May 19, 2015

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

MUST READS AND WATCH 

Must Watch: On Thursday, May 14, 2015, Sen. Moran spoke on the Senate floor about the importance of prioritizing biomedical research supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to confront the staggering challenges of disease and illness. One such challenge is Alzheimer’s disease, a devastating and irreversible brain disease that slowly destroys an individual’s cognitive functioning, including memory and thought. Watch here.

A May 18, 2015 Great Falls Tribune opinion piece by George Carlson, Randy Gray, and John Goodnow called for increased funding for medical research. According to the authors, “Please support this very wise national investment in improving the quality of life for aging Americans and damping down the coming tsunami in costs of care for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. We urge our congressional delegation in Washington to join the movement to reverse the decline in NIH funding and work towards doubling its budget. Montana can also play a crucial role by becoming one of a handful of states that provide meaningful funds for peer-reviewed research grants to scientists in their own states. We urge our governor and Legislature to consider this during the next session in 2017.” George Carlson, PhD, is director of the McLaughlin Research Institute for Biomedical Sciences in Great Falls; Randy Gray, former mayor, is chairman of the McLaughlin board; and John Goodnow is chief executive officer of Benefis Health System.


CARE PERSPECTIVES 

A May 18, 2015 Newsweek article reported on the state of nursing home care across the nation and highlighted low standards of care in the south. According to the article, “Despite decades of scrutiny, the large percentage of low-ranked homes in Texas and across a broad swath of the country, from the Deep South, through the Ohio Valley and into the Northeast, shows that quality in the nation’s nearly 15,500 nursing homes remains highly variable. “Conditions are not changing rapidly enough,” said Robyn Grant, director of public policy at the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care. “We hear frequently about poor nursing homes, and usually they’ve been poor for a long, long time. Why are we allowing these providers to continue?” Consumer advocates cite several culprits for poor care: not enough staff and weak state and federal staffing rules; low pay for workers, resulting in high turnover; feeble financial penalties; and reluctance by state officials to close problem homes for fear of displacing residents.”


RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

A May 18, 2015 Florida International University News article reported that FIU researchers “published news of a scientific breakthrough that could lead to the noninvasive treatment of Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.” According to the article, “Researchers remotely manipulated the electric waves that naturally exist in the brains of mice, a feat that has far-reaching implications for medicine…Using a previously reported FIU-patented technology, researchers began by intravenously administering magneto-electric nanoparticles, or MENs, in mice. With a magnet placed over the head of each subject animal, the particles were pulled through the blood-brain barrier, where they “coupled” the externally created magnetic field with the brain’s intrinsic electric field. This enabled researchers to wirelessly connect their computers and electronics to neurons deep within the brain…In a nod to the increasingly personalized nature of medicine, Khizroev believes that MENs could one day be programmed to accomplish any number of medically related procedures to treat various disorders, among them Alzheimer’s and autism.”