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Morin P, Aguilar BJ, Berlowitz D, Zhang R, Tahami Monfared AA, Zhang Q, Xia W. Clinical Characterization of Veterans With Alzheimer Disease by Disease Severity in the United States. Alzheimer Dis Assoc Disord 2024; 38:195-200. [PMID: 38755757 DOI: 10.1097/wad.0000000000000622] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2024] [Accepted: 04/07/2024] [Indexed: 05/18/2024]
Abstract
PURPOSE We aimed to examine the clinical characteristics of US veterans who underwent neurocognitive test score-based assessments of Alzheimer disease (AD) stage in the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System (VAHS). METHODS Test dates for specific stages of AD were referenced as index dates to study behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) and other patient characteristics related to utilization/work-up and time to death. PATIENTS We identified veterans with AD and neurocognitive evaluations using the VAHS Electronic Health Record (EHR). RESULTS Anxiety and sleep disorders/disturbances were the most documented BPSDs across all AD severity stages. Magnetic resonance imaging, neurology and psychiatry consultations, and neuropsychiatric evaluations were slightly higher in veterans with mild AD than in those at later stages. The overall average time to death from the first AD severity record was 5 years for mild and 4 years for moderate/severe AD. CONCLUSION We found differences in clinical symptoms, healthcare utilization, and survival among the mild, moderate, and severe stages of AD. These differences are limited by the low documentation of BPSDs among veterans with test score-based AD stages. These data support the hypothesis that our cohorts represent coherent subgroups of patients with AD based on disease severity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peter Morin
- Department of Neurology, Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston
| | - Byron J Aguilar
- Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center, Bedford VA Healthcare System
- Department of Pharmacology, Physiology and Biophysics, Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston
| | - Dan Berlowitz
- Department of Public Health, Zuckerberg College of Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA
| | - Raymond Zhang
- Alzheimer's Disease and Brain Health, Eisai Inc., Nutley, NJ
| | - Amir Abbas Tahami Monfared
- Alzheimer's Disease and Brain Health, Eisai Inc., Nutley, NJ
- Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Quanwu Zhang
- Alzheimer's Disease and Brain Health, Eisai Inc., Nutley, NJ
| | - Weiming Xia
- Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center, Bedford VA Healthcare System
- Department of Pharmacology, Physiology and Biophysics, Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston
- Department of Biological Sciences, Kennedy College of Sciences, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA
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Tahami Monfared AA, Khachatryan A, Hummel N, Kopiec A, Martinez M, Zhang R, Zhang Q. Assessing Quality of Life, Economic Burden, and Independence Across the Alzheimer's Disease Continuum Using Patient-Caregiver Dyad Surveys. J Alzheimers Dis 2024; 99:191-206. [PMID: 38640156 DOI: 10.3233/jad-231259] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/21/2024]
Abstract
Background Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have negative quality of life (QoL) and economic impacts on patients and their caregivers and may increase along the disease continuum from MCI to mild, moderate, and severe AD. Objective To assess how patient and caregiver QoL, indirect and intangible costs are associated with MCI and AD severity. Methods An on-line survey of physician-identified patient-caregiver dyads living in the United States was conducted from June-October 2022 and included questions to both patients and their caregivers. Dementia Quality of Life Proxy, the Care-related Quality of Life, Work Productivity and Activity Impairment, and Dependence scale were incorporated into the survey. Regression analyses investigated the association between disease severity and QoL and cost outcomes with adjustment for baseline characteristics. Results One-hundred patient-caregiver dyads were assessed with the survey (MCI, n = 27; mild AD, n = 27; moderate AD, n = 25; severe AD, n = 21). Decreased QoL was found with worsening severity in patients (p < 0.01) and in unpaid (informal) caregivers (n = 79; p = 0.02). Dependence increased with disease severity (p < 0.01). Advanced disease severity was associated with higher costs to employers (p = 0.04), but not with indirect costs to caregivers. Patient and unpaid caregiver intangible costs increased with disease severity (p < 0.01). A significant trend of higher summed costs (indirect costs to caregivers, costs to employers, intangible costs to patients and caregivers) in more severe AD was observed (p < 0.01). Conclusions Patient QoL and functional independence and unpaid caregiver QoL decrease as AD severity increases. Intangible costs to patients and summed costs increase with disease severity and are highest in severe AD.
