Cognitive function and oral perception in independently-living octogenarians

2014-03-20

(Press-News.org) Alexandria, Va., USA – Today, at the 43rd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR), held in conjunction with the 38th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, Kazunori Ikebe, from Osaka University, Japan, will present a research study titled "Cognitive Function and Oral Perception in Independently-living Octogenarians."



In this study, researchers hypothesized that the decline of cognitive impairment is involved in oral perceptions since its preclinical stage. The aim of this study was to examine association of cognitive function with tactile and taste perceptions in independently-living 80 years-old elderly.



The participants were community-dwelling and independently-living elderly (n=956, 80 years old) excluding those with dementia. Cognitive function was measured using the Japanese version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA-J) that was the assessment tool of mild cognitive impairment. Oral tactile perception was tested by oral stereognostic ability (OSA) with the test pieces comprised six shaped forms. Subjects were told they should use their tongue and palate to identify the shape. The correct identification of the shape was scored. Taste perception was evaluated by the whole mouth gustatory test with 1-ml of water solution included the four basic tastes (sweet, sour, salty and bitter). The concentration answered the taste correctly was taken as the recognition threshold.



Multiple linear regression analysis was used to examine relationships between tactile and taste perceptions and cognitive function after controlling for gender and number of teeth. P-values<0.05 were considered to be statistically significant.



The OSA score was positively associated with number of teeth. On the other hand, taste thresholds of sour, salty and bitter were significantly lower in female than males. The multiple regression analysis showed that MoCA-J score had significant positive relations to both the OSA score and taste perceptions except for sweet after controlling for other variables.



These results suggest that the decline of cognitive function was related to tactile and taste perceptions in independently-living octogenarians without dementia. INFORMATION:This research was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (No. 23390440) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.



This is a summary of abstract #525, "Cognitive Function and Oral Perception in Independently-living Octogenarians," to be presented by Kazunori Ikebe, Thursday, March 20, from 3:30 p.m. – 4:45 p.m. at the Charlotte Convention Center, Exhibit Hall AB.



About the American Association for Dental Research The American Association for Dental Research (AADR), headquartered in Alexandria, Va., is a nonprofit organization with more than 3,600 members in the United States. Its mission is: (1) to advance research and increase knowledge for the improvement of oral health; (2) to support and represent the oral health research community; and (3) to facilitate the communication and application of research findings. AADR is the largest Division of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR). To learn more about the AADR, visit http://www.aadr.org.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

2014-03-20

252 million years ago the largest extinction event occurred at the end of the Permian age. It wiped out almost 90 percent of all life in water. So far researchers had assumed that the ecosystems gradually recovered from this catastrophe over a long stretch of eight to nine million years and that large predators at the uppermost end of the food chain were the last to reappear. A Swiss-American team of palaeontologists headed by Torsten Scheyer and Carlo Romano from the University of Zurich demonstrate in their new study that the food nets during the Early Triassic did not ...

2014-03-20

Amsterdam, March 20, 2014 – Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the publication of a position statement by the European Menopause and Andropause Society (EMAS) in the journal Maturitas on the topic of the essential menopause curriculum for medical students. The menopause, or the cessation of the menstrual cycle, is the result of ovarian aging and is a natural event experienced by most women in their late 40s or early 50s. With increasing longevity the menopause can now be considered ...

2014-03-20

WASHINGTON, March 20—Detecting HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other deadly infectious diseases as early as possible helps to prevent their rapid spread and allows for more effective treatments. But current detection methods are cost-prohibitive in most areas of the world. Now a new nanotechnology method—employing common, everyday shrink wrap—may make highly sensitive, extremely low-cost diagnosis of infectious disease agents possible. The new technique, described in a paper published today in The Optical Society's (OSA) journal Optical Materials Express, offers ...

2014-03-20

Alexandria, Va., USA – Today during the 43rd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research, held in conjunction with the 38th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, Steve Kasper, SUNY College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, Albany, will present research titled "Inhibition of Oral Biofilm and Cell-cell Communication Using Natural-products Derivatives." Many plant metabolites and structurally similar derivatives have been identified as inhibitors of bacterial biofilm formation and quorum sensing (QS). Previously, ...

2014-03-20

An international team of scientists investigating the electronic properties of ultra-thin films of new materials – topological insulators (TIs) - has demonstrated a new method to tune their unique properties using strain. Topological insulators are new materials with surfaces that host a new quantum state of matter and are insensitive to contaminants, defects and impurities. Surface electrons in TIs behave like massless Dirac particles in a similar way to electrons in graphene. Moreover, surface currents in topological insulators also preserve their spin orientation and ...

2014-03-20

This news release is available in German. Industrial manufacturing is pivotal to Germany's prosperity. Not only does manufacturing account for a quarter of GDP, it provides a third of jobs as well. Yet rising raw material and energy costs, coupled with a demographic shift, pose significant challenges for industry. Keeping manufacturing operations in Germany will require a fundamental shift away from maximum profit from minimal capital investment toward maximum added value from minimum resources. Initiating and effecting this change is what Fraunhofer's E3-production ...

2014-03-20

Alexandria, Va., USA – Today during the 43rd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research, held in conjunction with the 38th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, Mathilde C. Peters, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA, will present research titled "Resin Infiltration Effects in a Caries-Active Environment – 2 Year Results." The objective of this study was to compare carious lesion changes after resin infiltration of approximal non-cavitated lesions in a high caries risk population after two years. Resin infiltration ...

2014-03-20

Thermal conduction is a familiar everyday phenomenon. In a hot sauna, for instance, you can sit comfortably on a wooden bench that has a temperature of 100C (212F), but if you touch a metallic nail with the same temperature, you will hurt yourself. The difference of these two experiences is due to the fact that some materials, such as metals, conduct heat well, whereas some other materials, such as wood, do not. It is therefore commonly thought that thermal conductance is simply a materials parameter. Now, researchers at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, led by Professor ...

2014-03-20

ATHENS, Ohio (March 19, 2014)—Ohio University scientists have found the oldest definitive fossil evidence of modern, venomous snakes in Africa, according to a new study published March 19 in the journal PLOS ONE. The newly discovered fossils demonstrate that elapid snakes—such as cobras, kraits and sea snakes—were present in Africa as early as 25 million years ago, said lead author Jacob McCartney, a postdoctoral researcher in the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. He's part of a team that has been examining the Rukwa Rift Basin of Tanzania over ...

2014-03-20

New radar measurements of an enormous sea on Titan offer insights into the weather patterns and landscape composition of the Saturnian moon. The measurements, made in 2013 by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, reveal that the surface of Ligeia Mare, Titan's second largest sea, possesses a mirror-like smoothness, possibly due to a lack of winds. "If you could look out on this sea, it would be really still. It would just be a totally glassy surface," said Howard Zebker, professor of geophysics and of electrical engineering at Stanford who is the lead author of a new study detailing ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: