Tag: medecine

Dementia

Dementia is a progressive and sometimes chronic brain condition that causes problems with person’s thinking, behaviour, and memory.

Dementia itself is not a disease, but a syndrome, its symptoms are common to several brain diseases. It worsens over time. But medications might slow that decline and help with symptoms, such as behaviour changes. There are many different types of dementia. The treatments depend on the type of dementia.

Alzheimer’s Disease-Experts think between 60%-80% of people with dementia have this disease. It’s what most people think of when they hear “dementia”. Symptoms such as memory loss and trouble planning and doing familiar tasks.

Symptoms – mild at first but get worse over a number of years,confused about where he/she is or what day or year it is, Have problems speaking or writing, lose things and be unable to backtrack to find them, show poor judgement, have mood and personality changes

Vascular Dementia – If a person gets this type of dementia, it’s usually because he’s had a major stroke, or one or more “silent” strokes, which can happen without him realizing it. The symptoms depend on which part of his brain was affected by the stroke. While Alzheimer’s usually begins with memory problems, vascular dementia more often begins with poor judgment or trouble planning, organizing, and making decisions.

Symptoms – Memory problems that disrupt your loved one’s daily life, trouble speaking or understanding speech, problems recognizing sights and sounds that used to be familiar. Being confused or agitated, changes in personality and mood, problems walking and having frequent falls.

Dementia with lewy bodies – Lewy bodies are microscopic deposits of a protein that form in some people ‘s brains. They’re named after the scientist who discovered them.

If someone you know gets DLB, it’s because these deposits have formed in the part of the brain called the cortex.

Symptoms – Problems thinking clearly, making decisions or paying attention, memory trouble, seeing things that aren’t there, known as visual hallucinations, unusual sleepiness during the day, periods of “blanking out” or staring.

Problems with movement, including trembling, slowness, and trouble walking. Dreams where you act out physically, including, talking, walking and kicking.

AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine

The initial trial data for the COVID-19 vaccine that has been developed in a joint collaboration between Oxford University and AstraZeneca. The data has been widely awaited as the world looks forward to some good news on the front of a vaccine that could shield people from the deadly coronavirus outbreak that has already infected over 14 million people worldwide and killed over 6 lakh.

The potential vaccine is already in large-scale Phase III human trials to assess whether it can protect against COVID-19, but its developers have yet to report Phase I results which would show whether it is safe and whether or not it induces an immune response. The developers of the vaccine said this month they were encouraged by the immune response they had seen in trials so far and were expecting to publish Phase 1 data by the end of July.

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How does the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate work?

When someone is infected with the Covid-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2), the reason it spreads in the body easily is because of the spikes on its surface. These spikes, known as the ‘spike protein’, allow the virus to penetrate cells and, thereafter, multiply. The vaccine developed by Oxford and AstraZeneca, which belongs to a category called non-replicating viral vector vaccines, tries to build the body’s immunity against this spike protein. The idea is to create antibodies to fight this spiked surface so that the virus does not even have the chance to penetrate the cells. The vaccine uses a different virus — in this case, a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) that infects chimpanzees — to carry just the code to make the spike protein, like a Trojan horse. The adenovirus, genetically modified so that it cannot replicate in humans, will enter the cell and release the code to make only the spike protein. The body’s immune system is expected to recognize the spike protein as a potentially harmful foreign substance and starts building antibodies against it. Once immunity is built, the antibodies will attack the real virus if it tries to infect the body.

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Since the Covid-19 vaccine has been developed by a United Kingdom-funded university, UK will have intellectual property rights. Other countries such as India will need to enter into commercial deals or understanding via foundations such as Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI). AstraZeneca also entered a deal with the Pune-based Serum Institute of India to supply one billion doses for low-and-middle-Income countries, with the first 400 million nicely before the end of 2020. It is not yet clear how many doses India will be able to land at first since the rollout of the vaccine will be subject to considerations that are commercial as well as that of equity. The World Health Organization’s chief scientist has described the Oxford vaccine as the leading candidate in a global race to halt the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 600,000 people. More than 100 vaccines are being developed and tested around the world to try to stop the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 600,000 people and ravaged the global economy.