By Ryan DuBosar
The year's biggest story in medicine may have been the COVID-19 pandemic, but in geriatrics research, the major focus was dementia, according to Eric Widera, MD.
Dr. Widera, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, offers a deep dive into dementia during his Update in Geriatric Medicine at Internal Medicine Meeting 2021: Virtual Experience, available to conference attendees at 9:15 a.m. on Friday. Among other studies, he will review results from SPRINT Memory and Cognition IN Decreased Hypertension (SPRINT MIND) and whether lower blood pressure targets decrease the risk for dementia.
Researchers have also been on the trail of other pharmaceutical solutions to the problem. "Dementia was a very hot topic last year, as far as evidence-based medicine with new drugs, specifically anti-amyloid antibody drugs and amyloid PET [positron emission tomography] scans making the news, so the big question is, do they help?" Dr. Widera said in the video above.
Each study covered in his update was chosen for its potential impact on practice, and Dr. Widera will highlight what doctors should do differently based on these findings, as well as how new drugs will change the standard of practice.
"Four out of the six articles I'm going to be covering have to do with is there going to be a change in the standard of care for dementia? And the big question is, does that standard of care, that change, is that really going to help older adults or not?" he said.
Dr. Widera will also discuss some other new findings in geriatrics, including use of cascades of calcium-channel blockers that occur after edema develops and loop diuretics are prescribed. As for COVID-19, he'll address how the pandemic affected patients living in nursing homes in the past year and going forward. ■