Episode 50 - Screening for Alzheimers - a podcast by Rio Bravo Family Medicine Residency Program

Jaime Perales, PhD, presents statistics, screening tools and useful resources for primary care providers for Alzheimer’s disease. The KIDs list is presented. Question of the month: Fever and Cough.

Introduction: KIDs List and Cognitive Impairment in the Elderly
By Hector Arreaza, MD

Today is May 3, 2021.  

In family medicine, we believe in caring for patients “from the cradle to the grave.” During this introduction, we want to inform first of the KIDs list[1] and then some updates on cognitive impairment screening in older adults[2].

First, KIDs stand for Key Potentially Inappropriate Drugs in Pediatrics. It is a list of medications that are potentially inappropriate in children. It contains 67 drugs with their risks, recommendations, strength of recommendation and quality of evidence. Common meds include anti-infectives, antipsychotics, dopamine antagonists and GI agents. 85% of these meds require a prescription, and are taken by mouth, or used by parenteral route or even for external use. 

For example: Mineral oil, oral, carries the risk of lipid pneumonitis, recommended to avoid in patients younger than 1 year old, this recommendation is strong with low quality of evidence. For all the “abuelas” (Spanish for grandmothers) out there, listen to this: Camphor carries a risk of seizures, the recommendation is “use with caution in children.” However, the recommendation is weak and quality of evidence is low, but the concern is enough to include it on the list, in other words, use “vi-vah-pore-oo” with caution in children. I recommend you look up the KIDs list and use your clinical judgment to incorporate it into your practice. 

From childhood, now we go to the elderly. On February 25, 2020, the USPSTF posted their final recommendation statement regarding screening for cognitive impairment in older adults. This is a Grade I recommendation (Insufficient Evidence). It means that more research is needed to recommend for or against it. This is the same recommendation given in 2014. 

An article published in JAMA on the same date, Feb 25, 2020, reports that screening instruments can adequately detect cognitive impairment, however there is no evidence that this screening improves patient or caregiver outcomes or causes harm. It is still uncertain if early detection of cognitive impairment is important to provide interventions for patients or caregivers with significant clinical benefits.

Jaime Perales, PhD, will present some statistics on Alzheimer’s disease, he will explain some useful tools to screen for cognitive impairment and address the issue of Alzheimer’s disease at the primary care level. 

This is Rio Bravo qWeek, your weekly dose of knowledge brought to you by the Rio Bravo Family Medicine Residency Program from Bakersfield, California. Our program is affiliated with UCLA, and it’s sponsored by Clinica Sierra Vista, Let Us Be Your Healthcare Home. 

 

Question of the Month: Fever and Cough
Written by Hector Arreaza, MD, read by Claudia Carranza, MD, and Valerie Civelli, MD

This is a 69-yo male patient, who has history of controlled hypertension. He comes to an urgent care clinic for acute onset of fever (102 F), cough, and shortness of breath which has progressively worsened over the last 3 days. 

He does NOT smoke tobacco, but uses recreational marijuana once a month, and drinks 1-2 beers a week. He goes to the doctor once a year for check-ups. He takes benazepril 10 mg daily for his hypertension. He does not believe in vaccines and his last shot was a tetanus shot 5 years ago. He has no surgical history. He retired as an accountant 5 years ago. 

Vital signs are normal except for tachycardia of 110 (his baseline is 85) and temperature of 101.5 F (38.6 C). He has bibasilar crackles on auscultation. You perform labs in clinic and he has a white count of 13.5, and a chest x-ray shows a right lower lobe consolidation. He has a negative rapid COVID-19 test. 

What are your top 3 differential diagnoses and what is the acute management of this patient’s condition? Let’s repeat the question: What are your top 3 differential diagnoses and what is the acute management of a 69-year-old male, non-smoker, who has fever, cough, shortness of breath, tachycardia, bibasilar crackles, elevated WBCs, a right lower lobe consolidation, and a negative rapid COVID-19 test?

Send us your answer before May 7, 2021, to rbresidency@clinicasierravista.org and the best answer will win a prize!

____________________________

Screening for Alzheimer’s. 

With Jaime Perales Puchalt, PhD, and Hector Arreaza, MD

 

Jaime Perales Puchalt is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology. His main areas of interest include dementia among minorities and populations of Latin American origin in the Americas. 

