Understanding which characteristics of persons with dementia (PWD) and their caregivers are associated with unmet needs can inform strategies to address those needs. Our purpose was to determine the percentage of PWD having unmet needs and significant correlates of unmet needs in PWD.

Cross-sectional data were analyzed using bivariate and hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses.

Participants lived in the greater Baltimore, Maryland and Washington DC suburban area.

A sample of 646 community-living PWD and their informal caregivers participated in an in-home assessment of dementia-related needs.

Unmet needs were identified using the Johns Hopkins Dementia Care Needs Assessment. Correlates of unmet needs were determined using demographic, socioeconomic, clinical, functional and quality of life characteristics of the PWD and their caregivers.

PWD had a mean of 10.6 (±4.8) unmet needs out of 43 items (24.8%). Unmet needs were most common in Home/Personal Safety (97.4%), General Health Care (83.1%), and Daily Activities (73.2%) domains. Higher unmet needs were significantly related to non-white race, lower education, higher cognitive function, more neuropsychiatric symptoms, lower quality of life in PWD, and having caregivers with lower education or who spent fewer hours/week with the PWD.

Unmet needs are common in community-living PWD, and most are non-medical. Home-based dementia care can identify and address PWD’s unmet needs by focusing on care recipients and caregivers to enable PWD to remain safely at home.

Cranial dermal sinuses are rare and occur most frequently in the posterior fossa and along the midline. Likewise, supratentorial dermoid cysts are very uncommon.

We report a unique case of an adult female patient with both a supratentorial dermoid cyst and an incomplete dermal sinus tract.

The patient is a 31-year-old female, who presented with a new onset complex partial seizure. Neuroimaging and surgery revealed a right superior temporal dermoid cyst with an associated dermal sinus tract. Furthermore, the dermal sinus tract was incomplete and had no cutaneous manifestations.

We present a rare patient with an off midline supratentorial dermoid cyst associated with a uniquely incomplete cranial dermal sinus tract. The dermal sinus tract involved the bone, dura and intradural compartment, without involving the overlying skin. This represents a novel variant in the spectrum of cranial dermal sinus abnormalities.

Neuropsychological abnormalities in schizophrenia are well replicated and are present in unaffected relatives. Cognitive findings in bipolar disorder are less clearly established.

To examine the possibility that these abnormalities may provide a means by which the disorders might be separated and to clarify the associations of phenotypic expression and genetic liability.

A neuropsychological test battery was administered to 50 control participants, 74 patients and 76 unaffected relatives recruited for the study. Patients included those with schizophrenia from families affected by schizophrenia alone, those with bipolar disorder from families affected by bipolar disorder alone and those with bipolar disorder from families affected by both disorders. Unaffected relatives were also recruited.

Current, verbal and premorbid IQ were impaired in people with schizophrenia and in their close relatives. Memory was impaired in all patient and relative groups. Psychomotor performance and performance IQ were impaired in patients, regardless of diagnosis.

This study finds evidence that intellectual abnormalities are related to a genetic liability to schizophrenia. Abnormalities of memory appear to be related to an increased liability to psychosis in general. No impairment was specific to bipolar disorder.