http://www.dementiatoday.net/ en 2013-05-21T05:16:11+00:00 http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/molecular-trigger-for-alzheimers-disease-identified/ http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/molecular-trigger-for-alzheimers-disease-identified/#When:05:16:11Z Researchers have pinpointed a catalytic trigger for the onset of Alzheimer’s disease - when the fundamental structure of a protein molecule changes to cause a chain reaction that leads to the death of neurons in the brain. For the first time, scientists at Cambridge’s Department of Chemistry have been able to map in detail the pathway that generates “aberrant” forms of proteins which are at the root of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s. They believe the breakthrough is a vital step closer to increased capabilities for earlier diagnosis of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and opens up possibilities for a new generation of targeted drugs, as scientists say they have uncovered the earliest stages of the development of Alzheimer’s that drugs could possibly target. The study, published today in the journal PNAS, is a milestone in the long-term research established in Cambridge by Professor Christopher Dobson and his colleagues, following the realisation by Dobson of the underlying nature of protein ‘misfolding’ and its connection with disease over 15 years ago. Dementia News 2013-05-21T05:16:11+00:00 http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/sleep-apnea-and-alzheimers-are-linked/ http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/sleep-apnea-and-alzheimers-are-linked/#When:05:36:47Z A new study looking at sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) and markers for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) risk in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and neuroimaging adds to the growing body of research linking the two. But this latest study also poses an interesting question: Could AD in its “preclinical stages” also lead to SDB and explain the increased prevalence of SDB in the elderly? The study will be presented at the ATS 2013 International Conference. “It’s really a chicken and egg story,” said Ricardo S. Osorio, MD, a research assistant professor at NYU School of Medicine who led the study. “Our study did not determine the direction of the causality, and, in fact, didn’t uncover a significant association between the two, until we broke out the data on lean and obese patients.” Dementia News 2013-05-20T05:36:47+00:00 http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/defend-new-diagnostic-guide/ http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/defend-new-diagnostic-guide/#When:10:53:40Z The fifth edition of the “psychiatrist’s bible” was officially released here in all its 947-page glory, with its developers offering a spirited rebuttal to their critics. Known as DSM-5, the new version of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was launched at a press briefing to kick off the organization’s annual meeting. Most of the changes from the previous edition had already been made public, at least in general outline. At the briefing, DSM-5 Task Force chairman David Kupfer, MD, of the University of Pittsburgh, defended several of the most heavily criticized revisions from DSM-IV, as the last edition was called. Other top APA leaders, including current president Dilip Jeste, MD, of the University of California San Diego, and president-elect Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, of Columbia University in New York City, addressed another, more recent controversy over DSM-5, which was sparked by a blog post from National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Director Thomas Insel, MD. Dementia News 2013-05-19T10:53:40+00:00 http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/one-million-dementia-friends/ http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/one-million-dementia-friends/#When:10:50:32Z The Dementia Friends scheme, launched today by Prime Minister David Cameron, is the country’s biggest ever project to change the way people think about dementia. Under the scheme, which is led by the Alzheimer’s Society, people will be given free awareness sessions to help them understand dementia better and become Dementia Friends. The scheme aims to make everyday life better for people with dementia by changing the way people think, talk and act. The Alzheimer’s Society wants the Dementia Friends to have the know-how to make people with dementia feel understood and included in their community. People can register their interest in becoming a Dementia Friend on the Dementia Friends website or by texting Friend to 88080. Dementia News 2013-05-19T10:50:32+00:00 http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/care-environments-for-people-with-dementia/ http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/care-environments-for-people-with-dementia/#When:10:47:03Z Expressions of interest are now being accepted from care providers for funding to improve the surroundings of people living with dementia. Local authorities working in partnership with social care providers and the NHS will have the opportunity to bid for a share of £50 million capital funding to invest during 2013-14. The funding will be used to improve care environments to help people with dementia and their carers manage their condition better. Details of the funding were first outlined on the 25 October by Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt. For further details and to register interest in applying to take part in the programme see the application guidance. A letter from David Flory, Deputy NHS Chief Executive provides an overview of the project and a summary of the timeline. Successful projects will begin from 2013-14 and will be subject to national evaluation. Dementia News 2013-05-19T10:47:03+00:00 http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/dementia-facts-and-statistics/ http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/dementia-facts-and-statistics/#When:10:35:59Z Dementia is a subject that most people try to avoid. Just the thought of memory loss - in a loved one, friend, co-worker or, worse yet, ourselves - makes us terribly uncomfortable. Unless we are confronted directly with dementia, we prefer to think of it as “someone else’s problem.” But dementia - one of the world’s fastest growing diseases - won’t go away and it is fast becoming “everyone’s problem.” A look at the facts and statistics surrounding dementia clearly show that it is a