May 24, 2016

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

USA2 SPOTLIGHT 

ICYMI: A May 10, 2016 Society of Participatory Medicine newsletter article highlighted the work of the National Alzheimer’s & Dementia Patient & Caregiver-Powered Research Network, a project of UsAgainstAlzheimer’s and other partners. According to the article, “The Alzheimer’s & Dementia Patient/Caregiver-Powered Research Network (AD-PCPRN) is a collaboration to accelerate development of effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.  Our goals are to amplify the Patient/Caregiver Voice in Alzheimer’s and Dementia Research, and broaden recruitment for Clinical Trials through Registries and Prevention Studies, with special focus on minority recruitment. Our focus is supporting recruitment of the “right patient” to the “right trial” and driving engaged traffic to registry/trial sites.”


MUST READS

A May 24, 2016 Gizmag.com article reported that “scientists at the National Nanotechnology Laboratory (LNNano) in Brazil have created a biosensor capable of rapidly detecting molecules specifically linked to various cancers and neurological diseases” including Alzheimer’s. 

A May 23, 2016 The New York Times article reported that a congressional study finds the NFL tried to inappropriately influence concussion research at the NIH. According to the article, “But the league and its head, neck and spine committee worked to improperly influence the government research, trying to steer the study toward a doctor with ties to the league, according to a study conducted by a congressional committee and released on Monday…It is the latest in a long history of instances in which the N.F.L. has been found to mismanage concussion research, dating to the league’s first exploration of the crisis when it used deeply flawed data to produce a series of studies.”

A May 23, 2016 UC San Diego Health article reported that current screening methods miss many persons with mild cognitive impairment. According to the article, “In a paper published in the current Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System say existing screening tools for MCI result in a false-negative error rate of more than 7 percent. These persons are misclassified as not having MCI based on standard screening instruments, but actually do have MCI when more extensive testing is conducted.”

A May 23, 2016 Science Daily article reported that “Researchers found that men with blood samples showing loss of chromosome Y developed Alzheimer's as often as people born with genes that put them at the most risk for the disease.”

A May 18, 2016 Forbes.com article reported on the use of big data to better understand the daily lives of family caregivers. According to the article: “In an effort to better understand what it is like to care for a relative or friend, the California-based Family Caregiver Alliance has just concluded a fascinating experiment: Is it possible to use a mix of interviews, personal logs, and new technology to map a caregiver’s day? Called the Atlas of Caregiving, the experiment involved tracking  14 largely self-selected families in the San Francisco area for about one day. This very narrow sample limits the value of the specific findings. And the real goal was not to tell a comprehensive story about caregiving but rather to learn whether such a study, expanded to many more families, could develop big data that would help us better understand what a caregiver’s life is like, and how she can be supported.”