September 24, 2013
Today's Top Alzheimer's News
Don Campbell calls for a war on Alzheimer's, greater Alzheimer's drug efficacy needed, and the use of audio clips to diagnose Alzheimer's (read more).
Must reads
- A September 23, 2013 Montgomery Advertiser (AL) opinion piece by Don Campbell called for a war on Alzheimer's. According to Campbell, "This country is famous for waging health-related “wars” — a war on cancer, a war on smoking, a war on HIV/AIDs, a war on obesity.It’s time we launched a serious war on Alzheimer’s disease. Right now, we’re pursuing a “national plan to address” Alzheimer’s, passed by Congress two years ago. It’s a timid plan, having produced a lot of bureaucratic boilerplate but only a paltry increase in federal funding for research into the insidious disease."
- A September 23, 2013 Drug Discovery & Development article reported on the need for greater efficacy in Alzheimer's drugs. According to the article, "Drugs offering a greater effect on cognition and those offering a greater effect on function compared with current treatments remain the top unmet needs in the treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD), according to a survey of U.S. and European neurologists conducted by Decision Resources LLC. Currently available therapies alleviate some cognitive and functional symptoms associated with AD over the short-term, but do not slow disease progression, thus underscoring the remaining unmet need for more efficacious alternatives, which could be either symptomatic or disease-modifying."
- A September 23, 2013 Innovation Trail article reported on the use of audio recordings and analysis to diagnose Alzheimer's. According to the article, "David Shaffer is looking for Alzheimer’s patients so he can record their voices. Shaffer believes if he can get enough samples and enough funding, he could pinpoint how a deteriorating brain reveals itself in speech patterns, because so much of the brain is involved in speaking."