Petra Maresova

Alzheimer's disease and language impairments: social intervention and medical treatment

Communication is very important for people to be successfully integrated into social environment and make and maintain relationship. Particularly, language difficulties lead to social exclusion of the people affected with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and contribute to a significant decrease in the quality of their life and also have a big impact on their family members who in most cases become their caregivers who need to communicate with their loved ones in order to meet their needs. Therefore, the goal of this study is to describe language impairments in the individual phases of AD and discuss their improvement with respect to AD on the basis of literature review. The authors of this article use traditional research methods in order to achieve the goal set mentioned earlier. First, a method of literature review of available sources describing language impairments in the individual phases of AD is exploited. Second, to show how informal caregivers and relevant drugs can successfully intervene in the improvement of these language impairments, a method of comparison of different research studies exploring such social intervention and medical treatment is used.

Current Approaches Against Alzheimer's Disease in Clinical Trials

Alzheimers disease (AD) is a progressive degenerative brain disease which causes mental and physical decline, gradually resulting in death. Currently, this disease represents one of the uppermost human issues, both from the medical and economic point of view. Interest in the discovery of a drug for AD is enormous. However, despite the long-term and worldwide effort for a more effective therapy, the only available treatment is a symptomatic use of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs) and memantine. New therapeutic approaches as well as those based on cholinergic or amyloid theory have not brought the desired benefits yet. Thus, the question is whether an effective drug for this progressive disease will ever be developed or whether people will have to rely only on prevention and minimize risk factors of AD.

Investment evaluation of cloud computing in the European business sector

The importance of cloud computing is acknowledged both at national and entrepreneurial level. Its potential in business has been already described in many studies (Dillon et al., 2010; Bayrak et al., 2011; Nuseibeh, 2011; Repschlaeger et al., 2013). However, many European countries do not exploit it much in spite of many positive responses made by respected consulting companies. The reasons for this are a very low level of changes in companies, ignorance of opportunities of the given technology and, consequently, an inability to count the return of investment. Therefore, the aim of this article is to introduce a tool for the investment evaluation of cloud computing, which corresponds to the needs of the European business environment and to the properties of this technology. Furthermore, the cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) method is explored. This method is adjusted for cloud computing on the basis of companies’ requirements, which were collected from quantitative and qualitative surveys and from the interviews with experts in cloud computing from academic and business environments. In addition, individual stages of the CBA method used in cloud computing are described.

Non-Pharmacological Approaches to the Prevention and Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease with Respect to the Rising Treatment Costs

Alzheimers disease is a serious degenerative disease which is mainly typical of the developed countries. The prevalence percentage in Africa is only 2.6 %, whereas in America it is 6.5 % and in Western Europe 7.2 %. Overall, this disease affects 44 million people worldwide. With respect to the demographic development, a number of people suffering from Alzheimers disease is expected in future. The key issue is not only the discovery of an effective medication, but also the early diagnosis, prevention and care about people with AD, as well as the provision of an equivalent rise of places in health and social institutions. Since the treatment of Alzheimers disease (AD) imposes a severe economic and social burden, the main purpose of this study is to analyze and compare available non-pharmacological approaches to the prevention and treatment of patients with AD with special focus on their cognitive competences. In addition, the analysis also concentrates on the costs of pharmacological care in individual countries all over world. This is done by using Drummonds methodological approaches to direct and indirect costs. The analysis of non-pharmacological approaches is conducted on the basis of literature review of both clinical and review studies relevant for the research issue in the acknowledged databases and a comparison and evaluation of their findings.

Alzheimer’s disease and its treatment costs: case study in the Czech Republic

This paper deals with the analysis of the costs, applied, for example, when treating specific diseases – an important aid in prioritizing the process of resource allocation. In our review, the specific disease is dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease. This paper aims to provide more information on the partial costs per patient that are calculated according to the aggregated data from publicly available sources as well as from the results of authors’ own investigation. The University Hospital in Hradec Králové and the General Health Insurance Company of the Czech Republic participated in this research. The elementary research objective was to compare the costs per patient diagnosed early onset, to those of the patient diagnosed later. The Czech Republic lacks information regarding dementia. Therefore, these issues require attention. The methods used in this paper included time series analyses, methods of direct questioning, interviews with experts, and analyses of medical documentation. These methods were combined to exploit their particular advantages and to ensure the issues discussed, were covered. The investigation showed that the underpinning of patients with Alzheimer’s disease at early onset is advantageous from an economic perspective, because the cost of outpatient care is much lower compared with that of inpatient care. The international comparisons of the volume of care provided should be approached with great caution. These are based solely on the facts of various expert estimates and are not usually supported by hard data. Yet, they still illustrate the overall view of our ability to take care of people with dementia. According to experts, care in the Czech Republic significantly lags behind the rest of developed Europe. While services are provided to 26% of people with dementia in Germany and 50% in France, the experts estimate that services are provided to only 10% of the population in the Czech Republic. If we were to offer a similar volume of services in the Czech Republic, to the same extent as the average in Europe, we would have to triple the existing capacities.

