Objectives:To evaluate the health care services provided for older adults by primary health care centers (PHCCs) in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), and the ease of use of these centers by older adults.Methods:Between October 2013 and January 2014, we conducted a descriptive cross-sectional study of 15 randomly selected PHCCs in Riyadh City, KSA. The evaluation focused on basic indicators of clinical services offered and factors indicative of the ease of use of the centers by older adults. Evaluations were based upon the age-friendly PHCCs toolkit of the World Health Organization.Results:Coverage of basic health assessments (such as blood pressure, diabetes, and blood cholesterol) was generally good. However, fewer than half of the PHCCs offered annual comprehensive screening for the common age-related conditions. There was no screening for cancer. Counseling on improving lifestyle was provided by most centers. However, there was no standard protocol for counseling. Coverage of common vaccinations was poor. The layout of most PHCCs and their signage were good, except for lack of Braille signage. There may be issues of access of older adults to PHCCs through lack of public transport, limited parking opportunities, the presence of steps, ramps, and internal stairs, and the lack of handrails.Conclusions:Clinical services and the internal environment of PHCCs can be improved. The data will be useful for health-policy makers to improve PHCCs to be more age-friendly.

Background: Feeding difficulties and inappropriate nutrition are common problems among children with Down Syndrome (DS). Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the dietary practice and physical activity among children with DS. Methodology: The study groups were pre-pubertal DS boys and girls, aged 5 to 12 years clinically and cytogenetically proven to be suffering from DS. Healthy siblings, closest in age to the DS children were used as a control group. Breast feeding, eating difficulties, fast food intake, and physical activity were measured for both groups. Results: During infancy period, 36.4% of the DS children were bottle fed, compared to only 5.5% of the normal siblings. Nearly half of the breast-fed DS children were fed for duration of less than 6 months. The percentage of the DS children experiencing dietary difficulties is significantly higher compared to the siblings. Concerning physical activity, 73.1% of DS children did not exercise as compared to 44.2% of the control siblings. Conclusion: Controlling feeding practices and encouraging Down syndrome children to participate in physical activity either through support from parents or through designing special programs and facilities and are two avenues that can be used for obesity prevention.

Introduction. Apolipoprotein E (APOE) is an important risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and is present in 30–50% of patients who develop late-onset AD. Several single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are present in APOE gene which act as the biomarkers for exploring the genetic basis of this disease. The objective of this study is to identify deleterious nsSNPs associated with APOE gene. Methods. The SNPs were retrieved from dbSNP. Using I-Mutant, protein stability change was calculated. The potentially functional nonsynonymous (ns) SNPs and their effect on protein was predicted by PolyPhen and SIFT, respectively. FASTSNP was used for functional analysis and estimation of risk score. The functional impact on the APOE protein was evaluated by using Swiss PDB viewer and NOMAD-Ref server. Results. Six nsSNPs were found to be least stable by I-Mutant 2.0 with DDG value of >−1.0. Four nsSNPs showed a highly deleterious tolerance index score of 0.00. Nine nsSNPs were found to be probably damaging with position-specific independent counts (PSICs) score of ≥2.0. Seven nsSNPs were found to be highly polymorphic with a risk score of 3-4. The total energies and root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) values were higher for three mutant-type structures compared to the native modeled structure. Conclusion. We concluded that three nsSNPs, namely, rs11542041, rs11542040, and rs11542034, to be potentially functional polymorphic.

No abstract