August 25, 2015

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

MUST READS

An August 24, 2015 The Washington Post article reported that “A new report on the global dimensions of Alzheimer’s disease says the overall shift toward older societies on the planet means that 9.9 million people will develop dementia every year, a faster pace than previously estimated.” According to the article, “The projected costs for care of people with dementia will also grow. The report says the current cost tops $818 billion and is trending toward a trillion dollars by 2018.”

An August 24, 2015 Consumerist article reported that family is suing American Airlines for negligence after a man with Alzheimer’s went missing. According to the article, “She says a rep for the airline said her father was never listed in their system for special-assistance services, despite the earlier discussion. Authorities were able to view security footage of the airport and found that the man had never passed through security or boarded his planned flight. Police officers searched the airport’s terminals, but found no trace of the man. He had simply disappeared.”


ALZHEIMER'S AND HOLLYWOOD 

An August 24, 2015 Popular Science article reported that University of Kansas' Life Span Institute are collecting speech errors to decipher issues like Alzheimer’s from normal signs of aging. According to the article, “The tip-of-the-tongue errors will be especially helpful, as people tend to experience them more often when they get older. According to Vitevitch, ‘They tell us how the language system is built - for example, that meaning is stored in memory separately from the sound of the words - and they show that memories can be transient - you used the word last week, you can't retrieve the word right now, a few hours later the word comes to you. Older adults often complain they experience these states more often, so studying tip-of-the-tongue states helps us distinguish what happens during normal aging from what happens when certain diseases might be present, such as Alzheimer's disease.’”

An August 24, 2015 Health IT Analytics article highlighted the need for precision medicine to be collaborative to combat complex diseases like Alzheimer’s. According to the article, “Since the beginning of the year, precision medicine has become an important rallying point for researchers hoping to conquer some of medicine’s most elusive goals. Cures for stubborn and devastating conditions such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, autism, and diabetes are squarely in the sights of researchers who are using gene sequencing and supercomputing power to mine vast stores of information, including big data from EHRs, mobile devices, and other large data sets.”