USA2 SPOTLIGHT

A November 20, 2019 CISION PR Newswire news release announced that UsAgainstAlzheimer’s Chairman and Co-Founder George Vradenburg will be a keynote speaker at the 2019 Washington Innovation in Longevity Summit in December in Washington, DC. Find full summit information here. Register here.

A November 20, 2019 UsAgainstAlzheimer’s press release urged the passage of federal legislation to improve early detection and diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. The CHANGE Act, which requires testing for cognitive impairment and progression tracking, would incentivize and equip healthcare providers to accurately diagnose Alzheimer’s at its earliest stages. “Growing interest for early detection and diagnosis needs to be turned into passage of the CHANGE Act; bipartisan support for increased federal funding for Alzheimer’s research must be continued in the 2020 appropriations bill; and hopeful signs of progress in therapies to treat early stages of the disease must be reviewed quickly but thoroughly by federal regulators,” said UsA2 Chairman and Co-Founder George Vradenburg.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

A November 20, 2019 Science Magazine article highlighted challenges which have arisen as a result of the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, the European online privacy law. EU institutions may only collaborate with researchers who can guarantee data safeguards, and the NIH, for example, will not allow European audits of their data systems or submit to the jurisdiction of its courts. According to the article, “Neuroscientist Sudha Seshadri of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio is one of the co-founders of the International Genomics of Alzheimer's Project, which has gathered DNA sequences from more than 90,000 people in Europe and the United States to find genetic variants associated with Alzheimer's disease. She says partners in some EU nations have restricted data sharing, so the consortium now runs separate analyses on each side of the Atlantic Ocean.”

MUST READS

A November 20, 2019 Time Magazine article by Jay Newton-Small looked at the future of Alzheimer’s disease caregiving solutions. Her late father, who had AD, joked about joining the zombie apocalypse, as his memory deteriorated. According to Newton-Small, “We must devise fundamentally new ways to structure the care of Alzheimer’s patients. We must change how dementia is managed in a way that improves the quality of life of those who have the condition and also keeps it from derailing the lives of loved ones who care for them… If Medicare covered dementia directly, rather than only the secondary symptoms, overall care would be much better, and likely also cheaper. People with dementia would be less isolated, less depressed, and have a better quality of life.”

MUST LISTEN

A November 21, 2019 NPR Short Wave radio segment explored the link between sleep and Alzheimer’s disease. Host Maddie Sofia and science correspondent Jon Hamilton asked researchers if problems with sleep can set the stage for developing AD.