Pat & Dennis Bender Early Dementia Diagnosis & Prognosis Fund
J. Dennis Bender
Office, Home & Cell Phone: 859-391-5226
5726 La Jolla Blvd. – Suite 311
La Jolla, CA 92037-7345
&
Office - 100 Riverside Pl. - Suite 303
Covington, KY 41011-5711
We support the development of improved diagnostic methods for the early detection and diagnosis of MCI, Alzheimer’s, vascular and other dementias, their likely prognosis, and best treatment options. We focus on the development of Bayesian-based medical-decision-support systems, comparative-effectiveness research, and the better utilization of these for the above. (After incorporating in KY as a 501(c)(3) in 2002, we dissolved that entity for a simplified form of two entirely self-financed, private philanthropies utilizing a Vanguard Charitable Trust for making annual-research-grants for early-dementia-detection and its correct differential-diagnosis and likely-prognosis. They will continue on, after I am long gone, either mentally or physically. Prof. Randall Bateman is the first of our fund’s research advisors, KMK Law is our legal advisor. See: https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/research_progress/earlier-diagnosis )
www.JDBender.com – EMS/eVTOL & Educational Experimental Aviation Fund (Vanguard Charitable Trust)
www.JDBender.org – Dementia Diagnosis Fund (Vanguard Charitable Trust)
“No!”
- Versus -
”CDC recommends that adults ages-60-years-and-older may receive RSV-vaccination, using shared-clinical-decision-making (SCDM). This means that healthcare providers should talk to these individuals about whether RSV-vaccination is appropriate for them.”
As interviewed this weekend on PBS News Weekend, their epidemiologist Katlin, recommended exactly what I had learned in my own research below, having all 3 vaccinations, which I have now done.
However, as I come to now know and expect, my old local family-doctor, Redington, ignored my wishes and just flippantly blew-off my question about taking the RSV-vaccine and giving just his usual quick, dismissive, opinion instead of discussing the pros-and-cons with me, as I had wanted. As usual, I had to research the CDC-site and the most-current medical-research literature on the pros-and-cons to decide on taking which of this year’s 3 vaccine options, which I have now done, with no problematic side-effects, what-so-ever. He apparently doesn’t begin to understand the CDC’s concept of “shared-clinical-decision-making (SCDM) recommendation for RSV-vaccine.” [ https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/rsv/downloads/provider-job-aid-for-older-adults-508.pdf ] Someone should place this poster prominently in his office to remind him of it!
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC 24-7. Saving Lives, Protecting People
Vaccines site: RSV
Frequently Asked Questions About RSV-vaccine for Adults
Two Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccines are approved for people ages-60-years-and-older.
CDC recommends that adults ages-60-years-and-older may receive RSV-vaccination, using shared-clinical-decision-making (SCDM). This means that healthcare providers should talk to these individuals about whether RSV vaccination is appropriate for them.
Is RSV an important cause of disease among older adults?
RSV is a common cause of respiratory illness in infants and young children, as well as older adults. Each season, RSV causes substantial morbidity and mortality in older adults, including lower respiratory tract disease, hospitalization, and death. There are an estimated 60,000–160,000 hospitalizations and 6,000–10,000 deaths annually due to RSV among adults-ages-65-years-and-older.
What vaccines are approved for prevention of RSV, and is there a difference between them?
What does it mean to use a shared-clinical-decision-making (SCDM) recommendation for RSV-vaccine?
CDC recommends that older-adults-ages-60-years-and-older may receive a single-dose of RSV-vaccine using SCDM. A SCDM recommendation differs from routine age-based and risk-based vaccine recommendations for which the default decision is to vaccinate all persons in a specified age-group or risk-group. With a SCDM-recommendation, there is no group in which the vaccine is universally recommended. Rather, the decision to vaccinate a patient is based on individual health-characteristics and informed by discussions between the patient and healthcare provider (anyone who provides or administers vaccines, including primary-care-physicians, specialists, physician-assistants, nurse-practitioners, registered-nurses, and pharmacists). Healthcare providers may consider multiple-factors when discussing RSV-vaccination with patients, including whether the patient has any risk-factors for severe-RSV-disease, the safety-profile of the RSV-vaccine products, a patient’s preferences for RSV vaccination, [of course, he never bothered to ask me,] and the clinical-discretion of the healthcare provider in that patient’s-case.
