OPINION
April 5, 2013
Re "Ambitious effort aims to map brain," April 3 Although I understand President Obama's humorous intent, I don't believe even the most exhaustive understanding of the workings of the brain could even come close to explaining "all kinds of things that go on in Washington. " And sadly, the lack of empathy, compassion, fairness and simple decency exhibited in Washington represents only an example, one small measure of our spiritual collapse. Although the effort to map the brain may result in treatments for Alzheimer's and autism and ways to reverse the effects of a stroke, I hold out little hope that being who we are, that despite the most brilliant and ambitious scientific explorations, we will ever approach a cure for the most pernicious disease of all: man's inhumanity to man. Ronald Rubin Topanga ALSO: Letters: Trashing our oceans Letters: Saving the Watts Towers Letters: Gun control and public opinion
NATIONAL
March 21, 2013 | By John M. Glionna
Utah authorities think they have a valuable new use for the ubiquitous ankle bracelet: to locate missing patients with Alzheimer's or dementia. Officials in Davis County, about half an hour north of Salt Lake City, say the device, which typically monitors criminals on house arrest or parole, could be a cost-effective solution to a common problem. “We think it's just a different application for an existing technology,” Deputy Sheriff Kevin Fielding told the Los Angeles Times.
BUSINESS
March 15, 2013 | By Lisa Zamosky
For seniors and their families, Alzheimer's disease and its hefty price tag are an increasingly scary prospect. About 5.4 million Americans are affected by Alzheimer's disease, making it the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. Because of growing life expectancies and aging baby boomers, that number is expected to triple by 2050. Alayna Tillman's mother and aunt both have Alzheimer's disease and live with Tillman, her husband and two sons in Lake View Terrace. Tillman says Medicare pays for many of the medical costs her mom and aunt incur.
NEWS
March 15, 2013 | By Melissa Healy
Experimental drug treatments promising to slow or reverse the progression of Alzheimer's disease will need to be assessed with a new and more subtle set of rules, a pair of FDA officials wrote this week. The resulting new guidelines, predict some researchers, should allow Alzheimer's drugs under development to travel a faster path to the U.S. market -- and to the more than 5 million Americans who need them. The new guidelines, issued to drug developers last month and outlined this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, reflect a growing shift among both physicians and researchers toward earlier detection and treatment of the memory-robbing disease.
NEWS
March 11, 2013 | By Melissa Healy
In patients with moderate Alzheimer's disease, an experimental drug that alters the brain's "fight or flight" impulse succeeded in improving memory modestly when it was added to at least one of the medications already in wide use to treat the memory-robbing disease. Compared with subjects taking the drug memantine and a placebo, subjects supplementing their customary drug regimen for three months with the experimental drug--ORM-12741--scored more highly on two measures of memory.
SCIENCE
February 6, 2013 | By Joseph Serna, Los Angeles Times
As baby boomers enter their golden years, the number of people afflicted with Alzheimer's disease is expected to reach 13.8 million by 2050 - millions more than previously anticipated, according to a new study in the journal Neurology. If researchers can't find a way to reduce the prevalence of the brain disease, the cost to care for all of these patients could top $1 trillion a year, experts say. Alzheimer's is a progressive brain disease that damages patients' memory and cognitive skills, ultimately leaving them unable to care for themselves.