Applying Deep Learning to Predicting Dementia and Mild Cognitive Impairment

Dementia has a large negative impact on the global healthcare and society. Diagnosis is rather challenging as there is no standardised test. The purpose of this paper is to conduct an analysis on ADNI data and determine its effectiveness for building classification models to differentiate the categories Cognitively Normal (CN), Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), and Dementia (DEM), based on tuning three Deep Learning models: two Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP1 and MLP2) models and a Convolutional Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (ConvBLSTM) model. The results show that the MLP1 and MLP2 models accurately distinguish the DEM, MCI and CN classes, with accuracies as high as 0.86 (SD 0.01). The ConvBLSTM model was slightly less accurate but was explored in view of comparisons with the MLP models, and for future extensions of this work that will take advantage of time-related information. Although the performance of ConvBLSTM model was negatively impacted by a lack of visit code data, opportunities were identified for improvement, particularly in terms of pre-processing

Update on management of acute respiratory distress syndrome

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a frequent and life-threatening condition in intensive care units (ICUs). Management of ARDS remains challenging despite years of research. Morbidity and mortality are not only caused by the syndrome itself but can also be the result of ventilator-induced lung injury. In this article, an update on ARDS management including ventilator strategies, rescue therapies, pharmacological treatments, ICU supportive care, and rehabilitation is proposed. While lung protective ventilation remains the standard option for patients with ARDS, neuromuscular blockade and prone positioning are gaining support after successful trials. Helmet non-invasive ventilation and high-flow nasal cannula might be useful for mild-to-moderate ARDS. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and carbon dioxide removal are not recommended in standard practice although they might be useful in severe ARDS