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Fu J, Yang J, Li Q, Huang D, Yang H, Xie X, Xu H, Zhang M, Zheng C. What can we learn from a Chinese social media used by glaucoma patients? BMC Ophthalmol 2023; 23:470. [PMID: 37986061 PMCID: PMC10661764 DOI: 10.1186/s12886-023-03208-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2022] [Accepted: 11/07/2023] [Indexed: 11/22/2023] Open
Abstract
PURPOSE Our study aims to discuss glaucoma patients' needs and Internet habits using big data analysis and Natural Language Processing (NLP) based on deep learning (DL). METHODS In this retrospective study, we used web crawler technology to crawl glaucoma-related topic posts from the glaucoma bar of Baidu Tieba, China. According to the contents of topic posts, we classified them into posts with seeking medical advice and without seeking medical advice (social support, expressing emotions, sharing knowledge, and others). Word Cloud and frequency statistics were used to analyze the contents and visualize the keywords of topic posts. Two DL models, Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (Bi-LSTM) and Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT), were trained to identify the posts seeking medical advice. The evaluation matrices included: accuracy, F1 value, and the area under the ROC curve (AUC). RESULTS A total of 10,892 topic posts were included, among them, most were seeking medical advice (N = 7071, 64.91%), and seeking advice regarding symptoms or examination (N = 4913, 45.11%) dominated the majority. The following were searching for social support (N = 2362, 21.69%), expressing emotions (N = 497, 4.56%), and sharing knowledge (N = 527, 4.84%) in sequence. The word cloud analysis results showed that ocular pressure, visual field, examination, and operation were the most frequent words. The accuracy, F1 score, and AUC were 0.891, 0.891, and 0.931 for the BERT model, 0.82, 0.821, and 0.890 for the Bi-LSTM model. CONCLUSION Social media can help enhance the patient-doctor relationship by providing patients' concerns and cognition about glaucoma in China. NLP can be a powerful tool to reflect patients' focus on diseases. DL models performed well in classifying Chinese medical-related texts, which could play an important role in public health monitoring.
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Affiliation(s)
- Junxia Fu
- Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine, Xinhua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200092, Shanghai, China
- Institute of Hospital Development Strategy, China Hospital Development Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200092, Shanghai, China
| | - Junrui Yang
- Joint Shantou International Eye Center of Shantou University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China
- Department of Ophthalmology, The 74th Army Group Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Qiuman Li
- Department of Pediatric Cardiology, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Danqing Huang
- Institute of Hospital Development Strategy, China Hospital Development Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200092, Shanghai, China
| | - Hongyang Yang
- Institute of Hospital Development Strategy, China Hospital Development Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200092, Shanghai, China
| | - Xiaoling Xie
- Joint Shantou International Eye Center of Shantou University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China
| | - Huaxin Xu
- The Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia
| | - Mingzhi Zhang
- Joint Shantou International Eye Center of Shantou University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China.
| | - Ce Zheng
- Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine, Xinhua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200092, Shanghai, China.
- Institute of Hospital Development Strategy, China Hospital Development Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200092, Shanghai, China.
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Tahami Monfared AA, Stern Y, Doogan S, Irizarry M, Zhang Q. Understanding Barriers Along the Patient Journey in Alzheimer's Disease Using Social Media Data. Neurol Ther 2023; 12:899-918. [PMID: 37060417 PMCID: PMC10195971 DOI: 10.1007/s40120-023-00472-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2022] [Accepted: 03/21/2023] [Indexed: 04/16/2023] Open
Abstract
INTRODUCTION We speculated that social media data from Alzheimer's disease (AD) stakeholders (patients, caregivers, and clinicians) could identify barriers along the patient journey in AD, and that insights gained may help devise strategies to remove barriers, and ultimately improve the patient journey. METHODS Our sample was drawn from a repository of social media posts extracted from 112 public sources between January 1998 and December 2021 using natural language processing text-mining algorithms. The patient journey was classified into three phases: (1) early signs/experiences (Early Signs); (2) screening/assessment/diagnosis (Screening); and (3) treatment/management (Treatment). In the Early Signs phase, issues/challenges derived from a conceptual AD identification framework (ADIF) were examined. In subsequent phases, behavioral/psychiatric challenges, access/barriers to health care, screening/diagnostic methods, and symptomatic treatments for AD were identified. Posts were classified by AD stakeholder type or disease stage, if possible. RESULTS We identified 225,977 AD patient journey-related social media posts. Anxiety was a predominant issue/challenge in all patient journey phases. In the Screening and Treatment phases combined, access/barriers to care were described in 16% of posts; unwillingness/resistance to seeking care was a major barrier (≥ 75% of access-related posts across all stakeholders). Commonly identified structural barriers (e.g., affordability/cost, geography/transportation/distance) were more common in patient/caregiver posts than clinician posts. Among Screening-related posts, imaging/scans were commonly mentioned by all stakeholders; biomarkers were more commonly mentioned by patients than clinicians. Treatment-related concerns were identified in 17% of stakeholder-specified posts that named pharmacological agents/classes for the symptomatic management of AD. CONCLUSION This descriptive analysis of out-of-clinic experiences reflected in AD social media posts found that unwillingness/resistance to seeking care was a key barrier, followed by structural barriers to health care, such as affordability/cost. Insights from the lived experiences of AD stakeholders are valuable and highlight the need to improve the patient journey in AD and ease patient and caregiver burden.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amir Abbas Tahami Monfared
- Eisai, Inc., 200 Metro Blvd, Nutley, NJ, 07110, USA.
- Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
| | - Yaakov Stern
- Cognitive Neuroscience Division, Department of Neurology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, USA
| | | | | | - Quanwu Zhang
- Eisai, Inc., 200 Metro Blvd, Nutley, NJ, 07110, USA
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Hamamoto R, Koyama T, Kouno N, Yasuda T, Yui S, Sudo K, Hirata M, Sunami K, Kubo T, Takasawa K, Takahashi S, Machino H, Kobayashi K, Asada K, Komatsu M, Kaneko S, Yatabe Y, Yamamoto N. Introducing AI to the molecular tumor board: one direction toward the establishment of precision medicine using large-scale cancer clinical and biological information. Exp Hematol Oncol 2022; 11:82. [PMID: 36316731 PMCID: PMC9620610 DOI: 10.1186/s40164-022-00333-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2022] [Accepted: 10/05/2022] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Since U.S. President Barack Obama announced the Precision Medicine Initiative in his New Year's State of the Union address in 2015, the establishment of a precision medicine system has been emphasized worldwide, particularly in the field of oncology. With the advent of next-generation sequencers specifically, genome analysis technology has made remarkable progress, and there are active efforts to apply genome information to diagnosis and treatment. Generally, in the process of feeding back the results of next-generation sequencing analysis to patients, a molecular tumor board (MTB), consisting of experts in clinical oncology, genetic medicine, etc., is established to discuss the results. On the other hand, an MTB currently involves a large amount of work, with humans searching through vast databases and literature, selecting the best drug candidates, and manually confirming the status of available clinical trials. In addition, as personalized medicine advances, the burden on MTB members is expected to increase in the future. Under these circumstances, introducing cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) technology and information and communication technology to MTBs while reducing the burden on MTB members and building a platform that enables more accurate and personalized medical care would be of great benefit to patients. In this review, we introduced the latest status of elemental technologies that have potential for AI utilization in MTB, and discussed issues that may arise in the future as we progress with AI implementation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ryuji Hamamoto
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Division of Medical AI Research and Development, National Cancer Center Research Institute, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan ,grid.509456.bCancer Translational Research Team, RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, 1-4-1 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 103-0027 Japan
| | - Takafumi Koyama
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Department of Experimental Therapeutics, National Cancer Center Hospital, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan
| | - Nobuji Kouno
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Division of Medical AI Research and Development, National Cancer Center Research Institute, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan ,grid.258799.80000 0004 0372 2033Department of Surgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Yoshida-konoe-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8303 Japan
| | - Tomohiro Yasuda
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Division of Medical AI Research and Development, National Cancer Center Research Institute, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan ,grid.417547.40000 0004 1763 9564Research and Development Group, Hitachi, Ltd., 1-280 Higashi-koigakubo, Kokubunji, Tokyo, 185-8601 Japan
| | - Shuntaro Yui
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Division of Medical AI Research and Development, National Cancer Center Research Institute, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan ,grid.417547.40000 0004 1763 9564Research and Development Group, Hitachi, Ltd., 1-280 Higashi-koigakubo, Kokubunji, Tokyo, 185-8601 Japan
| | - Kazuki Sudo
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Department of Experimental Therapeutics, National Cancer Center Hospital, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan ,grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Department of Medical Oncology, National Cancer Center Hospital, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan
| | - Makoto Hirata
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Department of Genetic Medicine and Services, National Cancer Center Hospital, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan
| | - Kuniko Sunami
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Department of Laboratory Medicine, National Cancer Center Hospital, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan
| | - Takashi Kubo
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Department of Laboratory Medicine, National Cancer Center Hospital, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan
| | - Ken Takasawa
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Division of Medical AI Research and Development, National Cancer Center Research Institute, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan ,grid.509456.bCancer Translational Research Team, RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, 1-4-1 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 103-0027 Japan
| | - Satoshi Takahashi
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Division of Medical AI Research and Development, National Cancer Center Research Institute, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan ,grid.509456.bCancer Translational Research Team, RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, 1-4-1 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 103-0027 Japan
| | - Hidenori Machino
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Division of Medical AI Research and Development, National Cancer Center Research Institute, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan ,grid.509456.bCancer Translational Research Team, RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, 1-4-1 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 103-0027 Japan
| | - Kazuma Kobayashi
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Division of Medical AI Research and Development, National Cancer Center Research Institute, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan ,grid.509456.bCancer Translational Research Team, RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, 1-4-1 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 103-0027 Japan
| | - Ken Asada
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Division of Medical AI Research and Development, National Cancer Center Research Institute, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan ,grid.509456.bCancer Translational Research Team, RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, 1-4-1 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 103-0027 Japan
| | - Masaaki Komatsu
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Division of Medical AI Research and Development, National Cancer Center Research Institute, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan ,grid.509456.bCancer Translational Research Team, RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, 1-4-1 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 103-0027 Japan
| | - Syuzo Kaneko
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Division of Medical AI Research and Development, National Cancer Center Research Institute, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan ,grid.509456.bCancer Translational Research Team, RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, 1-4-1 Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 103-0027 Japan
| | - Yasushi Yatabe
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Department of Diagnostic Pathology, National Cancer Center Hospital, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan ,grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Division of Molecular Pathology, National Cancer Center Research Institute, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan
| | - Noboru Yamamoto
- grid.272242.30000 0001 2168 5385Department of Experimental Therapeutics, National Cancer Center Hospital, 5-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0045 Japan
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