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Background and Aim: Alzheimer’s is a chronic disease that causes cognitive disabilities, thinking, personality changes and disruptions in daily activities. Due to these disorders, patients need long-term care. Most care for Alzheimer’s patients is done at home by family members, which makes home caregivers mentally, physically, emotionally, socially and financially vulnerable. Health personnel have a key role to play in providing information and guidance and helping the family control these conditions. The purpose of this study was to examines the level of knowledge and attitude of health workers and determines the related factors. Materials and Methods: This research is a cross-sectional study to evaluate the level of knowledge and attitude of health workers about Alzheimer’s disease and its related factors. All 260 health workers of Gorgan and Kordkuy districts were studied by census method to assess their knowledge and attitude about Alzheimer’s disease and its related factors. ANOVA and T-tests were used to determine the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable. Variables whose significant level of correlation with response variable was less than 0.2 in bivariate analysis were entered into the regression model and finally multiple linear regression was used to determine the factors related to level of knowledge and attitude. Results: The mean level of knowledge was 46.73% (95% CI, 45.46 to 48.16) and the mean level of attitude was 55.61% (95% CI, 54.63 to 56.74). The results show that those with a history of previous education, a history of caring for Alzheimer’s patients, a higher level of work experience in the health care system, and having a female gender and be married have higher levels of knowledge and those with a history of previous education and Sistani descent had a higher attitude. Conclusion: In general, the mean level of knowledge was 46.73(0-100) and the mean level of attitude was 55.61(0-100). Factors such as: gender, work history in the health system, history of participating in educational workshops, history of caring for sick patients, and marital status were related to the level of knowledge and factors such as ethnicity and history of participating in the training workshop were related to the level of attitude of the health care providers.

Introductin: Alzheimer's is a destructive brain disease that causes progressive cognitive disorders for which there is no cure. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of aerobic exercise along with the consumption of saffron extract on spatial memory and the amount of tau protein accumulation in the hippocampal tissue of Alzheimer's induced male rats. Method: In this experimental study, 32 adult male rats were randomly divided into 4 Alzheimer's groups including control, aerobic exercise, aerobic exercise + extract and extract. Aerobic exercises including 3 training sessions per week were performed for 8 weeks. Y maze test was used to check spatial memory and ELISA method was used to measure tau protein. One-way analysis of variance was used to analyze the data. Findings: The results showed that after 8 weeks of aerobic training with saffron supplement, there was a significant increase in spatial memory performance in the intervention groups compared to the control group (P < 0.5). Also, regarding the amount of tau protein accumulation in the aerobic exercise group, aerobic exercise and extract showed a significant decrease compared to the control group (P < 0.5). Conclusion: It seems that aerobic exercise and consumption of saffron extract improves spatial memory performance and reduces the accumulation of tau protein in the hippocampal tissue of Alzheimer's male rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objective: In this study, the thickness of the retinal nerve fibers layer(RNFL) was compared among patients with mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's dementia, and healthy individuals (controls) using Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) device. Materials and Methods: This case-control study was conducted on 30 patients diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment and 31 healthy subjects undergoing neurological examination. The examinations included minimal mental state examination a comprehensive assessment of ophthalmology and performance of OCT using a Spectralis device. Both eyes were selected for analysis, and the differences in the thickness of retinal nerve fibers layer between patients with mild cognitive impairment and healthy subjects were investigated. Results: In this study, the mean age scores of the patients and healthy individuals were 66.00±8.56 and 60.25±7.50 years, respectively. According to the results of the ordinal logistic regression model, after controlling the effects of other variables, the severity of cognitive impairment increased by 1.26 times in the right eye and by 1.30 times in the left eye (P

Objective (s): Caring for elderly with Alzheimer can lead to the development or exacerbation of many physical and psychological problems for caregivers. The purpose of this study was to assess the anxiety and depression in caregivers of elderly with Alzheimer. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of 315 caregivers of elderly people with Alzheimer in Tehran, Iran. Data were collected by demographic questionnaire, the Beck Anxiety Inventory and the Beck Depression Inventory. Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. Results: The mean and standard deviation of caregivers’ anxiety was 12.61± 10.48 which was significantly higher in women than men (p = 0.004). The mean and standard deviation of caregivers’ depression was 13.23 ± 9.52 which was significantly higher in women than men (p = 0.001). The results of t-test and one-way analysis of variance showed that there was a significant difference between total anxiety score by gender, caregiver-to-elderly ratio, health status and caregivers’ income status (p = 0.001). There was also a significant difference between the overall score of depression and marital status, gender, income and caregivers health status (p = 0.001). Conclusion: The study showed that Alzheimerchr('39')s caregivers experience mild to moderate levels of anxiety and depression. The findings suggest strategic planning to increase social support among Alzheimerchr('39')s caregivers is essential.

Introduction: Alzheimer's disease is one of the most common progressive and progressive diseases of brain cells, which is associated with psychological damage such as insomnia and Agitation. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Ecotherapy on insomnia and Agitation in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Method: The research method was semi-experimental with pre-test-post-test design with control group. From the statistical population of patients with Alzheimer's disease in mild to moderate levels referred to clinics and Alzheimer's Association of Tehran province, 20 people were selected and randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. The research questionnaires included Morin's insomnia (1993) and Cohen-Mansfield's Agitation (1986). Ecotherapy was administered to the experimental group for ten sessions. The research data were analyzed using covariance. Results: The results of covariance analysis showed that post-test scores of insomnia and Agitation of patients with Alzheimer's in the experimental group were significantly lower than the control group (P≤0 / 005). Conclusion: The findings showed that EcoTherapy can be used as an effective non-pharmacological intervention to improve insomnia and restlessness in Alzheimer's patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Serum level of digitalis-like factors or sodium pump inhibitors increase under numerous pathogenic circumstances. Diminution of sodium pump activity was reported to be secondary to beta-amyloid oligomers, though the mechanism involved remains inconclusive. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the alteration in serum levels of endogenous ouabain and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) sodium in an animal model of Alzheimer’s disease, induced by intracerebroventricular injection of streptozotocin (ICV-STZ). METHODS: In this empirical study, 48 male rats were randomly divided into six groups of saline and STZ. Alzheimer’s model was induced by ICV injection of STZ (3 mg/kg) on the first and third days. CSF samples were drawn from cisterna magna, and blood samples were collected from caudal vein. Thereafter, serum levels of ouabain and CSF sodium were evaluated 2, 7, and 14 days after STZ/saline injection in the test groups. Cresyl violet and Congo red stains were applied to study neuronal morphology and presence of amyloid plaques. FINDINGS: The mean serum levels of ouabain in the STZ groups were 0.2±0.05 ng/mL vs. 0.54±0.04 ng/mL on the second day, 0.3±0.02 ng/mL vs. 0.59±0.06 ng/mL on the seventh day, and 0.2±0.07 ng/mL vs. 0.65±0.08 ng/mL on the fourteenth day. These results indicated a significant increase of endogenous ouabain in the experimental groups compared to the saline groups (p