USA2 SPOTLIGHT

According to a May 20, 2019 Yahoo!Finance article, T3D Therapeutics will receive a $9 million grant from the NIA/NIH for their Phase 2 PIONEER (Prospective therapy to Inhibit and Overcome Alzheimer's Disease Neurodegeneration via Brain Energetics and Metabolism Restoration) study on T3D-959, in people with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease. “Given the enormous and growing impact of Alzheimer's on patients and families, there is an urgent need to develop and rigorously evaluate a larger and more diversified portfolio of promising late clinical stage treatments. NIA's support of Phase 2 studies - including this study from T3D Therapeutics - is to be commended and scaled if we are going to achieve our national goal of effectively treating Alzheimer's in the near future,” said UsAgainstAlzheimer's Co-Founder George Vradenburg. Also covered by CISION PR Newswire.

MUST READ

A May 18, 2019 Medical News Today article looked at the World Health Organization’s newly released “Risk Reduction of Cognitive Decline and Dementia” prevention guidelines. The document evaluates 12 possible dementia risk factors and how to address them. According to the guidelines, “The existence of potentially modifiable risk factors means that prevention of dementia is possible through a public health approach, including the implementation of key interventions that delay or slow cognitive decline or dementia. The goal of the action plan is to improve the lives of people with dementia, their carers and families, while decreasing the impact of dementia on them as well as on communities and countries.”

RESEARCH AND SCIENCE

A May 19, 2019 Futurity article highlighted use of new structural MRI technology, allowing scientists at the University of Arizona to see 3D visualization of the brain’s structure. They are studying people with primary progressive aphasia (PPA), a rare neurodegenerative brain disorder, in the hopes of developing new methods of early dementia detection. According to lead study author Aneta Kielar, “Many drugs designed to treat dementia are proving to be not really affective and that might be because we’re detecting the brain damage too late. Often, people don’t come in for help until their neurons are already dead. We can do compensation therapies to delay disease progress, but once brain cells are dead, we can’t get them back.”

REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

A May 20, 2019 Public News Service article reported that the Michigan Dementia Coalition released their “Roadmap for Creating a Dementia Capable Michigan,” to recognize dementia as a ‘public health priority’ and help the state deal with its increasing dementia numbers. The Roadmap will work to promote the wellbeing of people with dementia, increase public awareness about brain health, address rising costs of care, and ensure healthcare and long-term care systems provide high quality service. “We want to improve the communication and the knowledge that people have. Individuals, families, health care providers all across the spectrum. And we think there's a lot of opportunity for us to do that in Michigan,” said Lisa Dedden Cooper of AARP Michigan.

DEMENTIA AND THE ARTS

(ICYMI) An April 24, 2019 JAMA Network article looked at the value of integrating the arts into medical school education, in particular regarding negative attitudes about dementia. Programs fostering painting, poetry, fine art, improv and public museum programs all greatly increased empathy and positively affected medical students’ attitudes toward those living with dementia. According to the article, “After a single 3½-hour [poetry] program, the investigators found significant improvements in attitudes toward people with dementia among the 11 students who participated. The students said they were surprised at a nonbiomedical approach’s effectiveness and that they were more likely to use the words hope, creativity, and humanness to describe people with dementia.”