The federal agency that operates Medicare, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), is finally recognizing what families have known for, well, thousands of years: Family members are the bedrock of the system of care for frail older adults and younger people with disabilities. And the agency is taking some important steps to help them. Some proposals will provide [...]
The National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer’s Association have proposed revised clinical guidelines that would designate seven major stages of the brain disease. The first two would be for people who have no symptoms but may be at higher risk for Alzheimer’s. These technical guidelines, which would update a 2018 version, could have enormous, and conflicting, implications for drug [...]
Living with memory loss and other cognitive limitations is hard. But when you can’t remember or can’t process information well enough to make important decisions, and you have no one by your side to support you, life can be extra tough. Researchers at the University of California San Francisco ((UCSF) estimate that about 4.3 million older adults with cognitive impairment [...]
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted final approval to the anti-Alzheimer’s drug lecanamab, marked as Leqembi by drugmakers Eisai and Biogen. Here is what you need to know: What does it do? In a formal phase 3 trial, Leqembi was shown to slow the progression of memory loss and cognitive impairment in patients with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease by [...]
Enormous attention is being given to controversial drugs aimed at slowing the progression of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Yet, a very different set of clinical innovations holds the promise of helping far more people living with dementia and their families in more immediate—and perhaps more effective—ways. These care delivery models are aimed at breaking down the often-impenetrable barriers between health care [...]
The powerful Alzheimer’s Disease lobby is fighting a multi-billion-dollar battle on two fronts. It is quietly trying to limit restrictions the Food and Drug Administration puts on the use of new drugs aimed at slowing the progression of the brain disease. And it is publicly pressing Medicare to pay for the widespread use of the monoclonal antibodies FDA already has [...]
Medical experts are raising new questions about the safety of the anti-Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab, which is marketed as Leqembi by drugmakers Biogen and Eisai. One study, which looked in detail at the death of a participant in a Leqembi research trial, suggests that people with a condition that affects as many as half of those with Alzheimer’s Disease may be [...]
Twice over the past few weeks I’ve heard a variation of the same story: An older adult tells her primary care doctor she is feeling severely depressed. Each time, the physician responds by saying depression is normal for seniors. Something like, “What do you expect? You’ve got aches and pains. Your friends are dying. It is what happens.” That response [...]
For more than 15 years, much of the Alzheimer’s Disease establishment has focused its attention—and hundreds of millions of research dollars—on the theory that the disease primarily is caused by the build-up of plaque, called amyloid beta, in the brain. A six-month investigation by Charles Piller, an award-winning reporter for Science magazine, finds that key research published in 2006 may [...]
Over just the past few decades, the life expectancy of people with Down Syndrome (DS) has increased from less than 30 years to nearly 60. But for many, that remarkable advancement comes at a high price. As they live longer, up to ninety percent of people with DS will have Alzheimer’s Disease. It is, in fact, the leading cause of death [...]