December 27, 2013

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

Five reasons 2013 was a good year to grow old, the link between concussions and Alzheimer's, and the impact of hospice care on skyrocketing Medicare costs (read more).  

 

 

Must reads

  • A December 27, 2013 Fiscal Times article by Michael Hodin included the G8's dementia summit on a list of five reasons 2013 was a good year to grow old. According to Hodin, "The G8 met this December in London to discuss how to spearhead a global initiative to beat Alzheimer’s by 2025, the exploding health challenge of the 21st century because of its near-perfect correlation to aging. Today, one in three people is at risk of getting Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia. The OECD has been working with Oxford University, and the WHO, the UN, APEC, the EU and other multi-national organizations are recognizing that national success is intimately interwoven with the success of aging populations. New initiatives, programs and agendas are being formed, and older people are at the center of it all."
  • A December 27, 2013 Scranton Times-Tribune editorial called on congress to invest in Alzheimer's research and awareness. According to the editorial, "According to the American advocacy group USAgainst Alzheimer's, 44 million people worldwide have the disease, and without progress that number would climb to 135 million by 2050…Congress should increase the research commitment and adopt other recommendations from the summit, especially helping to ensure that more Americans have the opportunity to enroll in clinical trials for treatment. As the leading global center of biomedical research, the United States has a special role to play in eradicating this dreaded disease." 
  • A December 26, 2013 USA Today article reported that a new study suggest that "Having a serious concussion could be a risk factor for developing Alzheimer's decades later – though not everyone with head trauma will lose their memory." According to the article, "A team from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minn., conducted brain scans on 448 older Minnesotans who had no signs of memory problems and 141 who did. Roughly 17% in both groups had had a brain injury earlier in life involving some loss of consciousness or memory."
  • A December 26, 2013 Washington Post article reported on the impact of hospice care costs on Medicare. According to the article, "In 2008, MedPAC, the Medicare watchdog, noted that hospices were enrolling patients with diseases that were harder to define, resulting in long stays.“Growth in hospice use was more rapid for patients with Alz­heimer’s disease and other generalized . . . disorders associated with long hospice stays than for other terminal diseases such as cancer and congestive heart failure,” it reported in 2008, adding that “there appear to be financial incentives in Medicare’s hospice payment system that make such patients attractive.”"