August 20, 2014

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

The difficult and personal decision to test for early onset Alzheimer's, AARP releases new report that documents unique stressors family caregivers face when helping to manage dementia and other cognitive conditions, and the dangers of driving with dementia (read more). 

Must reads

  • An August 19, 2014 Time article profiled author Mathew Thomas' decision not to be tested for early onset Alzheimer's. According to Thomas, "Modern life is all about making us forget we’re capable of dying. We love to feel in control of our mortality, even if we understand that that control is only an illusion. Alzheimer’s disease is the opposite of modern life. It’s the ascendancy of entropy and chaos. My father’s disease had a devastating effect on our family…After some deliberation, I’ve decided not to get genetic testing done. Instead, I’m going to try to live every day as if I know that I’m dying. The fact is, we are all dying. If I try to wring the most I can out of every moment, if I set aside time every day that my wife and I keep as inviolate as possible, if I give my wife and children quality interactions whenever we’re in the same room, if I leave the smartphone on the counter and realize there is no information more important than the information I get in my interactions with my loved ones, then how different is any of that from what I’d do if I knew I was getting Alzheimer’s?" 
  • An August 19, 2014 AARP post announced a new report that documents the unique stressors family caregivers face when helping to manage dementia and other cognitive conditions. According to the article, "The United Hospital Fund and AARP Public Policy Institute issued a report today with compelling new evidence that family caregivers who provide complex chronic care to people who also have cognitive and behavioral health conditions face particularly demanding challenges, including high levels of self-reported depression. As a result, a majority of them (61 percent) reported feeling stress “sometimes to always,” between their caregiving responsibilities and trying to meet other work or family obligations."
  • An August 19, 2014 USA Today article reported on the dangers of driving with dementia. According to the article, "An American Academy of Neurology review of existing medical literature on age-related risk of traffic accidents and Alzheimer's disease found the accident rate of people between 80 and 85 is seven times higher than people between the ages of 40 and 45. That rate increases about 38-fold for drivers over the age of 85, many of whom may have some form of dementia, Larson said."
  • An August 19, 2014 Time Money article explored ways to give smarter "in an ALS ice bucket world." According to the article, "What about the charge that the money raised by the Ice Bucket Challenge for a relatively rare disease (30,000 affected in the U.S. by the ALS Association’s estimate) takes money away from groups working to fight more prevalent illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s (which affects 5.2 million patients in the U.S.) or diabetes (25.8 million)?"