April 02, 2014

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

Drop in basic research funding for the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the importance of elder care, and new guidelines for genetic testing (read more). 

Must reads

  • An April 1, 2014 Science Insider article reported on a "sharp decrease" in funding for NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). According to the article, "After examining the aims and abstracts of grants funded between 1997 and 2012, her staff found that the portion of NINDS competing grant funding that went to basic research has declined (from 87% to 71%) while applied research rose (from 13% to 29%)."
  • An April 1, 2014 Forbes article highlighted the devastating impact of Alzheimer's on one family and underscored the need for elder planning. According to the article, "Elder planning deals with protecting assets while you’re still alive and perhaps unable to make good decisions. Having someone who is suffering from Alzheimer’s and unable to make decisions is like a living death, for all parties.Elder Care Planning costs money.  But far less than the cost—financial and emotional—of not planning."
  • An April 1, 2014 Scientific American article reported that "The national standard-setting group, the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG), rolled out an updated policy that will allow patients to completely opt out of recommended testing for genetic mutations that could indicate specific disease risks." According to the article, "Many patients will not want to know about their genetic predisposition to diseases, especially those with no treatment such as Alzheimer’s disease...Although the new ACMG recommendations suggest a patient could opt out of—or go forward with—the list as a whole, geneticists and bioethicists are already discussing scenarios where patients may approach such decisions more like a menu, saying they want to know about increased risk of heart disease but not cancer, for example."