July 02, 2015

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

MUST READS

A July 1, 2015 The New York Times opinion piece by Ellen Goodman highlighted the importance of care planning and end of life care. According to Goodman, “Is it important to have the health care system ready to respect and record our wishes, to have health care providers become more comfortable beginning these talks? Of course. But the hard truth is that we have to begin ourselves — by thinking about our own values, by sharing them, by bringing our own beliefs into the center of the room when decisions will be made…When I helped found the Conversation Project, I thought we were doing this for people who were dying. I thought of my parents. I thought of “executive function” and “baggage.” What I have learned is that the conversation is also a legacy. This is the gift, maybe the last gift, we can give one another.” Ellen Goodman, formerly a syndicated columnist for The Boston Globe, is a founder of the Conversation Project. 

A July 1, 2015 Forbes opinion piece by John LaMattina underscored the importance of pharma industry funded physician research. According to LaMattina, “However, digging into the data, a different picture forms. In 2014, Pfizer paid physicians about $287 million, but $234 million (over 80%) went to pay for research. Similarly, 78% of Merck ’s $125.2 million in physician payments were also for research. The notion that doctors do research will likely come as a surprise to most. But the fact of the matter is that clinical trials for new drugs are run not by the sponsoring manufacturers, but by doctors at the leading teaching hospitals in the country and under the aegis of independent review boards. Much of the $6.5 billion being paid by companies to physicians is being used to pay doctors for their work in conducting clinical trials to find new drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease, breast cancer, diabetes, rare diseases, etc. This work is very complex and time consuming. Surely, one cannot expect that people would do this work for free.” 

A July 1, 2015 Reuters article (via The Bangor Daily News) reported on efforts to protect dementia suffers from elder abuse and fraud. According to the article, “States are now looking to provide more protection for elderly investors. Three states, most recently Missouri, have enacted laws that allow retail brokers to help curb scams against people with dementia…More than five million Americans over the age of 65 have Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, according to the Chicago-based Alzheimer’s Association. That represents about 1.5 percent of the U.S. population, and could balloon to 7.1 million by 2025. These victims can become easy marks for con artists and unscrupulous family members. U.S. seniors lose as much as $2.6 billion per year to financial exploitation, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, a brokerage trade group.”


RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY

A July 1, 2015 Daily Mail article reported that scientists have discovered for the first time how memories are stored in the brain. According to the article, "The US-UK team has managed to pinpoint individual neurons that fire when people file away their experiences. This means the researchers were able to watch, in real-time as the patients' neurons recorded a new memory of the person at a particular place. Specifically, the study looked at neurons in an area known as the medial temporal lobe associated with something known as 'episodic memory'. This is the term used to describe the brain's ability to consciously recall experienced events and situations like running into an old school friend at the opera. The 'spectacular discovery' may help better explain memory loss and lead to new methods to fight it in Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases."

A July 1, 2015 Fierce Biotech article reported that the Alzheimer's drug being developed by Roche pharmaceuticals failed a Phase IIB study. According to the article, "Roche partner Evotec reported that their drug sembragiline failed a Phase IIB study. Sembragiline is a MAO-B inhibitor, a class of drugs which is currently used to treat Parkinson's disease. The drug is designed to safeguard dopamine by targeting an enzyme--monoamine oxidase type B, or MAO-B--that breaks it down. But investigators say the drug failed to demonstrate a cognitive benefit in patients after 52 weeks of therapy. Even though there's a long history of failures to consider, drugmakers remain determined to keep plugging away, and investors appear ready to lend a hand. With millions of desperate patients, any new drug that offers some hope is likely to generate massive sales numbers. For now, it looks like sembragiline won't make the cut."

A June 25, 2015 Wall Street Journal article highlighted the role that better communication and digitial tools have in the effort to revolutionize health care. According to the article, "Joseph Kvedar, as vice president, Connected Health, at Boston-based nonprofit health system Partners HealthCare, spends a lot of time thinking about how to deliver quality patient care outside of traditional medical settings. Dr. Kvedar, also a dermatologist and associate professor at Harvard Medical School, spoke with The Wall Street Journal recently about the benefits of this approach."  In the interview, Dr. Kvedar states: "We’re moving from a health-care delivery model that is centralized and only available in the doctor’s office or hospital to one that is networked and decentralized. Get your primary-care visit at Wal-Mart, your X-ray at a Shields Health Care Center, your lab tests in Walgreens, your surgery at an outpatient surgicenter. For you to get the best care in this decentralized model, connectivity is required to knit together the disparate pieces so you have one record of care."