December 21, 2015

Today's Top News

USA2 SPOTLIGHT 

A December 18, 2015 NRP Latino USA broadcast segment highlighted LatinosAgainstAlzheimer’s patient and caregiver advocate Daisy Duarte. According to the description, “Five years ago, Daisy Duarte’s mom started acting a little differently. Her mother had just lost her job, and the family thought it might be depression. But one night, things got a lot more serious and then they learned the diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer’s disease. According to the Latinos Against Alzheimer’s Network, the number of Latinos with Alzheimer’s will grow by well over 600% to 1.3 million by 2050.”

A December 18, 2015 UsAgainstAlzheimer’s blog post by Ann Napoletan, a founder of UsAgainstAlzheimer's Caregiver Support Group, included tips for dementia and Alzheimer’s caregivers during the holidays. According to the post, “Above all, try to relax. Avoid getting lost in unrealistic expectations and instead focus on creating positive energy and a joyful experience. The most important thing of all is love. It’s so simple; the best gift is your love and attention. Someone living with dementia may forget the visit itself, but the resulting emotions will remain long after. Today is really all any of us have. Make it count.”

MUST READS

A December 21, 2015 NPR Morning Edition broadcast segment highlighted the impact of Alzheimer’s on one family during the holidays. According to the article, “Caregiving is plenty trying without the emotional freight holidays carry, Drew says, and the expectations surrounding a family celebration can make the season feel overwhelming. At this time of year, calls to the helpline become more urgent. ‘If you're calling a helpline on Christmas Eve, you're calling because you really need help.’…Being open with family is important, says Drew. As ever more Americans are diagnosed with the disease – the association estimates some 14 million cases by 2050 – understanding how to navigate difficult holiday situations will only become more important.”

A December 18, 2015 AlzForum.org article reported on NIH’s budget increase for Alzheimer’s research. According to the article, “The budget passed the House and Senate today, and pundits expect President Obama will sign it as early as this afternoon. With this increase, total Alzheimer’s research dollars will have more than doubled in the five years since the U.S. National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA) passed (see Dec 2010 news).” Also reported on by Nature.com 

A December 17, 2015 NPR broadcast segment highlighted the lack of diversity in silicon valley. According to the article, “There are a lot of reasons why minorities are underrepresented in biomedical research, from limited access to specialty care centers where patients are often recruited to trials, to fears of exploitation in medical research. That's based on scandals like the Tuskegee Institute syphilis study, where researchers crossed serious ethical lines with minority subjects…The participant population in all NIH clinical trials combined more or less matches the racial and ethnic makeup of the U.S. But when zooming in on trials of certain diseases, the demographics tend not to mirror reality as well.”

 

RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

A December 21, 2015 TheStar.com article (Canada) outlined 2015’s “top medical advances.” According to the article, “Experiments with a U of T-pioneered surgical technique called deep brain stimulation show great promise in fighting Alzheimer’s and major depression. The idea is to provide a constant electrical charge to the neurons in the brain that are fading in their abilities to send electrical signals to other areas of the brain. For Alzheimer’s, neurosurgeons insert thin electrode wires into regions of the brain associated with early cognitive decline. These areas are given constant electrical stimulation to stop the deterioration of memory and other cognitive abilities.”

A December 20, 2015 StarTribune.com article reported on “new technology…aimed at keeping dementia, Alzheimer’s patients at home.” According to the article, “As the nation faces the specter of a rapidly aging population, rising medical costs and a future shortage of caregivers, technology may be a vital part of the solution. The university’s study centers around a monitoring system developed by Healthsense, a Mendota Heights-based health IT company whose technology is being used by 23,000 people in 33 states.”

A December 18, 2015 NPR broadcast segment reported on Kaiser Permanente's plans to open its own medical school in Southern California in 2019. According to the article, “One big question is whether all these new schools will eventually produce more students than there are medical residency positions — apprenticeship years that are necessary to complete medical training. The federal government, which funds the majority of those residencies through the Medicare program, capped the number of residencies it would pay for in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act.”