April 01, 2015

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

USA2 SPOTLIGHT

A Spring 2015 issue of Scientific American’s Memory Disorders magazinefeatured an article by USAgainstAlzheimer's Chairman George Vradenburg. According to Vradenburg, “Most importantly, USAgainstAlzheimer’s is hoping to start a conversation about Alzheimer’s and other dementias, to raise consciousness about a health crisis that is creating a soon-to-hit tsunami in this country and around the world. Without a cure or the ability to delay the onset of this debilitating disease, we will all suffer the loss of an extraordinary standard of healthcare in our country—the Medicare/Medicaid system will go bankrupt, our economy will be impacted, and the loss of millions of bright and inspiring Baby Boomers will leave us bereft on so many levels. Join me in fighting back. Let your voice be heard!”


MUST READ OPINIONS 

A March 31, 2015 Detroit Free Press opinion piece by Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) underscored the need to help families facing Alzheimer’s disease. According to Sen. Stabenow, “I believe that we must do more to empower doctors, patients and families. We may not have a cure for Alzheimer's, but we can do more to help Americans cope with the disease. So I have introduced bipartisan legislation — the HOPE for Alzheimer's Act — to help combat Alzheimer's disease and support those suffering with this terrible illness. If the bill becomes law, it will ensure that patients with an Alzheimer's diagnosis — and their families — have access to a care-planning session with their doctor. In that session, to be funded through Medicare, the doctor will have the opportunity to explain the diagnosis, offer details about treatment options available and describe what medical and community services and supports are available to the patient and family.”

A March 31, 2015 The Hill opinion piece by Mark Mellman called for a better understanding of statistics in medical research. According to Mellman, “When regular folks don’t understand statistics, they can be misled. When pollsters don’t understand statistics, they can lose races that should have been won. When doctors don’t understand statistics, people can suffer…It’s a problem played out repeatedly in journal articles and media accounts of medical research…We’d all love an Alzheimer’s test too. A group of British researchers obliged, with a study claiming it had identified proteins that could distinguish patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) who later developed the disease from MCI patients whose faculties did not decline. Indeed, the researchers claimed it predicted whether a patient developed Alzheimer’s 87 percent of the time. That sounds pretty darned accurate. Consider this, however: Only 10 percent of those with MCI develop Alzheimer’s. If you simply predicted that none of these patients would get the dreaded disease, you would be accurate an even better 90 percent of the time. So what’s going on here? With 100 MCI patients, 10 will develop Alzheimer’s — the true positives — and 90 will not — the true negatives. This test will falsely identify 29 percent of the 90 true negatives, or 26 cases, as people who will develop the disease. Meanwhile, nearly nine of the 10 true positives will be correctly identified (the 87 percent accuracy).That means only a quarter of those predicted to get Alzheimer’s will actually develop the disease.” Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982.


FINANCIAL PLANNING 

A March 31, 2015 The Wall Street Journal article reported on the importance of “incapacity directives” as dementia and Alzheimer’s grows. According to the article, “Since then, she has required every client--no matter their age--to sign an “incapacity directive,” which outlines a plan of action in case a client becomes incapable of making financial decisions. Each directive establishes a communication tree of people the adviser can contact should she suspect that something is amiss. The directive gives the client the option of being contacted first, followed by whomever they have given power of attorney. The list also can include family members, religious advisers, physicians, attorneys, accountants and friends…In the case of her retired client, his directive instructed Ms. Holland to contact his client’s wife after speaking to him. “I talked to her and she admitted that she knew something wasn’t right,” says the adviser. This conversation spurred the couple to see a cognitive specialist, who determined that the client had early onset Alzheimer’s. After the diagnosis, the couple sat down with Ms. Holland to review their financial plan for potential issues. In the end, no changes were necessary: The wife had power of attorney and could take over the management of the family finances. But the incapacity directive gave the adviser an entree into a difficult conversation that ultimately led the clients to take important action for their lives.”

