Halloween is meant to be a spooky season, but it can be downright terrifying to someone suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. “Halloween is full of scary sights and frightful sounds that create additional challenges for someone living with dementia, which is why being a proactive caregiver is so important,” said Jennifer Reeder, director of…  read on >  read on >

Medication and behavioral therapy are both effective in combatting fatigue caused by multiple sclerosis (MS), either separately or together, a new study finds. MS patients felt significantly less fatigue after they were prescribed modafinil (Provigil), a drug that promotes wakefulness and is used to treat sleepiness, researchers reported recently in The Lancet Neurology journal. Patients…  read on >  read on >

Cutting certain foods from a child’s diet isn’t likely to improve their eczema symptoms, a new study finds. Eczema, also known as atopic dermatitis, results from an overactive immune response and has been linked to an increased risk of food allergies, researchers said. Because of this, some parents try to manage their kids’ itchy, rashy…  read on >  read on >

Brain scans can provide early warning of who will develop chronic pain following a whiplash injury, a new study finds. Higher levels of “cross talk” between two specific brain regions within one to three days of the injury increases the risk that pain will last long-term, researchers found. The more the hippocampus (the brain’s memory…  read on >  read on >

Certain gut microbes might be linked to a person’s risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, a new study suggests. People prescribed multiple courses of penicillin antibiotics have a modestly lower risk of developing Parkinson’s, researchers found. Those antibiotics might be affecting bacterial populations in the gut, which in turn might play into Parkinson’s risk, researchers say.…  read on >  read on >