MUST READS

A December 8, 2017 Neurology Advisor article reported that researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands looked at whether or not amyloid aggregation is associated with cognitive functioning. "Although low memory scores are an early marker of amyloid positivity, their value as a screening measure for early Alzheimer's disease among persons without dementia is limited.” 

According to a December 7, 2017 NBC News article, UCLA biostatisticians approximate that nearly 50 million Americans could be in the early stages leading to Alzheimer’s disease. According to the National Institutes of Health, which co-funded the study, “For the first time, scientists have attempted to account for numbers of people with biomarkers or other evidence of possible preclinical Alzheimer’s disease, but who do not have impairment or Alzheimer’s dementia. People with such signs of preclinical disease are at increased risk to develop Alzheimer’s dementia.”

A December 7, 2017 AlzForum article focused on the 10th Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) conference last month in Boston. The main topic was how to apply a new understanding of Alzheimer’s pre-dementia stages toward running better therapeutic trials, including efforts to identify, engage, and characterize asymptomatic, at-risk participants. According to Reisa Sperling of Harvard Medical School, “The great advance over the past 10 years since CTAD began is that we now know that AD really is a continuum. It begins well before what we recognize clinically as dementia and even before the stage we recognize as prodromal. So the question has become: How can we treat the presymptomatic stage? This may be our best opportunity to bend the curve toward normal aging.”

REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

A December 7, 2017 Albuquerque Journal article spotlighted the opening of the Memory and Aging Center at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, bringing together specialists from the departments of neurology, internal medicine and psychiatry. Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Center offers comprehensive clinical and research services for the 43,000 New Mexicans living with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia including neurological evaluations, treatment plans and family resources, as well as clinical trials.