August 14, 2015

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

MUST READS

An August 13, 2015 The Guardian article reported that clinical trial volunteers in the UK increased 60% to 22,000 people after the government issued a national dementia challenge. According to the article, “During the last year, almost 22,000 people have taken part in research studies to tackle the condition – a 60% rise – according to figures from the National Institute for Health Research. The increased participation in 100 dementia research projects across the UK will boost scientists in their bid to find new treatments to prevent, treat and eventually cure the illness. Research projects include testing whether antibiotics slow cognitive decline, investigating the role of the immune system in dementia, identifying genetic risk factors and improving end of life care for people with dementia…The boost in participation was in part triggered by the prime minister’s challenge on dementia, launched in March 2012. David Cameron called on the public, charity and private sector to do more to improve diagnosis, care and research into the disease.” Also reported on by BCC News

An August 13, 2015 Care2.com article by Alzheimer’s patient advocate Rick Phelps offered a glimpse into his life with Alzheimer’s. According to Phelps, “I have read that sometimes the posts on the AgingCare.com Caregiver Forum are hard to deal with. Let me tell you what is hard to deal with. Taking your grandchild to school, listening to her stories, and knowing that one day you won’t even recognize her. You will likely not see her graduate, get married or meet her children. Dementia has a predetermined outcome for you. It only takes a little at first—some of your short-term memories. Then, slowly but surely, it takes all of them. In time, it begins to take your long-term memories as well. And in time, dementia will indeed take them all.”


RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

An August 14, 2015 Phys.org article reported on a new method for diagnosing Alzheimer’s via blood samples. According to the article, “Reporting in the Journal of Biophotonics, the team applied near infrared (NIR) Raman microspectroscopy of blood serum together with advanced computer analysis for the selective identification of AD. The researchers analyzed data from 20 AD patients, 18 patients with other neurodegenerative dementias (OD) and 10 healthy control (HC) subjects. NIR Raman microspectroscopy differentiated patients with more than 95 percent sensitivity and specificity.”

An August 13, 2015 Genengnews.com article reported that “Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have identified a novel learning and memory brain network that processes incoming information based on whether it's something we've experienced previously or is deemed to be altogether new and unknown, helping us recognize, for instance, whether the face before us is that of a familiar friend or a complete stranger.” According to the study author Adrian Gilmore, “This makes it a really promising target for future research in areas such as education or Alzheimer's research, where we want to foster or improve memory performance broadly, rather than focusing on specific tasks."

An August 11, 2015 Xconomy.com article reported that “A system that uses electronic health records data to better match eligible patients with clinical trials took the top prize in the first round of the Clinical Trial Innovation Prize, an initiative that is crowdsourcing ideas from around the globe to try and boost clinical trial participation.”