June 08, 2015

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

MUST READS AND WATCH

Must WatchA June 6, 2015 AAP.com feature and video segment “offers a glimpse of what Alzheimer's disease looks like from the outside; what we can see and hear and what loved ones and caregivers attend to every day.”

A June 5, 2015 Alzheimer’s Society blog post reported that “The latest Global Burden of Disease Study found a 92 per cent increase in dementia-related early death and years lived with disability between 1990 and 2013.” According to Dr. James Pickett, Head of Research at Alzheimer's Society, “In less than a quarter of a century we have seen a staggering increase in the number of people living with dementia globally. With an ageing population, dementia is fast becoming the biggest health and social care challenge of this generation.” Read the study here [behind paywall]. 


CAREGIVING 

A June 2015 report from the National Alliance for Caregiving provides “new insights into higher-hour caregivers (at least 21 hours of care a week), caregivers ages 75 and older, multicultural caregivers (including African American/black, Hispanic/Latino, and Asian American/Pacific Islander populations), and the challenges facing caregivers in the workplace.” Read the full report here


GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

A June 5, 2015 CTV News article and broadcast segment reported that the Canadian government and Alzheimer’s Society of Canada launched Dementia Friends Canada on Friday. According to the article, “Dementia Friends Canada encourages Canadians to view a video online and then to sign up to become a "Dementia Friend." The video explains how to spot warning signs of the condition, such as loss of memory, disorientation, changes in mood and behaviour, and trouble speaking. It then explains the best ways to respond to somebody with dementia, such as speaking slowly and maintaining eye contact.”


RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY  

A June 5, 2015 WRAL.com article highlighted Duke University’s efforts to detect Alzheimer’s with an eye scan. According to the article, “Every participant undergoes an exam - not looking into the brain, but into the eye. "As we often say, eyes are the window to the soul," Dr. Heather Whitson, a geriatrician with Duke, said. "We think that eyes may be the window to the brain." Retinal scanning software, developed at Duke, uses optical coherence tomography (OCT) to capture cross-section images of the layers in the retina. Abnormal thinning of layers or evidence of abnormal protein deposits could be the early indicators of the disease, according to doctors.”

A June 5, 2015 Yahoo! Health article reported that “Most people fundamentally misunderstand what happens if you live to be really, really old.” According to the article, “Ask a group of people who among them wants to live to 100, and many would say they would rather die younger, with their health and their mind still intact. But that idea of frailty, illness, and dementia extended over many painful years reflects a fundamental misunderstanding about what life is like for people who have unusually long lives, says Thomas Perls, who for 20 years has directed what is now the largest study of centenarians. "When we started the study, the prevailing wisdom was that because things like Alzheimer's become more common with increasing age ... if you got to 100, everybody would get Alzheimer's," he says. "We quickly disproved that." About one-fifth of the centenarians in the study had "no cognitive impairment at all," but even most of those who were ill at the very end of their lives had been "living independently, cognitively intact, until they were about 93," Perls says.”


READING LIST 

A June 5, 2015 The Washington Post article highlighted a new book by author Jonathan Kozol about his aging parents and his father’s struggle with Alzheimer’s. According to the article, “Harry Kozol, a brilliant Boston neurologist and psychiatrist, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1994. “It was one of the doctors he had trained who made the formal diagnosis of his illness,” writes Kozol’s son, Jonathan, in his moving and thoughtful new book, “The Theft of Memory.” The younger Kozol is a National Book Award-winning author best known for his 50 years of work with vulnerable, underserved schoolchildren and their families. Here, he turns his attention, along with his profoundly humane insights, toward his own parents at the end of their lives…Although both parents experienced decreasing physical and cognitive abilities throughout this period, Jonathan’s love and respect for them did not diminish; nor did his interest in their lives in the present, day to day. Jonathan was shocked, in fact, to learn that very elderly people commonly have others “talking across them, rather than directly to them,” as if they were not physically present or as if they were unconscious.”