Berlin - Dementia has many facets. Memory loss and personality changes are among the most typical.

People affected by dementia behave differently than their loved ones are used to, and it's not uncommon for the loss of intimacy to be the the worst thing about the condition. In the advanced stages of the disease, the victim cannot recognize their spouse or their children. Sometimes the caregiver is mistaken for the partner.

Heidelberg - Sleeping uninterruptedly through the night is considered healthy. But a new study shows that multiple nightly visits to the bathroom can help keep a person healthy.

Researchers in the United States have discovered noticeably reduced risks of bladder cancer among people who have a strong need to urinate during the night.

People who go to the bathroom at least twice nightly reduce their

risk of cancer risk by around 40 per cent for men and around 50 per cent for women and were more marked among smokers than non-smokers.

Washington - Online scammers are out in full force these days. They'll try to dupe you by e-mail or through websites. And they typically want one of two things: your money or your personal information. To make sure you don't give them either, you need to keep abreast of some of the tricks they're using. Read on to learn about a few.

Q: I received an e-mail from what appears to be my credit card company. The e-mail says that my credit card was used in a number of fraudulent transactions, and a few were listed that do appear fraudulent. There's a Word attachment that the company wants me to fill out and return. Is this a scam?

Bogota - After eight years in captivity, the former Colombian parliamentarian Oscar Tulio Lizcano managed to flee his captors, the left-wing FARC rebels, with the help of his guard, the country's top defence official said Sunday.

Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos said Lizcano and a FARC member with the alias of Isaza fled three days ago in the jungles of western Colombia and encountered a military unit, which brought them to safety.

Tokyo - Tokyo's stock market opened Monday morning with light trading amidst a nervous mood among investors.

The Nikkei Index dropped 19.27 points in the first 18 minutes, or 0.25 per cent, to 7,629.81 points.

That was up from the opening figure, which had sunk beneath 7,500 - the lowest point since Japan's own speculation bubble burst in the early 1990s.

Investors were bracing for the release of new projections this week from Sony and other companies that will reduce expectations.