USA2 SPOTLIGHT 

The June edition of the journal Health and Social Care Chaplaincy included a book review of Seasons of Caring published byClergyAgainstAlzheimer’s. According to the review, “So what is unique about this book? First, it has around 70 contributors. These contributors come not only from groups which would be expected, such as Judaism, Catholicism and mainstream Protestantism, but a range of others, including Islam, Buddhism, Unitarianism, Sikhism and what some contributors self-describe as “Interdenominational and Spiritual”. The convenor of the network, in the preface of the book, states: “I have been away from organized religion for forty years”, which reminds us that a lack of religious identification does not preclude an individual identifying as spiritual.”

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A June 18, 2015 Associated Press article (via Yahoo! Finance) reported that Senator Clair McCaskill (D-MO) “is probing retailers and online companies about sales of dubious dietary supplements, especially those promising seniors protection from memory loss, dementia and other age-related problems.” According to the article, “The pills, tablets and formulas targeted by Senator Claire McCaskill bear names like ‘Brain Awake,’ ‘Dementia Drops’ and ‘Food for the Brain,’ which claims to ease ‘forms of dementia such as Alzheimer's disease.’…McCaskill's probe focuses on supplements targeting seniors who are concerned about dementia. More than 5 million people in the U.S. suffer from Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There is no cure and prescription drugs only temporarily ease symptoms.”

A June 17, 2015 Boston Globe opinion piece by author Jonathan Kozol highlighted his connection with his father even in the face of Alzheimer’s. According to Kozol, “The time inevitably came when he could no longer write even fragments of a sentence or convey his meanings with any continuity. Even then, however, his personality — his earnestness and sweetness and a seemingly persistent curiosity about his own condition — remained surprisingly intact. There are those who hold that victims of Alzheimer’s cease to be the persons whom we knew before their sickness — they become “the stranger” — and that it’s naive to think that any real engagement with the essence of a person in that situation is even faintly possible. This may be true in many cases. But my own experience does not conform to that scenario. I’m glad I kept on talking with my father. I’m glad that he so often answered me. And I’m glad that, when the answers stopped, there’s some reason why he kept on smiling.” Jonathan Kozol’s memoir of his father, “The Theft of Memory,’’ was published this month by Crown.

RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

A June 17, 2015 The San Diego Union-Tribune article reported that a new study from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center “suggests that non-fried fish may help prevent brain shrinkage and cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer’s.”

A June 17, 2015 FoxNews.com article reported that “Researchers in the United Kingdom have studied data from over 100 sets of identical twins and identified a blood protein that may predict whether an individual will develop mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.”