Palliative Care Resource Utilization in Patients With Prion Disease.

Background And Objectives: Timely access to palliative care, a specialty focusing on improving quality of life for patients with serious medical conditions, is central to patients with prion disease. To optimize evidence-informed utilization of palliative care resources, we systematically evaluated the frequency of clinical features amenable to supportive care, the frequency and patterns of referral to specialty palliative care, and the methods of palliative care delivery in patients with prion disease across a multicenter health care system.

Methods: A retrospective review was conducted on electronic medical records of patients diagnosed with definite (neuropathologically or genetically confirmed) or probable prion disease (meeting established clinical criteria for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) in inpatient and outpatient settings from January 2012 to August 2023 across the Mayo Clinic enterprise.

Decoding the Clinical Features that Associate with Progression, Causes, and Outcomes in Patients with Suspected Rapidly Progressive Dementia.

Objective: To determine the clinical features that identify patients with suspected rapidly progressive dementia (RPD) who will develop RPD.

Methods: Patients with suspected RPD were enrolled and followed at Mayo Clinic (Jacksonville, FL; January 2020 to October 2023) and Washington University (Saint Louis, MO; June 2016 to December 2019). Two dementia specialists independently reviewed clinical data and assigned diagnoses.

Diagnostic performance of plasma p-tau217 and Aβ42/40 biomarkers in the outpatient memory clinic.

Introduction: Plasma biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease (AD) represent accessible alternatives to positron emission tomography (PET) and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)-based biomarkers in well-characterized cohorts. It remains to be determined whether performance is maintained in outpatient clinics comprised of patients with multiple causes of cognitive impairment.

Methods: Plasma phosphorylated tau217 (p-tau217) and amyloid beta (Aβ) 42/40 were measured in 509 patients evaluated in a tertiary-care memory clinic.

Identification and diagnosis of ultra-rapid progressive dementia: evidence from a prospective cohort study and systematic literature review.

Background And Objectives: The term rapid progressive dementia (RPD) may be applied to patients who develop dementia within 1 year or complete incapacitation within 2 years of the first symptom of impairment. However, in select cases, cognitive impairment may emerge abruptly, with symptoms evolving across hours or days. We sought to determine the frequency, etiologies, and factors that associated with ultra-RPD.

FDG-PET patterns associate with survival in patients with prion disease.

Objective: Prion disease classically presents with rapidly progressive dementia, leading to death within months of diagnosis. Advances in diagnostic testing have improved recognition of patients with atypical presentations and protracted disease courses, raising key questions surrounding the relationship between patterns of neurodegeneration and survival. We assessed the contribution of fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG-PET) imaging for this purpose.