Use of cloud computing in biomedicine

Nowadays, biomedicine is characterised by a growing need for processing of large amounts of data in real time. This leads to new requirements for information and communication technologies (ICT). Cloud computing offers a solution to these requirements and provides many advantages, such as cost savings, elasticity and scalability of using ICT. The aim of this paper is to explore the concept of cloud computing and the related use of this concept in the area of biomedicine. Authors offer a comprehensive analysis of the implementation of the cloud computing approach in biomedical research, decomposed into infrastructure, platform and service layer, and a recommendation for processing large amounts of data in biomedicine. Firstly, the paper describes the appropriate forms and technological solutions of cloud computing. Secondly, the high-end computing paradigm of cloud computing aspects is analysed. Finally, the potential and current use of applications in scientific research of this technology in biomedicine is discussed.

Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases: Expected Economic Impact on Europe—A Call for a Uniform European Strategy

The purpose of this study is to analyze the economic burden of persons with Alzheimers disease (AD) and Parkinsons disease (PD) in Europe. On the basis of available data about the number of persons with dementia, their prevalence, and treatment and care costs, a mean cost burden is estimated for the year of 2030 and for the year of 2050 in Europe. The method of retrospective analysis of available sources was used; furthermore, analysis of database data such as WHO and Eurostat, which provide information about the number of older people and people with dementia; and specification of direct and indirect medical and nonmedical costs of patients with AD and PD from current studies was also used. The findings of this study confirm that the number of patients affected with AD and PD, as well as annual costs of the treatment and care of these patients, in the selected European countries are rapidly growing. The cost burden of both AD and PD in the selected European countries rises year by year, and by 2050, the cost burden of both diseases in fact will be almost two times higher in comparison with the year of 2010. In 2050, the overall mean cost burden is estimated to reach 357 billion Euros. The European Union calls for a joint initiative in the development of a uniformed strategic plan in the fight against dementia.

Economics Aspects of Ageing Population

Abstract The share of the population aged 60 and over is projected to increase in nearly every country in the world during 2015-2080. Population ageing will tend to lower both labour-force participation and savings rates, thereby raising concerns about a future slowing of economic growth. The aim of this paper is describe the development of the healthcare expenditure in the context of ageing population. Firstly, the demographic development and trends in the European Union is presented. Secondly, expenditure on health services for seniors is discussed and finally, expected health expenditures with regard to the demographic trend in the EU are analysed. The article explores potential of the investment in innovation in health care due to the ageing population.

Cost–benefit analysis – evaluation model of cloud computing deployment for use in companies

ABSTRACT The use of cloud computing services appears to offer significant cost advantages. The most frequently mentioned advantages include investment and operating costs saving, high elasticity of services as well as increased flexibility of certain business processes. On the other hand, the adoption of cloud computing in enterprise environments is non-trivial. Understanding the organizational benefits and drawbacks is far from straightforward. The adoption of cloud computing results in a considerable amount of organizational change that will affect employees. The aim of this contribution is to conduct and describe the evaluation model of cloud computing that would be applicable in business practice for evaluating the effectiveness of such investments. The target users of this model are primarily people in companies with decision-making power in the investment field. The appropriate starting point based on the multi-criteria evaluation was the cost–benefit analysis (CBA) approach for cloud computing (CC). A multi-method approach (systematic literature review, analysis of real cloud computing services, expert interview, case study) was applied in order to develop and evaluate the formal model. We found that our model fits the practical requirements and supports decision-making in cloud computing.

Elderly People and Their Attitude Towards Mobile Phones and Their Applications—A Review Study

At present elderly people seem to be one of the rapidly growing population groups in the developed countries. This trend of aging population causes additional problems such as increased costs on the treatment and care about this elderly people. Therefore there is ongoing effort to extend the active age of this group of people in order to enable them to stay economically and socially independent. And current technological devices and services can assist them in this process. The purpose of this article is to discuss an attitude of elderly people towards mobile technological devices and benefits and limitations of mobile applications for this group of people. The author used a method of literature review of available sources exploring research studies focused on mobile devices and applications for elderly people in the acknowledged databases and a method of comparison and evaluation of their findings.