TUESDAY, Aug. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Yearly changes in a person's performance on cognitive testing may be associated with dementia, new research suggests.

Using a newly developed model to assess the effect of variations in a person's score from year to year, researchers found that just a one point change in variability on cognitive test scores could indicate as much as a fourfold increase in the risk of developing dementia.

MONDAY, Aug. 18 (HealthDay News) -- Having epilepsy might put you at a significantly higher risk for death by drowning, a new report says.

The study, which looked at information compiled from all over the world, found that epileptics had a 15 to 19 times greater chance of drowning compared with the general population. Epileptics with a learning disability, those in institutional care and those who have had brain surgery were at the greatest risk, according to the study published in the Aug. 19 issue of Neurology.

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Women 60 and older taking the hormone-replacement therapy drug tibolone to relieve menopausal symptoms are at an increased risk for stroke, a new study finds.

Tibolone is a synthetic drug that acts like the female hormones estrogen and progesterone in relieving menopausal symptoms. But, unlike estrogen and progesterone, it also reduces the risk of some cancers, the study authors said.

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 13 (HealthDay News) -- About one in 100 American adults has active epilepsy and more than one-third of those with epilepsy aren't receiving adequate treatment, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study that examined the prevalence of epilepsy or seizure disorders among more than 120,000 adults in 19 states.

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Physical frailty among the elderly may be linked to early Alzheimer's disease, regardless of whether or not patients develop dementia, new research reveals.

The finding, based on brain autopsies of deceased elderly patients, raises the notion that motor impairment in the elderly is an early symptom of Alzheimer's -- one that appears before mental decline.

It could also turn out to be that frailty and Alzheimer's are not directly linked but stem from a common origin, researchers say.

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Residues of two insecticides widely used on golf courses do not pose a health risk, new research says.

Sevin SL (using the active ingredient carbaryl) and Dursban Pro (chlorpyrifos), when applied at the maximum U.S.-approved label rate and followed with irrigation, are of little concern to golfers, according to findings published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

TUESDAY, Aug. 12 (HealthDay News) -- PET scans may provide doctors with a non-invasive method of detecting Alzheimer's disease-related brain plaques, Finnish researchers say.

Currently, the only reliable way to assess the presence of such plaques is through analysis of brain tissue samples obtained when a patient is alive or after death. In their study, University of Kuopio researchers examined 10 patients without severe dementia who'd undergone a biopsy of their brain's frontal cortex to check for normal-pressure hydrocephalus, an abnormal increase of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain.

LOS ANGELES - "Tropic Thunder" is pushing the envelope too far for groups representing the mentally disabled.

Dozens of people from organizations such as the Special Olympics and the American Association of People with Disabilities protested the movie-industry spoof across the street from the film's Los Angeles premiere at Mann's Bruin Theatre on Monday. The protesters held up signs with slogans such as "Call me by my name, not by my label" and chanted phrases like "Ban the movie, ban the word."

MONDAY, Aug. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Living a healthy lifestyle can cut your risk of stroke by about 80 percent, new research suggests.

THURSDAY, Aug. 7 (HealthDay News) -- Many children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) interact more easily with mechanical devices than with humans, according to new reports.

Researchers at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, who have presented their finding at various conferences in the United States and in Europe this summer, found that Socially Assisted Robotics (SAR) that blow bubbles, toot horns and even make facial expressions appear to increase the child's speech and interaction levels.