USA2 SPOTLIGHT 

A July 13, 2015 The White House Conference on Aging Fact Sheet highlighted the work of UsAgainstAlzheimer’s and Dementia Friendly America. According to the fact sheet, “In addition, the Dementia Friendly America Initiative, led by Collective Action Lab, in partnership with USAgainst Alzheimers, the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota announced plans to support dementia friendly communities across the country and to expand to 15 additional pilot sites across the country. This work is based on a model implemented in Minnesota through which communities across the state are actively working to increase dementia awareness and implement strategies to help support individuals in the community with dementia and their family caregivers.”

MUST READS

A July 13, 2015 The Atlantic article reported on how Republicans and Democrats in the House found “improbable common ground” to pass the 21st Century Cures Act. According to the article, “The 21st Century Cures Act had earlier passed through the committee on a 51-0 vote. Almost nothing except the most innocuous non-binding resolution gets unanimity in the sharply polarized Congress. But this bill is a substantive and substantial one, making the committee action truly notable. It happened because Chairman Upton and his Democratic partner on the bill, Colorado’s Diana DeGette, worked for months to find common ground, and did it the right way—through deliberation and give-and-take, and by bringing in other committee members, keeping them in the loop, and incorporating their ideas. And it happened because the substantive area—expediting research and development on debilitating diseases, and making it easier to get important treatments to the patients who need them—was a natural for bipartisan cooperation…Second, there are few more cost-effective ways to spend taxpayer dollars than on medical and scientific research. That approach is now more important than ever, when the cuts in research dollars and the assaults on federal agencies have taken away many of the incentives for young, brilliant scientists to go into medical research. Third, the need to enhance research in areas like Alzheimer’s is especially acute and urgent. Newt Gingrich has pointed out that if we do not make progress combatting the scourge of Alzheimer’s, the costs to the country as Baby Boomers age will be $20 trillion or more—which does not include the human costs, just the money to care for patients.”

A July 13, 2015 Forbes article reported that the White House Conference on Aging addressed critical caregiving issues like long-term care. According to the article, “The conference’s planners made it clear that improving the care-giving infrastructure in the country would be a major priority when it released a “policy brief” on the topic leading into today’s conference. About 7.7 million of older Americans receive assistance with their care needs, yet only 1.1 million of them live in nursing homes or other facilities that provide full-time care, according to the policy brief. The rest receive support from friends, family members or in-home health providers. Among the professionals in that group, job dissatisfaction is so high that recruiting and retaining a skilled workforce is getting more difficult by the day.”

RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

A July 13, 2015 Medical Xpress article reported that new research from the Indiana University School of Medicine finds that “the best-known genetic variant linked to Alzheimer's disease may be ‘at work’ promoting deposits of plaque in the brain long before any symptoms of the disease can be measured on tests.”

A July 13, 2015 Medical Xpress article highlighted on a unique study that “looked at how couples affected by [Alzheimer’s] maintained their relationships, over the course of many years of marriage, and uncovered 10 patterns of communication that help couples sustain engagement in their relationships.”