A March 31, 2015 CNBC article reported on the unique challenges that sandwich generation caregivers face, including financial planning. According to the article, “Rehg is a member of the so-called sandwich generation, generally defined as those in their 40s and 50s who are squeezed between caring for both their own children and their aging parents. The financial and emotional cost of care can be overwhelming. Rehg's mother, 80, suffers from mild dementia, severe anxiety and manic behaviors that now are treated properly. But prior to the phone call, her mom's anxiety had become so debilitating that she began calling Rehg's cell phone upward of 200 times a day…Financial advisors say that in addition to the emotional drain, "sandwichers" may also face a financial burden if they haven't taken an interest in the steps parents have put in place to ensure they receive proper care. "It's important to talk about financial things, but allow your parents some space," said Rita Cheng, a certified financial planner and chief executive of Blue Ocean Global Wealth. "You don't need to be completely involved in their business, because they still want to be independent and in charge," she said. "But ultimately, if they want to be in charge of how they are cared for, they need to be proactive and plan for it.””


RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY  

A March 31, 2015 NIH Statement announced that a repurposed experimental cancer drug restored brain function in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. According to the statement, “Scientists have found that a compound originally developed as a cancer therapy potentially could be used to treat Alzheimer’s disease. The team demonstrated that the drug, saracatinib, restores memory loss and reverses brain problems in mouse models of Alzheimer’s, and now the researchers are testing saracatinib’s effectiveness in humans. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health as part of an innovative crowdsourcing initiative to repurpose experimental drugs.”

A March 31, 2015 The New York Times article reported on patients owning and leveraging their medical data. According to the article, “Steven Keating’s doctors and medical experts view him as a citizen of the future. A scan of his brain eight years ago revealed a slight abnormality — nothing to worry about, he was told, but worth monitoring. And monitor he did, reading and studying about brain structure, function and wayward cells, and obtaining a follow-up scan in 2010, which showed no trouble…At every stage, Mr. Keating, a 26-year-old doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, has pushed and prodded to get his medical information, collecting an estimated 70 gigabytes of his own patient data by now. His case points to what medical experts say could be gained if patients had full and easier access to their medical information. Better-informed patients, they say, are more likely to take better care of themselves, comply with prescription drug regimens and even detect early-warning signals of illness, as Mr. Keating did…Since his diagnosis last summer, Mr. Keating has become a passionate advocate for giving patients all the medical data they ask for. He has given talks at M.I.T., where he studies mechanical engineering, he has met with doctors, hospital administrators and researchers, and he has been invited to the White House.”

A March 30, 2015 The New York Times Well Blog reported that “The vast majority of clinical trials involving fish oil have found no evidence that it lowers the risk of heart attack and stroke.” According to the article, “But some experts say the case for fish oil remains open. Dr. JoAnn Manson, the chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said the large clinical trials of fish oil focused only on people who already had heart disease or were at very high risk. Fish oil has also been promoted for the prevention of a variety of other conditions, including cancer, Alzheimer’s and depression. Dr. Manson is leading a five-year clinical trial, called the Vital study, of 26,000 people who are more representative of the general population. Set to be completed next year, it will determine whether fish oil and vitamin D, separately or combined, have any effect on the long-term prevention of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and other diseases in people who do not have many strong risk factors.”


INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT 

A March 31, 2015 Life Science Leader article profiled Lori Abrams and her efforts to establish Bristol-Myers Squibb’s office of advocacy, diversity, and patient engagement. According to the article, “For many individuals, engaging with patient advocacy groups might be considered one of the most difficult aspects of the job. For Abrams, the work she did with these groups in the past (see sidebar on next page) prepared her well for the role. “This is probably the easiest component of my job,” she says. “There are several methods for identifying the appropriate disease-focused and minority-focused advocacy groups. Once we have developed our strategic plan, we can reach out to the organizations we have not worked with in the past. Generally a preliminary call is made where we identify the goals of the PAG and loosely discuss ours. If there are synergies, we move ahead and begin to build a relationship.””


NOTABLE LOSS 

A March 31, 2015 The Washington Post article reported that Janet L. Norwood, an economist who became the first woman to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, died from complications from Alzheimer’s. According to the article, “Dr. Norwood served from 1979 to 1991 as commissioner of labor statistics, a job whose significance far surpasses the number-crunching suggested by its title. The bureau’s monthly employment reports — and the good or bad tidings they contain — rank among the most awaited, closely watched and politically fraught functions of regular government business.”