USA2 SPOTLIGHT

UsA2 Founding Board Member and leading Alzheimer’s advocate, Meryl Comer, speaks at the 3rd Annual Promise Garden Luncheon & Spring Fashion Show - all proceeds will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Association. Friday, March 10 at Boca West Country Club. 11am-1:30pm.

MUST READS

A January 20, 2017 Next Avenue article advises what to do after an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Alzheimer’s is the primary dementia-causing illness in the United States. The effects are not restricted to memory, but instead impair every aspect of function and personality. While the news can be shocking, there is help to be found. Since time is precious (patients live an average of two to eight years after diagnosis), there are things to be done immediately to prepare for the future.

A January 19, 2017 New York Times article by Dr. Dhruv Khullar talked about the needs of caregivers, and how doctors like him can and must do more to support them them. According to AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving, the typical family caregiver is a 49-year-old woman caring for an older relative — but nearly a quarter of caregivers are now millennials and are equally likely to be male or female. About one-third of caregivers have a full-time job, and 25 percent work part time. A third provide more than 21 hours of care per week. “There are some 40 million Americans like my patient’s daughter. Every day, they help a parent, grandparent, relative or neighbor with basic needs: dressing, bathing, cooking, medications or transportation. Often, they do some or all of this while working, parenting, or both. And we — as doctors, employers, friends and extended family — aren’t doing enough to help them,” writes Dr. Khullar.

RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY

A January 20, 2017 Cosmos article reports on why getting lost is often a first hint of Alzheimer’s disease. The brain’s so-called grid cells, which map your location like a personal GPS, are poisoned by abnormal clumps of a protein called tau. The finding, published in Neuron today, offers a specific new test for the early stages of the disease and could be useful for testing new drugs. Alzheimer’s disease is like an unsolved murder mystery. For decades, researchers have been fingering two shady suspects: both of them disfigured proteins. “After 40 years, we have to rethink the disease in its entirety,” says Bryce Vissel, a neuroscientist at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia.

DISPARITIES SPOTLIGHT

A January 19, 2017 Westside Gazette article cites author and advocate, Dan Gasby, naming brain health as the greatest 21st Century civil rights issue. He joins forces with the American Brain Foundation (ABF) to raise awareness of the tremendous racial disparities that exist between African Americans and non-Hispanic whites when it comes to the diagnosis, treatment and lack of adequate studies of brain disease. “Our brain health is often directly tied to our socioeconomic status. We need more funding, more awareness and more compassion for the more than 50 million Americans afflicted with brain diseases,” said Gasby, who is the husband and caregiver of B. Smith, a nationally recognized celebrity chef, supermodel and lifestyle maven, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2013.

EVENTS AND RESOURCES

Connected Health Conference - now combining the PCHAlliance Connected Health Conference and Partners Connected Health Symposium. October 25-27, 2017 in Boston, MA at Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center.