According to a study published in the November 6, 2024, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, older people who are sleepy during the day or lose interest in activities due to sleep issues may be more likely to develop a syndrome that can lead to dementia.
People with the syndrome walk slowly and report memory problems, but they do not have a mobility handicap or dementia. Motoric cognitive risk syndrome is a condition that can develop before dementia.
The study found that people with excessive daytime sleepiness and a lack of enthusiasm to get things done were more likely to develop the syndrome than people without those sleep-related issues. The study does not prove that these sleep-related issues cause the syndrome, it only shows an association.
“Our findings emphasize the need for screening for sleep issues,” said study author Victoire Leroy, MD, PhD, of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York. “There’s potential that people could get help with their sleep issues and prevent cognitive decline later in life.”
The study included 445 participants, with an average age of 76, who did not have dementia. Participants completed sleep surveys at the beginning of the trial. They were queried about memory problems, and their walking pace was measured on a treadmill at the beginning of the study and then once a year for the next three years.
The sleep assessment included questions about how frequently people had difficulties sleeping because they woke up in the middle of the night, couldn't fall asleep within 30 minutes, or felt too hot or cold, as well as whether they used sleep aids. The question to assess excessive daytime drowsiness asks how frequently people have had problems remaining awake when driving, eating meals, or were engaged in any other activity.
In total, 177 participants fit the category of bad sleepers, whereas 268 satisfied the definition of good sleepers.
At the outset of the trial, 42 participants had motoric cognitive risk syndrome. Throughout the trial, 36 more persons got the condition.
35.5% of patients who experienced extreme daytime sleepiness and a lack of enthusiasm developed the syndrome, compared to 6.7% who did not. After accounting for other factors that could influence the risk of the syndrome, such as age, depression, and other health conditions, researchers discovered that people with excessive daytime sleepiness and a lack of enthusiasm were more than three times more likely to develop the syndrome than those who did not have those sleep-related issues.
“More research needs to be done to look at the relationship between sleep issues and cognitive decline and the role played by motoric cognitive risk syndrome,” Leroy said. “We also need studies to explain the mechanisms that link these sleep disturbances to motoric cognitive risk syndrome and cognitive decline.”
A limitation of the study is that participants reported their own sleep information, so they may not have remembered everything accurately.
The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging.
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Prateek Yadav (38), the son of late Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, died due to a massive blockage in the blood vessels of the lungs, leading to a collapse of the heart and respiratory system, as revealed in the postmortem examination report.
According to the autopsy findings, the provisional cause of death was recorded as “cardiorespiratory collapse due to massive pulmonary thromboembolism.” In simple terms, doctors said a large blood clot had blocked blood flow to the lungs, causing his heart and breathing to fail.
An embolism is any object (clot, fat, air, tissue) traveling through the bloodstream that becomes stuck, blocking blood flow. A thromboembolism is a specific type of embolism where that travelling object is a piece of a blood clot (thrombus) that has broken off from its original site.
It is a life-threatening condition that happens when a blood vessel in the lungs is blocked by a blood clot.
The common symptoms may include:
The blood clot starts in a deep vein in the leg and travels to the lung in most cases. Rarely, the clot forms in a vein in another part of the body, noted Mayo Clinic. When a blood clot forms in one or more of the deep veins in the body, it is called a deep vein thrombosis or DVT.
Other symptoms of pulmonary embolism include:
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Meanwhile, Karnataka's Planning and Statistics Minister, D. Sudhakar (66), passed away after a prolonged battle with a lung infection.
The most common lung infections that people experience are pneumonia, bronchitis, tuberculosis, influenza-related infections, and severe viral illnesses.
Experts noted that these lung infections cause fluid or pus to fill the air sacs, which prevents oxygen from entering the bloodstream.
"What may initially appear as a routine cough, fever, or chest infection can progress to severe pneumonia, respiratory failure, sepsis, or permanent lung damage,” Dr. Vikas Mittal, Director - Pulmonologist, CK Birla Hospital, Delhi, told HealthandMe.
Warning signs include
Dr. Nikhil Rajvanshi, Consultant - Paediatric Pulmonology, Rainbow Hospital, Delhi, told HealthandMe that children may be more at risk of pulmonary infections as they can become dangerous quickly because their lungs and immune systems are still developing.
Common illnesses such as bronchiolitis, pneumonia, influenza, and other viral infections may rapidly lead to breathing difficulty, low oxygen levels, dehydration, and respiratory distress. Infants, premature babies, malnourished children, and those with asthma or congenital disorders are at higher risk of complications.
The experts called for
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US President Donald Trump's attempt to clarify the meaning of "sea" while discussing drug smuggling has again raised concerns of dementia.
While the 79-year-old President rambled between “sea and see” in the middle of discussing drug problems in the US, social media went rife with the rumor of his cognitive decline.
"Drugs coming by sea meaning coming by water. A lot of people don’t know what I mean by sea. They think I mean vision. I’m talking about sea like the sea," he said. He was speaking at the White House, while hosting law enforcement officials for a dinner in the Rose Garden in celebration of National Police Week.
His comments were called out by social media as his apparently worsening cognitive capabilities.
"When he says 'a lot of people' he means 'me.' His cognitive issues are a crisis," one social media user declared, while another admitted, "He’s getting worse."
Trump has spoken on sea and see, during a maternal healthcare event last week, where he also referred to himself as the “father of fertility.”
