The Obama administration adopts a landmark national strategy to fight Alzheimer's

[Kadie]

This image from the Health and Human Services new website alzheimers. gov shows the home page. The Obama administration adopts a landmark national strategy to fight Alzheimer's on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, setting the clock ticking toward a deadline of 2025 to finally find effective ways to treat, or at least stall, the mind-destroying disease. But work is beginning right away: Starting Tuesday, embattled families and caregivers can check a new one-stop website for easy-to-understand information about dementia and where to get help.


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http://www.http://alzheimers.gov/


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First Alzheimer's prevention study launched

By Julie Steenhuysen

updated 57 minutes ago

CHICAGO — The U.S. government launched an ambitious push to develop new treatments for Alzheimer's on Tuesday with a first prevention study of high-risk patients and tests on an insulin nasal spray that has shown promise in earlier studies.

The trials, funded by grants of $16 million and $7.9 million respectively, are part of a national Alzheimer's plan, a sweeping effort to find an effective way to prevent or treat Alzheimer's by 2025 and improve the care of those already afflicted with the brain-wasting disease.

Experts predict that without more effective drugs, the number of Americans with Alzheimer's will double by 2050 and annual related healthcare costs could soar to more than $1 trillion.

The fatal form of dementia affects about 5.1 million Americans today and current treatments address symptoms, but cannot prevent the disease or stop its progression.

more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47428840/ns/health-alzheimers_disease/#.T7Jz_-v2aAM

[Tarheel_Dem]

1. Bookmarking. Thanks for sharing this. This is a subject very near & dear to my heart.

[Auggie]

2. Let's also be sure those "more effective drugs" are affordable and available to all

[woodsprite]

3. Bookmarking for reference. My FIL was just diagnosed :(

It sounds horrible, but at 80 yo and just being diagnosed, I'm hoping that it progresses so slowly that he eventually expires from natural causes. He and my MIL just moved to FL 3 yrs ago so there is no family around to help. We're going down for his birthday in July and staying the month, as is my SIL and BIL. My MIL wanted the grandkids to have time with him.

He's still driving (although I question that), still cooking (both at home and at church), and he's still working with power tools (although Mom said he's having a hard time remembering measurements/formulas, etc.) She said he's building the last set of bookcases that he'll ever build and he's trying to finish their landscaping so she won't have so much to do on her own. Although he likes woodworking and was a carpenter for quite awhile when he wasn't teaching shop, he really likes to paint water and acrylic landscapes. I'm hoping after he gets those bookshelves built, that Mom encourages him to paint. They've been working on their 'honey do' list since they moved in and it didn't allow much time for his painting, if at all. When they visited last year for my daughter's graduation, that was one thing he told my daughter that he missed.

[bigtree]

4. I know

Dad and me . . . two wonderful years together like peas in a pod, two more sad years and he was gone.

[Bluenorthwest]

5. Last year President Obama singed the National Alzheimer's Project Act and this

is some of the early results of that money being put into action. It is a great and badly needed step toward addressing this awful disease.