USA2 SPOTLIGHT

Join our next Alzheimer's Talks TODAY at 2pm (EST) for a discussion with Karen Lincoln, PhD, of the University of Southern California’s Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, about her pioneering work exploring the effectiveness of different health education approaches on Alzheimer’s knowledge and attitudes. Dr. Lincoln launched a pilot study among African Americans last year. Called BrainWorks, it was the first of its kind to use daily texting to boost knowledge about Alzheimer’s and change attitudes about clinical trials. The results were promising enough that she now has funding to extend her work, seeking ultimately to increase African American participation in Alzheimer’s prevention research.  

MUST READS

In a CBS News “60 Minutes” article and video trailer, "For Better or for Worse,” Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook follows an Alzheimer's patient (Carol) and her caregiver husband (Mike Daly) for 10 years to tell their story. According to the article, “In her first interview, Carol's memory is slipping, but she knows how old she is; she is active and can still do her job at the bank. In just three years, she no longer knows her age and her lack of concentration makes it impossible for her to read or watch movies. As LaPook records her mental and physical decline, he also reports Mike's parallel emotional erosion.” The show will broadcast on Sunday, April 22 at 7:00pm on CBS. Also covered by The Washington Post.

RESEARCH AND SCIENCE

According to an Alzheimer’s News Today article, patients with neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease are at risk of developing PBA (Pseudobulbar Affect), sudden and uncontrollable bursts of emotion such as laughing or crying (which may not reflect how they actually feel). Up to 29 percent of Alzheimer’s disease patients displayed symptoms of PBA in a recent study. Because crying is a prominent feature of PBA, it can be confused with depression.   

CLINICAL TRIAL SPOTLIGHT

An April 18, 2018 South Florida Reporter article spotlighted the NIH-funded Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) study, one of the largest and longest running Alzheimer’s disease trials in history. The Study currently needs 800 people between the ages of 55 and 90 to enroll across the United States and in Canada. No medication is involved, and researchers are seeking people with normal thinking and memory function, people with mild memory problems, and those with mild dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease. 

REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

An April 19, 2018 New York Post article reported former Yankees left-hander and All-Star Fritz Peterson has Alzheimer’s disease. He lives in Iowa and is working with doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. According to the article, “He still has his tremendous sense of humor, and if a subject comes up that he doesn’t want to talk about with friends, he says he just says, “Alzheimer’s’’ and leaves it at that.”

An April 13, 2018 University of Minnesota article and video segment spotlighted U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, who met with University of Minnesota Medical School Alzheimer’s researchers to see the latest work being done in the lab. According to Klobuchar, “There’s a lot of great teamwork. That incredible draw of the experience from all over the world, getting the best researchers to work on this. I am just so pleased we’ve got some federal funding coming here to the U.”