To learn more about SCDM vaccination recommendations, see the ACIP background on the topic. For additional guidance on the SCDM recommendation for RSV-vaccination, and which patients are most-likely to benefit from RSV-vaccination, see CDC’s provider job aid and the MMWR report on use of RSV-vaccines in adults ages-60-years-and-older.
Which adults are most likely to benefit from RSV vaccination? Although RSV infection generally causes mild-upper-respiratory-disease in healthy-adults, RSV can cause serious-illness in adults with certain underlying medical conditions or other risk-factors. Adults ages-60-years-and-older who are at higher risk for severe RSV disease include:
For examples of medical conditions or treatments that may cause people to become moderate to severely immunocompromised, visit CDC’s page, People Who Are Immunocompromised.
For additional guidance on the SCDM recommendation for RSV-vaccination, and which patients are most-likely-to-benefit from RSV-vaccination, see CDC’s provider job aid and the MMWR report on use of RSV-vaccines in adults-60-years-and-older.
What should I tell patients about the side-effects of RSV-vaccine? The most-common-side-effects after RSV-vaccination reported from clinical-trials included pain, redness, and swelling where the shot is given, fatigue, fever, headache, nausea, diarrhea, and muscle or joint-pain. These side-effects were usually mild.
Serious neurologic-events, including Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and other Inflammatory-neurologic-events, were reported after RSV vaccination in clinical-trials. Whether these events occurred due to chance or whether RSV vaccination increases the risk for inflammatory-neurologic-events is currently unknown. Until additional evidence is available to clarify the risk of inflammatory-neurologic-events after vaccination, RSV-vaccination in older-adults should be directed to those who are at highest-risk-for-severe-RSV-disease and therefore most-likely to benefit from vaccination. As for all FDA-approved-vaccines, CDC will conduct post-marketing-safety-surveillance to further inform RSV-vaccine-recommendations. For more information, see CDC’s vaccine safety surveillance webpages.
How should I administer RSV-vaccine?
Do I need to reconstitute RSV-vaccine?
Where should I store RSV-vaccine?
How many doses of RSV-vaccine do I give?
What is the best-time-of-year to give RSV-vaccine?
Optimally, vaccination should occur before the onset of the fall and winter RSV-season. However, typical RSV-seasonality was disrupted by the COVID-19-pandemic and has not returned to pre-pandemic patterns. For the 2023–24 RSV-season, providers recommending RSV-vaccine based on SCDM should administer RSV-vaccine as early as vaccine supply becomes available.
Can I give RSV-vaccine with other adult vaccines? Administration of RSV-vaccine on the same day with other adult vaccines is acceptable. However, according to results of coadministration studies of RSV-vaccines with influenza-vaccines, common side-effects, such as fever and soreness at the injection site, may be increased when these two vaccines are administered on the same day. Some studies also suggest it’s possible that the RSV and flu vaccines may not produce as strong of an immune response if they’re given on the same day, but the clinical significance of this is unknown. Additional research is ongoing to further inform guidance on same-day-administration of the RSV-vaccine and other adult-vaccines, including the COVID-19-vaccine.
What are “inflammatory-neurologic-events”?
ChatGPT (4.0)
Inflammatory-neurologic-events are occurrences within the nervous-system that are characterized by inflammation, which can lead to a variety of symptoms and complications. Inflammation is a natural response of the immune-system to injury or infection, but when it occurs within the nervous-system, it can potentially cause or contribute to neurological disorders or conditions.
Here are some examples of inflammatory-neurologic-events or conditions:
These conditions may present with a variety of symptoms depending on the specific disorder and the area of the nervous system that is affected. Symptoms may include muscle weakness, numbness or tingling, pain, vision problems, coordination problems, and in severe cases paralysis or loss of consciousness.
The management and treatment of these conditions can be complex and often requires a multidisciplinary approach. Treatment may include immunosuppressive or immunomodulatory therapies, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and in some cases, plasmapheresis or intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatment.
Given the potential severity and complexity of these disorders, it's crucial to have a healthcare provider involved in the diagnosis, management, and treatment of any suspected inflammatory neurologic condition.
[Keywords and compound-keywords (tags) are highlighted-and-hyphenated in italic-and-bold; place-names, organizations and titles are in bold; media-names put in italic. Instead of underlining, I’ve been hyphenating entire phrases – called long-tail-keywords. This odd style was being tried to enhance ease-of-spotting items-of-interest in my specific website-achieved documents. Now generative-AI and similar have eliminate this time-consuming distraction.]
{CDC RSV Site}
1