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 [...]
In a key decision, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said today that Medicare will not pay for the controversial Alzheimer’s drug Adulhelm until it sees positive results from a government-approved trial. In bureaucratic language: “Monoclonal antibodies directed against amyloid for the treatment of [Alzheimer’s Disease] provided outside of the CMS approved randomized controlled trials and trials supported [...]
A funny thing happened on the way to that $56,00-a-year Alzheimer’s drug: Payers are reluctant to pay, providers are reluctant to prescribe, and the price is coming down—at least for some patients. It is a tale that could push Congress to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Reuters reports that Biogen, which sells the controversial medication it calls Aduhelm, is [...]
The ethics committee of the American Academy of Neurology has updated its guidelines for caring for people with dementia and their families. The statement could accelerate an important shift in the way physicians treat patients with dementia. The guidelines highlight the need for physicians to recognize patient autonomy and the key role played by family caregivers. And they require doctors [...]
FDA’s decision last week to approve a new “Alzheimer’s disease treatment,” and the buzz that surrounds it, is a symptom of all that is wrong with the way we care for frail older adults in the US. Rather than providing the supports that people with chronic conditions desperately need, and that evidence shows works, we prefer to chase butterflies. In [...]
As 2020 dawns, the US is about to reach a critical, historic tipping point in its need to care for frail older adults. And we are tragically unprepared. In just five years, the first of the 77-million strong Baby Boom generation will reach age 80—the time when people’s frailty increases dramatically and they begin to need high levels of long-term [...]
Last week, President Trump signed into law the BOLD Infrastructure for Alzheimer’s Act, a measure aimed at building a public health model to fight Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. The law would authorize up to $100 million over five years to improve public education, support health and social service agencies’ dementia initiatives, and collect and disseminate data about cognitive decline. [...]
The Trump Administration has taken a modest step towards expanding the use of remote monitors to track blood pressure and other vital signs for Medicare recipients living at home. While there is little evidence so far that remote monitoring improves health outcomes, advocates for seniors as well as device manufacturers believe the tools can make it more likely that frail [...]