Abstract
Using a clinical case example, we examine whether health and human service professionals have a moral obligation to assess and address the needs of family caregivers of persons with dementia and, if so, the challenges in doing so under current health care and reimbursement mechanisms. We also discuss specific strategies for involving caregivers.
Three things I learned taking care of my elderly parents
During the last five or six years, as my elderly parents were overtaken by illness and disease, our roles reversed from when I was a child. I became their caretaker, which included navigating our health care system.
My parents had a host of ailments, but principally for my mother, a 50-year smoker, it was a chronic, progressive lung disease. For my father, it was Lewy body dementia, which shares some symptoms with Parkinson’s disease, such as tremors and problems with walking or balance.
Despite failed trials, experts believe we'll have an Alzheimer's drug by 2025
The results of recent trials that tested much-anticipated Alzheimer's disease drugs dashed the hopes of patients with the debilitating condition. The most recent disappointment came from the large trial for solanezumab, by Eli Lilly, announced last month.
But experts across the field say hope is not lost. They believe we will have some form of drug against the disease by 2025, albeit most likely a pilot version that will need to be upgraded.
This former journalist helps caregivers get to know who their patients once were, before dementia took hold
Three years ago, when Jay Newton-Small moved her father into a care facility in Sykesville, Md., she was given a 20-page questionnaire to fill out. Her father had Alzheimer’s disease, and his fading memory and agitated behavior made it hard for caregivers to understand his needs. But as Newton-Small leafed through the lengthy form, she had a hunch that it was not the best approach.
“I was like, ‘You’re never going to have time to read 20 pages on each patient,” said Newton-Small, a District resident who was a reporter for Time magazine. So, at the risk of the staff thinking she was “weird,” she offered to use her professional skills to write her father’s story for them — including the bit about how he was once a part-time driver for Winston Churchill and how he liked to amble around the cypress trees and lavender fields in the south of France, where he had a country home.
Aducanumab Is Showing Promise As An Alzheimer's Treatment, But It's Still Early
What were the key findings from the Aducanumab phase 1 clinical trials? That's a great question. The trial results made big splashes in the lay press, and for good reason. But you probably know that lay press tends to exaggerate some of the findings, so it’s always a good idea to clarify. I’m going to give you a 20,000-foot overview of the study and the important take-aways, but if you want a more detailed answer, read below the first bolded part. The study can be summarized as such:
Aducanumab cleared amyloid plaques and appeared to slow cognitive decline in patients with pre-clinical (before major memory loss) Alzheimer’s disease in a dose-dependent fashion (the more aducanumab you give, the better amyloid clearance and protective effects on memory you get).
How NJ drones are protecting those with Alzheimer’s and autism
Every sheriff’s department in New Jersey is now part of Project Lifesaver, a program that outfits Alzheimer’s patients and those who are autistic with transmitter wristwatches, so they can be tracked and located if they ever wander off.
Now we get word the Somerset County sheriff’s department has become the first law enforcement group in the nation to get a specially designed drone equipped with same type of tracking device that’s used on the ground.
“This is a big advantage because we are now increasing the range, that ground range of one mile to anywhere from 5 to 7 miles, and of course a drone can be moved around,” said Gene Saunders, CEO and founder of Project Lifesaver.
Dementia will soon be controlled just like HIV, says research institute
Alzheimer's may in some cases be as manageable as HIV/Aids by 2025, the head of Britain's new Dementia Research Institute (DRI) predicts.
Professor Bart De Strooper said he hoped to see a time in the near future when the condition could be stabilised even if it proved impossible to cure.
There is even a chance that the brain could re-wire itself and restore lost mental ability once progress of the disease has been halted, he believes.
Caring For A Loved One At Home Can Have A Steep Learning Curve
Dementia has been slowly stealing Ruth Perez's memory and thinking ability for 20 years. Her daughter, Angela Bobo, remembers when it was clear that her mother was never going to be the same.
"She would put food together that didn't belong together — hamburger and fish in a pot. Mom never cooked like that," she says.
The mother and daughter live together in Yeadon, Pa., just outside Philadelphia.
Perez is literally in the center of the family. She spends much of her day tucked under a fleece blanket on a recliner in the middle of the living room. The 87-year-old doesn't seem to notice as her daughter and grown grandchildren come and go, but they keep up a steady one-sided conversation with her anyway.
Mindfulness: A New Tool for Caregivers
There’s a lot of talk about “mindfulness” these days. In fact, if you search the term on the Internet, you’re likely to get millions of hits. Mindful-based approaches are being applied, taught and practiced across a wide spectrum of clinical and behavioral health; from pain relief and management to caregiving.
Yes, caregiving. As most of us are aware, caregiving can be all-consuming, potentially draining, enormously challenging and terrifically rewarding—all at the same time.
How Much Hope Is There For Alzheimer's Drugs?
Last night, Alzheimer's researchers held a celebration over their field's latest failure. A study of Eli Lilly's experimental Alzheimer's drug, solanezumab, failed to show a statistically significant benefit on its main goal, but every outcome seemed to go in the same direction. That yields some modicum of hope for other Alzheimer's drugs in development, particularly one from Biogen called aducanumab that is, in some ways, an amped up solanezumab. The results were webcast from the Clinical Trails in Alzheimer's Disease meeting in San Diego.
Relationships Impact Well-Being in Older Adults in Assisted Living
Different types of relationships — whether friendship, long-term marriage, or a new intimate partnership — significantly influence the well-being and quality of life of older adults in assisted-living facilities, according to new research published in the journal The Gerontologist.
The study explored the benefits and downsides of a variety of relationships among married and unmarried couples in assisted living facilities. The findings reveal the complexity and range of later-life couples’ intimate and social lives.
Why Scientists Are Still Flummoxed by Alzheimer’s
Preventing memory loss and restoring it once it’s gone is the holy grail of brain science. In the United States alone, an estimated 5 million people are living with Alzheimer’s disease. But recently, unexpected and disappointing findings have underlined just how difficult it is to develop therapies for cognitive decline.
In November, Eli Lilly announced that its Alzheimer’s drug solanezumab failed to show a significant benefit for people with mild forms of Alzheimer’s. “The outcome was not what we hoped for, and that is disappointing for the millions of people waiting for a potential disease-modifying treatment for Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Eric Siemers, medical director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Team at Lilly said during a teleconference.