July 17, 2015

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

MUST READS 

A July 16, 2015 Concord Monitor article reported that Hillary Clinton’s first New Hampshire town hall included a question about Alzheimer’s. According to the article, “When another questioner told Clinton she was a caregiver for a husband and parent with Alzheimer’s disease, Clinton called for more medical research and more support for family caregivers – and also mentioned that she, too, had a friend who was caring for a spouse with the disease.”

A July 16, 2015 CBS News article reported that “Alzheimer's disease seems to develop differently in the brains of black patients than in whites.” According to the article, “Autopsies of black and white Alzheimer's patients revealed that blacks were more likely than whites to experience a mix of dementia-related changes, as opposed to the damage usually associated with "pure" Alzheimer's dementia, according to the study.”


RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

A July 16, 2015 ABC 6 Philadelphia article reported that University of Philadelphia researchers have “discovered that Tau proteins get misfolded and cause tangled information to spread from cell to cell.” According to the article, “Knowing that means it may be possible to stop the cell to cell spread…If they succeed with their theories on mice, it may one day lead to a human application. That's exciting to this team because even if they just block the cell to cell spread for five years,that would effectively be a cure for Alzheimer’s.”

A July 16, 2015 Swiss Info article reported that “Biogen Inc. agreed to buy a manufacturing plant from Eisai Co. as it boosts its capacity for making drugs, including a potentially popular treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.”

A July 10, 2015 Washington Post letter-to-the-editor called for stronger dementia friendly language in reporting about Alzheimer’s and dementia. According to the author, “Escaping dementia doesn’t mean we escape the 100 percent terminal condition of being human, and words count. This article included fear-drenched language: “robs,” “dreaded,” “erosion,” “nightmare,” “burden” and “in some ways worse [than death].” This condition is already challenging. Rather than demonizing dementia, let’s put our energy into building dementia-friendly communities and accepting our mortality with courage, grace and, yes, humor.”