January 05, 2017

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

USA2 SPOTLIGHT 

A January 5, 2017 Mercury News article reported on a new Medicare rule that “reimburses doctors for assessing memory loss and helping care planning for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.” According to the article, “After years of pressure from patient advocate groups, starting this month, Medicare will reimburse doctors for the time it takes to test patients with cognitive impairment such as Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, at any stage, and offer information about care planning.” The article quoted UsAgainstAlzheimer’s Chairman George Vradenburg. According to Vradenburg, “‘But many doctors aren’t prepared to help their patients take advantage of the new Medicare rule,’ said George Vradenburg, co-founder and chairman at UsAgainstAlzheimer’s, another national group dedicated to finding and funding a solution to Alzheimer’s. ‘The problem has been that more front-line physicians are not generally trained in the geriatric arts,’ Vradenburg said. So they will first need to learn how to assess these patients before referring them to neurologists or to care plans.”


MUST READS

A January 5, 2017 The Salt Lake Tribune article (via the AP) highlighted the impact of aging on financial decision making. According to the article, “The shift happens at a different pace for everyone, and it can be accelerated by medical conditions such as Alzheimer's and dementia. While some people are capable of managing their own finances throughout their lifetime, others may find their skills suffering…A new study from the University of Alabama, with support from the NEFE, has identified five signs that aging may be impacting someone's financial decision making.”

A January 5, 2017 Medical News Today article reported that “Emerging research highlights a new element that might influence the chances of developing dementia - living close to major, busy roads, such as highways or motorways.”

A January 4, 2017 The Washington Post opinion piece by Thomas C. Südhof, a 2013 Nobel Prize winner in medicine, underscored the need to invest in basic research to better understand and defeat Alzheimer’s. According to Südhof, “Some people see a focus on basic research as insistence on wastefully pursuing knowledge for its own sake. That assessment is false. Basic research provides the underpinnings for any understanding of disease, so we need to reassess how we spend our precious funds for development of therapies. The wisest investment in many cases may be to understand disease biology first and move into clinical trials second, only after we have conceived a rational plan for how to treat a disease. Otherwise, clinical trials risk continuing to be shots in the dark, costly and frustrating not only for scientists but also for patients who badly need new treatments.”

A January 4, 2017 The Scientist article reported that “A study shows that different fibril formations in the brains of deceased patients seem to correlate with various Alzheimer’s disease subtypes.”