Earlier, speaking at the White House Small Business Summit, Trump said he has taken the Montreal Cognitive Assessment three times and “aced each one,” claiming a doctor told him it was the first time they had seen a perfect score, The Daily Beast reported.
The US President said he answered the test questions easily, suggesting he is cognitively in good condition—a claim that critics have repeatedly questioned.
“The first question is very easy,” he said. “You have a lion, a bear, an alligator, and a—what’s another good…? A squirrel. Which is the squirrel?” He added that the difficulty increases as the test progresses. “By the time you get to the middle, they’re very tough.”
However, the test’s creator, Canadian neurologist Ziad Nasreddine, has challenged Trump’s claims. “It wasn’t designed to be a test of IQ,” he told nine.com.au. “It was designed to assess normal cognitive performance.”
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A group of medical experts, including neurologists, psychiatrists, and other physicians, has sounded the alarm over what they’ve described as Trump’s deteriorating mental health.
The experts have not specifically examined Trump face-to-face. But, they analyzed Trump's statements and behaviors over the past year, and stated that he’s “mentally unfit” and must be removed from office “with the greatest urgency” amid the escalating tension around the world, according to their statement published in The BMJ.
“It is our professional opinion that they (Trump's statements) reflect a rapidly worsening, reality-untethered, increasingly dangerous decline,” the experts said.
They also listed some of Trump’s observable serious medical issues, such as “Marked deterioration in cognitive functioning, evidenced by disorganized and tangential speech, rambling digressions, factual confusions, unexplained sudden changes of course in strategic matters, both national and international, episodes of apparent somnolence during critical public proceedings.”
Read More:PCOD vs PCOS vs PMOS: Why The Condition’s Name Has Changed Over Time
What The White House Says
The White House has continued to say that Trump remains in strong health.
In October 2025, White House physician Captain Sean Barbabella said the president “continues to demonstrate excellent overall health,” AOl.com reported.
"President Trump’s sharpness, unmatched energy, and historic accessibility stand in stark contrast to what we saw during the last administration when Democrats and other lunatics intentionally covered up Joe Biden’s serious mental and physical decline from the American people,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle was quoted as saying to The Daily Beast.
Credit: AI generated image
From Polycystic Ovarian Disease (PCOD) to Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and now Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS) — confused about what the changing terminology means for women’s health and treatment?
What was once seen mainly as a reproductive or ovarian disorder is now being recognized as a complex hormonal and metabolic condition that can affect everything from periods and fertility to weight, insulin resistance, heart health, skin, and mental well-being.
To better understand the distinction between the three, let’s look at how the condition has evolved.
The condition, involving irregular periods, infertility, excess facial hair, and enlarged ovaries containing multiple cysts, was first identified as an ovarian or reproductive disorder in the 1930s by American gynecologists Dr. Irving Stein and Dr. Michael Leventhal. It became known as Stein-Leventhal Syndrome.
Over the years, the term PCOD became widely used, especially in countries like India. The name focused mainly on the presence of multiple ovarian cysts seen on ultrasound scans. It was considered a “disease” affecting ovulation and fertility.
Further, in the 1980s and 1990s, experts discovered that the condition involved hormonal imbalances, insulin resistance, weight gain, diabetes risk, and heart health concerns, among others.
Because it affected multiple body systems, PCOS became the medically preferred global term. The word “syndrome” was used to describe a group of related symptoms rather than a single disease.
However, many experts argued that the name still overemphasized ovarian cysts and fertility, and in 2012, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) officially recommended changing the name, saying it was misleading because:
In 2026, global experts publishing in The Lancet proposed the new name -- PMOS – for the condition affecting more than 170 million women worldwide.
The new term PMOS acknowledges that the condition involves:
Also read: PCOS Is Now PMOS: What The Name Change Means For Millions Of Women
The new name aims to explain the condition more accurately and comprehensively.
Polyendocrine means it affects multiple hormones in the body.
Metabolic refers to issues linked to weight, insulin, blood sugar, and heart health.
Ovarian highlights its impact on ovulation and reproductive health.
Syndrome refers to a group of symptoms occurring together.
In simple terms, PMOS is a hormonal and metabolic condition that can affect periods, fertility, skin, mood, weight, and long-term health.
Speaking to HealthandMe, Dr Monika Bhatia Director — Obstetrics & Gynaecology Robotic and Laparoscopic Surgeon Cloudnine Group of Hospitals, said that the earlier name was misleading because the "cysts" in PCOS are not real cysts — they are simply small, arrested follicles.
While the name has changed, the message remains the same.
“Behind every diagnosis is a woman trying to understand her body, hormones, emotions, and health. While this condition may affect periods, fertility, metabolism, skin, weight, or mental well-being differently, one thing remains common — it is manageable with the right guidance,” she said.
The core treatment stays the same as the guidelines for treatment have not changed, but the approach becomes wider.
“So instead of just treating the periods, PMOS is now managed as a whole-body condition involving a multidisciplinary team”.
Will there be any change to evaluation?
Dr Muskaan Chhabra, Fertility Specialist, Birla Fertility & IVF, Lajpat Nagar, told HealthandMe that the new name –PMOS- correctly acknowledges that this is a multisystem condition involving complex interactions between insulin, androgens, and neuroendocrine hormones.
In PMOS, the ovaries are one of several systems involved rather than the primary site of the problem.
This “opens the door to more comprehensive clinical evaluation, earlier and more accurate diagnosis, and treatment approaches that address the full hormonal and metabolic picture rather than a narrow reproductive one,” Dr Muskaan said. It will also “drive more integrated and personalized care”.
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