Word: tools
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and the University of Pittsburgh have developed the first screening tool that can help predict whether elderly patients are at low, moderate or high risk of developing dementia. The new test takes into account characteristic risk factors for dementia, including advanced age and the presence of genes associated with Alzheimer's, but also relies on lesser-known contributors such as patients' body weight and alcohol-drinking habits...
...date, the only other major screening tool for Alzheimer's was developed by Finnish scientists in 2006. However, that screen is targeted toward a younger population and designed to identify the highest-risk individuals in midlife. But considering how many factors may intervene between midlife and the 60s - the decade in which Alzheimer's typically sets in - Deborah Barnes, a professor of psychiatry at UCSF, says she wanted to develop a screen for the older population more likely to be at immediate risk of the disease...
...Still, the screening tool may be extremely useful in prompting high-risk people to start doing whatever they can to protect themselves from future memory loss. "This study has taken a number of earlier findings on risk factors and combined them into a fairly impressive predictor of risk," says Dr. Ralph Nixon, vice chair of the medical and scientific advisory council for the Alzheimer's Association. The new index accurately predicts dementia in 81% of cases. (The midlife tool predicts dementia accurately 78% of the time...
...Saberi's detention had the hallmarks of a diplomatic cat-and-mouse game from the start. Iran watchers viewed it as a play by Iranian hard-liners to insert themselves into the debate over diplomatic engagement, giving anti-détente forces a tool to retard diplomatic progress because the U.S. would have to limit its engagement with Tehran as long as Saberi was held captive. "They can use her to sabotage any opening," said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution. (See pictures of the health-care system in Tehran...
...step the question of whether a particular action is illegal by indicting the law itself. Nullification is a rare occurrence in the American judicial system, and in fact jurors are not allowed to be told that they have the capacity to nullify, precisely because it is such a powerful tool. A refusal of a legal mandate, even by a local jury, is a bold step towards overturning it. In the case of the marijuana laws, that is precisely what Nesson desired...