December 20, 2017

Today’s Top Alzheimer’s News

MUST READS

A December 20, 2017 Newsday video segment and article took a peek inside the home of a Long Island family, as they prepare for the holidays with a family member who has dementia. More than 50,000 people on Long Island have Alzheimer’s or a related dementia, with thousands of caregivers. Traditions and memories can be an important point of connecting with loved ones with dementia.



A December 20, 2017 Medical Xpress article reported that there is no “magic bullet” to prevent Alzheimer’s or other dementias, according to researchers at the Minnesota Evidence-Based Practice Center in Minneapolis. Healthy living is the best defense against dementia—eating right, exercising, treating health problems such as high blood pressure and remaining socially active. "Finally, somebody had the guts to state the fact that we don't understand what's going on with dementia and Alzheimer’s… We have to go back to the bench and reinvent the pathology, reinvent everything about Alzheimer's and these types of dementias,” said Alzheimer’s researcher Dr. Luca Giliberto of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research.



A December 19, 2017 Wired article spotlighted a digi­tal eldercare service, CareCoach, where a human-powered avatar watches over a homebound person 24 hours a day. Created by Victor Wang (inspired by the needs of his grandmother who had Lewy body dementia) and Shuo Deng, the avatar is seen as “something between human, pet, and machine—what some roboticists call a third ontological category.” According to the article, “CareCoach workers are part free­wheeling raconteurs, part human natural-­language processors, listening to and deciphering their charges’ speech patterns or nudging the person back on track if they veer off topic.” The service is used by hospitals and health plans across Massachusetts, California, New York, South Carolina, Florida and Washington.


MUST WATCH

A December 19, 2017 KSDK/NBC “5 On Your Side” broadcast segment revealed the love story of Lois and B.E. Thompson, both 98 and married 80 years. B.E. is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease and Lois is right by his side, even at her own 80th wedding anniversary party. “I’ll be right here, I’m not going anywhere,” Lois tells him.   


RESEARCH, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

According to a December 19, 2017 Health Data Management article, BioSymetrics is launching Augusta, a platform to automate and standardize diverse types of data for analytical efforts. Augusta is “a proprietary technology that enables standardized processing and integration of diverse raw data types, with the intent of facilitating rapid deployment of artificial intelligence projects in precision medicine, health data applications and drug discovery.” According to BioSymetrics’ Chief Scientific Officer Gabriel Musso, much of the platform came from research into Alzheimer’s disease.


CAREGIVING CORNER

A December 19, 2017 Fairborn Daily Herald article highlighted a novel approach to studying dementia caregiver burnout involving word games, computer apps and skin sensors. A three-year, $500,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health is fueling the project, which began in 2014, focusing on how to use technology in a non-intrusive way to monitor chronic conditions of dementia patients and measure caregiver stress, with the goal of enabling patients and caregivers to stay in their homes and maintain a high quality of life longer. By measuring heart rate and breathing, the Hexoskin vest detects changes in patients such as activity patterns, and behaviors including agitation, depression and apathy. Caregivers wear a Fitbit-like device to detect stress, and use gaming technology to determine changes in game-play patterns.