Impact of Caregiver Depression on Patients With Dementia, CAG Repeat Length Predicts Huntington Disease Decline, Novel Oral CBD Formulation Effective in Epilepsy

This week, Neurology News Network covered the results of a longitudinal cohort study that suggest that among patients with dementia, caregiver depression is significantly associated with increased emergency department use, study findings that suggest that concise summary measures of function and brain loss can characterize Huntington disease progression. Additionally, we reported that investigational oral capsules containing highly purified cannabidiol have shown promising results in patients with treatment-resistant epilepsy (transcript below).

Jenna:

Welcome to Neurology News Network. I’m Jenna Payesko. Let’s get into the news from this week.

The results of longitudinal cohort study suggest that among patients with dementia, caregiver depression appears to be significantly associated with increased emergency department use, which, if addressed, could improve health outcomes and lower costs.

The study looked at data 663 dyads from the Care Ecosystem Study, which examined a supportive care intervention for patients with dementia and caregivers. Among the dyads, 84 caregivers, or 12.7%, had depression at baseline and 368 caregivers, or 55.5%, had high caregiver burden. After adjustment, caregiver depression at baseline led to a 73% increased rate of emergency department presentation in the subsequent 6 months.

New study findings suggest that concise summary measures of function and brain loss can characterize Huntington disease progression across a wide disease span, with CAG repeat length strongly predicting the rate of cognitive-motor decline.

Investigators used principal component analysis to derive summary measures separately for non-imaging and imaging variables, with the first principal component score being the focus. Ultimately, 2065 visits from 443 participants were analyzed, and motor-cognitive measures were greatly associated and had comparable CAG repeat length-dependent links with patient age. A composite summary score accounted for 67.6% of their combined variance.

Investigational oral capsules containing highly purified cannabidiol have shown promising results in a phase 2, open-label study in patients with treatment-resistant epilepsy.

The formulation, PTL-101, was examined for safety and efficacy as an adjunctive treatment for the reduction of seizure frequency. The product, which contains a novel formulation of purified cannabidiol encased in a gelatin bead which is then placed in a gastro-resistant capsule, is currently available in the United Kingdom and Australia.

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