He currently spearheads the Latino Alzheimer's education efforts at the University of Kansas Alzheimer’s Disease Center (KU ADC) and the Latino Cohort in which he recruits and conducts clinical dementia assessments of English and Spanish speaking Latinos. He has also led the integration of the Spanish National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center Unified Data Set 3.0 into REDCap. Together with Dr. Vidoni, Dr. Perales developed Envejecimiento Digno, a curriculum to increase Alzheimer's disease awareness among individual Latino community with different literacy levels.  

Dr. Perales completed his MS in Psychology at the University of València, and his MPH in Public Health and PhD in Biomedicine at the University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. He started his research career at the University of València, where he collaborated in several stress-related projects among breast cancer patients, Latin American immigrants and caregivers of schizophrenia patients. Dr. Perales co-managed a four-year European Commission-funded multi-country study on healthy aging (COURAGE in Europe) at the Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu. He also spent one year as a visiting researcher at the Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge conducting dementia-related epidemiological research and collaborating in successful aging literature reviews. At Juntos: Center for Advancing Latino Health (KU), he contributed to the cultural and linguistic adaptation of several smoking cessation interventions for Latinos[3].

Questions discussed during this episode: 

 

Incidence and prevalence of dementia in the US: under-diagnosis, death risk, caregiver, 

Recommendations on screening for dementia by national organizations: American Academy of Neurology, examining models of dementia care (page 22), USPSTF, grade I, no evidence, screening early improves outcomes; ARDAD

Best evidence-based tools for screening for dementia: MMSE, MoCA (better for MCI), AD8, MiniCog. 

Useful resources for primary care providers: Alzheimer’s Association: Unidos Podemos (soap opera), NIH Caring for a person with Alzheimer’s Disease, Course: USDHHS,  

Any other information you would like to provide us: The course, Jul 23, 2021, and Sep 3, 2021.

 

Conclusion.

Now we conclude our episode number 50 “Screening for Alzheimer’s Disease”. You heard from our experts the importance of assessing and treating your patients with Alzheimer’s Disease. We hope you can find all the resources mentioned during our interview with Jaime Perales, make sure you check our episode notes to find the links or just Google them, they are readily available online. Do not forget to send us your answer to the question of the month: What are your top 3 differential diagnosis and acute management of a 69-year-old male with new onset of fever, cough, shortness of breath, and right lower lobe consolidation. Even without trying, every night you go to bed being a little wiser.

Thanks for listening to Rio Bravo qWeek. If you have any feedback about this podcast, contact us by email RBresidency@clinicasierravista.org, or visit our website riobravofmrp.org/qweek. This podcast was created with educational purposes only. Visit your primary care physician for additional medical advice. This week we thank Hector Arreaza, Ariana Lundquist, Jaime Perales, Claudia Carranza, and Valerie Civelli. Audio edition: Suraj Amrutia. See you next week!

 

References and resources mentioned during this episode:

Meyers RS, Hellinga RC, Hoff DS. The KIDs List: Medications That Are Potentially Inappropriate in Children. Am Fam Physician. 2021 Mar 15;103(6):330. PMID: 33719376. https://www.aafp.org/afp/2021/0315/p330.html

 

Cognitive Impairment in Older Adults: Screening, February 25, 2020. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.  https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/cognitive-impairment-in-older-adults-screening

 

Patnode CD, Perdue LA, Rossom RC, et al. Screening for Cognitive Impairment in Older Adults: Updated Evidence Report and Systematic Review for the US Preventive Services Task Force. JAMA. 2020;323(8):764–785. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.22258.  https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2761650

 

KU Medical Center, The Univeristy of Kansas, Core Faculty, https://www.kumc.edu/ku-adc/core-faculty/jaime-perales-puchalt-phd.html

 

2021 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures, Special Report on Race, Ethnicity and Alzheimer's in America, published by the Alzheimer’s Association, Chicago, Illinois, USA.  https://www.alz.org/media/documents/alzheimers-facts-and-figures.pdf

 

Examining Models of Dementia Care: Final Report, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, September 1, 2016, https://aspe.hhs.gov/pdf-report/examining-models-dementia-care-final-report

 

¡Unidos Podemos! (Fotonovela, Spanish), Alzheimer’s Association, http://www.alz.org/espanol/downloads/Novella_spanish_081213.pdf

 

Together We Can! (Picture Novel, English), Alzheimer’s Association, http://www.alz.org/espanol/downloads/Novella_english_081213.pdf

 

Alzheimer’s Disease, Caring for a Person with Alzheimer's Disease: Your Easy-to-Use Guide, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, National Institute on Aging, https://order.nia.nih.gov/sites/default/files/2019-03/Caring_for_a_person_with_AD_508_0.pdf

 

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