[Quality of life in palliative care]. / Qualité de vie en soins palliatifs.

Palliative care aims to improve the quality of life of patients with a serious or terminal progressive disease, through global and multidisciplinary care. The notion of quality of life is multidimensional and unique to each individual patient, making them key players in their own care. Taking into account the different dimensions of a patient's quality of life is necessary in order to propose a personalised and appropriate care plan.

[An essential multi-disciplinary approach in geriatric perioperative units]. / Les unités périopératoires gériatriques, une pluridisciplinarité essentielle.

A hip fracture, often a surgical emergency, is a geriatric as much as an orthopaedic pathology. A multi-disciplinary approach is essential especially in the management of complications. The geriatric perioperative unit of Pitié-Salpétrière-Charles Foix hospital has demonstrated the benefits of such a dedicated care pathway.

[Link between non hypoxemic chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and executive functioning in oldest old]. / Étude du lien entre la broncho-pneumopathie obstructive non hypoxémiante et le fonctionnement exécutif de patients de plus de 75 ans.

COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) may result in cognitive disorders (mainly executive) even without hypoxemia. The aim of this descriptive study was to highlight a deficit in task-switching in non-hypoxemic patient with COPD and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer disease (AD). The main judgment criterion was patients' performances on the TMTA and B. COPD patients were recruited via the database (CogDisCo) of the geriatric medicine department at Pitié Salpêtrière hospital in Paris. 7 patients had Alzheimer's disease (AD), and 11 mild cognitive impairment (MCI): they were matched for age, sex, MMSE, education level with controls subjects without COPD. There was no significant difference between the two groups. However, patients with COPD and MCI required, on average, an extra 13 seconds compared with patient without COPD for the TMTA and 18 seconds for the TMTB. Patients with COPD and AD needed, on average, an extra 63 seconds for TMTA and 97 seconds for TMTB. The number of errors for the TMTB was the same in the both groups. This preliminary study does not show statistically significant results but the time for achieving TMT was longer in the population with COPD whether AD or MCI. These results encourage us to continue with prospective studies on larger samples.

A case of logopenic primary progressive aphasia with C9ORF72 expansion and cortical florbetapir binding.

We report the case of a 65-year-old woman, clinically diagnosed with the logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia (PPA), and carrier of C9ORF72 expansion, despite cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers suggesting Alzheimer's disease (AD). She underwent structural MRI, metabolic PET, and amyloid PET imaging using florbetapir. Comparison with healthy controls revealed widespread hypometabolism, left sided cortical atrophy, and an increased cortical amyloid load. No difference in amyloid binding was found between the patient and predemential AD patients. This case provides evidence of amyloidopathy in a carrier of C9ORF72 expansion exhibiting a clinical profile of the logopenic variant of PPA.