August 21, 2014

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

ALS co-founder calls for a commitment to fight brain diseases like ALS and Alzheimer's, the growth in Alzheimer's related fiction, and Alzheimer's patients will receive young blood transfusions as part of a Stanford School of Medicine clinical trial (read more). 
 

Must reads

  • An August 20, 2014 USA Today opinion piece by Valerie Estess, co-founder and director of research at Project A.L.S., underscored the need to fight brain diseases like ALS, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's. According to Estess, "Your self-inflicted ice baths have served as a major wake up call to the nation. Experts say that unless we commit ourselves now to aggressive, collaborative brain disease research, by the year 2025, a staggering 1 in 25 American adults will be diagnosed with ALS, or the closely related Alzheimer's or Parkinson's diseases. The truth is that soon you will know, dearly love or be someone with a brain disease that is poorly understood, and for which effective treatments and cures remain at a painful distance."
  • An August 20, 2014 The New Yorker article highlighted a growth in Alzheimer's fiction as the "disease becomes increasingly commonplace." According to the article, "Turning to fiction for answers is an instinct that I share with other caretakers. While Alzheimer’s has been the subject of many excellent works of journalism and memoir (my favorites are David Shenk’s “The Forgetting: Alzheimer’s: Portrait of an Epidemic,” Thomas DeBaggio’s “Losing My Mind: An Intimate Look at Life with Alzheimer’s,” John Bayley’s “Elegy for Iris,” and Diane Keaton’s “Then Again”), it is a disease that uniquely thwarts our ability to comprehend it through traditional modes of investigation…As baby boomers approach their seventies and Alzheimer’s disease becomes increasingly commonplace, more and more fiction writers are attempting to reach into that obscure space. The arrival of the greatest Alzheimer’s novel yet, Matthew Thomas’s visionary and challenging “We Are Not Ourselves,” seems like a good occasion to reassess the burgeoning genre and determine what its writers can and can’t tell us about the fate of the self as it succumbs to a disease that attacks the very seat of selfhood."
  • An August 20, 2014 Gizmodo article reported that the Stanford School of Medicine will start blood transfusion human trials for Alzheimer's patients. According to the article, "Patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's will receive blood plasma donated by volunteers 30 or younger. Despite vampiric-sounding premise, approval for human trials were quite easy to get, the study's head Tony Wyss-Coray tells New Scientist. After all, we've been giving blood transfusions for long time—just without studying all the health effects."
Regional 
  • An August 20, 2014 The Meridian Star (MS) article reported that "More than 400 Alzheimer's Disease caregivers and health care professionals are visiting Meridian this week to learn how they can 'Make Every Day Count' in coping with the disease." According to the article, "A legislative forum will be held today to discuss state laws during the past two years that affect caregivers and Alzheimer's patients, she said. Sen. Terry Burton is among area state legislators who will be on hand to talk about laws that affect Alzheimer's families. Burton said he introduced a resolution during the most recent legislative term to organize a task force to look at the issue of caregiver support. It's not just for Alzheimer's caregivers, but also for other caregivers who have older parents, a spouse, or others who need help."