People with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia are frequently prescribed medications such as sleeping pills, antipsychotic medication and drugs for bladder control. Sometimes it is too much.

According to Jerry Gurwitz, MD, potentially inappropriate or excessive prescribing is a “morbidity multiplier,” which can lead to adverse drug events, falls, worsening cognitive impairment and emergency hospitalizations.

Parth Chakrabarti, MPH, MBA, an experienced strategic leader in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, will serve as UMass Medical School’s new executive vice chancellor for innovation and business development, joining UMMS this week, according to Chancellor Michael F. Collins.

If you’ve been feeling depressed, worried or lonely; you have a hard time getting motivated; or you feel more tired during pandemic life, you’re not alone. COVID fatigue is real and is affecting mental health, said UMass Medical School behavioral health specialists.

In the new year, David D. McManus, MD, professor of medicine, will begin an appointment as the chair of the Department of Medicine, according to an announcement by Eric. W. Dickson, MD, president and CEO, UMass Memorial Health Care, and Terence R. Flotte, MD, the Celia and Isaac Haidak Professor, executive deputy chancellor, provost and dean, School of Medicine.

A new study by Alejandro Vasquez-Rifo, PhD, and Victor Ambros, PhD, shows that certain strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a rod-shaped bacterial pathogen that causes disease in plants and animals, including humans, have a unique mechanism for disabling and degrading the ribosome in its host cells.

BOSTON – Warning that the pandemic continues to create financial uncertainty, UMass President Marty Meehan told a Board of Trustees committee today that it will be critical for the university to remain disciplined in its financial management to ensure the university remains financially sound and positioned to drive the Massachusetts economic recovery.

AMHERST, Mass. – As part of Gov. Charlie Baker’s expansion of COVID-19 testing, the University of Massachusetts Amherst will launch a major community asymptomatic testing program starting Monday, Dec. 14. Free testing will be offered, by appointment only, at the Public Health Promotion Center (PHPC) at the Mullins Center.

Barbara Osborne, veterinary and animal sciences, and a small team of her colleagues involved in the startup medical research firm HasenTech recently were awarded two grants to advance their investigation of an exopolysaccharide (EPS), a sugar found on the surface of the bacterium Bacillis subilis. It can suppress an immune response and if translatable to use in humans, it holds promise of offering a new treatment for such conditions as irritable bowel disease (IBD) and other autoimmune diseases.

AMHERST, Mass. – Among seismologists, the geology of Alaska’s earthquake- and volcano-rich coast from the Aleutian Islands to the southeast is fascinating, but not well understood. Now, with more sophisticated tools than before, a University of Massachusetts Amherst team reports unexpected new details about the area’s tectonic plates and their relationships to volcanoes. 

AMHERST, Mass. – Three University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an honor bestowed upon members by their peers to recognize their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. The three are: