportionally with error.

August 2006 Radio Service

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • ADHD kids not receiving treatment (week of Aug. 2) • How tumors cloak themselves (week of Aug. 9) • New info about macular degeneration (week of Aug. 16) • Why steroids weaken bones (week of Aug. 23) • The brain’s ‘cold sheild’ (week of Aug. 30)

Nanotechnology enables low-dose treatment of atherosclerotic plaques

These before (left) and after images show the effects of fumagillin-laden nanoparticles in a rabbit aorta.In laboratory tests, one very low dose of a drug was enough to show an effect on notoriously tenacious artery-clogging plaques. But it wasn’t so much the drug itself as how it was delivered. Fumagillin — a drug that can inhibit the growth of new blood vessels that feed atherosclerotic plaques — was sent directly to the base of plaques by microscopically small spheres called nanoparticles.

Medical steroid’s baffling connection to osteoporosis becomes clearer

Dark areas (marked with arrows) in the first image show a process of bone renewal and strengthening. The second image shows a reduction in this process after a cortisone injection.Scientists are closing in on the solution to a persistent medical puzzle: why do high doses of cortisone, widely prescribed for asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory and autoimmune conditions, weaken bones? Researchers at the School of Medicine have identified osteoclasts, cells that dismantle old bone, as the essential link between osteoporosis and cortisone.

Too hot: Pediatrician warns of heat exhaustion during summer practices

Summer practices can put young athletes at risk for heat exhaustion.Just before the new school season starts, football practice kicks off on fields around the country. Late summer workouts for football and other fall sports carry serious risks for heat-related illness. WUSM pediatrician Robert Kregenow explains how to spot heat exhaustion and how to prevent it.
View More Stories