massive issue, possibly a medical catastrophe in the making, with no easy solution. Indeed, the numbers and statistics surrounding dementia are staggering. Worldwide, there are now an estimated 24 million people living with some form of dementia. Without a major medical breakthrough in the fight against dementia, this number could jump to as many as 84 million who have age-related memory loss by the year 2040. Although there are a number of forms of dementia, Alzheimer’s is the most common, and most well-known, of the age-related memory loss diseases. Currently, more than five million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s, and it is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S. About 13% of Americans over the age of 65 have Alzheimer’s and half of those over age 85 will develop Alzheimer’s - or a closely related dementia. Dementia News 2013-05-19T10:35:59+00:00 http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/nilotinib-prevents-toxic-brain-protein/ http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/nilotinib-prevents-toxic-brain-protein/#When:04:31:51Z Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have used tiny doses of a leukemia drug to halt accumulation of toxic proteins linked to Parkinson’s disease in the brains of mice. This finding provides the basis to plan a clinical trial in humans to study the effects. They say their study, published online May 10 in Human Molecular Genetics, offers a unique and exciting strategy to treat neurodegenerative diseases that feature abnormal buildup of proteins in Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), frontotemporal dementia, Huntington disease and Lewy body dementia, among others. “This drug, in very low doses, turns on the garbage disposal machinery inside neurons to clear toxic proteins from the cell. By clearing intracellular proteins, the drug prevents their accumulation in pathological inclusions called Lewy bodies and/or tangles, and also prevents amyloid secretion into the extracellular space between neurons, so proteins do not form toxic clumps or plaques in the brain,” says the study’s senior investigator, neuroscientist Charbel E-H Moussa, MB, PhD. Moussa heads the laboratory of dementia and Parkinsonism at Georgetown. When the drug, nilotinib, is used to treat chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), it forces cancer cells into autophagy - a biological process that leads to death of tumor cells in cancer. Dementia News 2013-05-13T04:31:51+00:00 http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/could-eating-peppers-prevent-parkinsons/ http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/could-eating-peppers-prevent-parkinsons/#When:12:15:19Z New research reveals that Solanaceae - a flowering plant family with some species producing foods that are edible sources of nicotine - may provide a protective effect against Parkinson’s disease. The study appearing today in Annals of Neurology, a journal of the American Neurological Association and Child Neurology Society, suggests that eating foods that contain even a small amount of nicotine, such as peppers and tomatoes, may reduce risk of developing Parkinson’s. Parkinson’s disease is a movement disorder caused by a loss of brain cells that produce dopamine. Symptoms include facial, hand, arm, and leg tremors, stiffness in the limbs, loss of balance, and slower overall movement. Nearly one million Americans have Parkinson’s, with 60,000 new cases diagnosed in the U.S. each year, and up to ten million individuals worldwide live with this disease according to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation. Currently, there is no cure for Parkinson’s, but symptoms are treated with medications and procedures such as deep brain stimulation. Previous studies have found that cigarette smoking and other forms of tobacco, also a Solanaceae plant, reduced relative risk of Parkinson’s disease. However, experts have not confirmed if nicotine or other components in tobacco provide a protective effect, or if people who develop Parkinson’s disease are simply less apt to use tobacco because of differences in the brain that occur early in the disease process, long before diagnosis. For the present population-based study Dr. Susan Searles Nielsen and colleagues from the University of Washington in Seattle recruited 490 patients newly diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at the university’s Neurology Clinic or a regional health maintenance organization, Group Health Cooperative. Another 644 unrelated individuals without neurological conditions were used as controls. Questionnaires were used to assess participants’ lifetime diets and tobacco use, which researchers defined as ever smoking more than 100 cigarettes or regularly using cigars, pipes or smokeless tobacco. Dementia News 2013-05-09T12:15:19+00:00 http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/promising-alzheimers-drug-fails/ http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/promising-alzheimers-drug-fails/#When:16:39:24Z Baxter International Inc. says that a blood product it was testing failed to slow mental decline or to preserve physical function in a major study of 390 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. The company says that people who received 18 months of infusions with its drug, Gammagard, fared no better than others given infusions of a dummy solution. Gammagard is immune globulin, natural antibodies culled from donated blood. Researchers thought these antibodies might help remove amyloid, the sticky plaque that clogs patients’ brains, sapping memory and ability to think. Patients with moderate disease and those with a gene that raises risk of Alzheimer’s who were taking the higher of two doses in the study seemed to benefit, although the study was not big enough to say for sure. Dementia News 2013-05-07T16:39:24+00:00 http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/no-link-between-anesthesia-dementia/ http://www.dementiatoday.net/article/no-link-between-anesthesia-dementia/#When:09:15:46Z Elderly patients who receive anesthesia are no more likely to develop long-term dementia or Alzheimer’s disease than other seniors, according to new Mayo Clinic research. The study analyzed thousands of patients using the Rochester Epidemiology Project - which allows researchers access to medical records of nearly all residents of Olmsted County, Minn. - and found that receiving general anesthesia for procedures after age 45 is not a risk factor for developing dementia. The findings were published Wednesday, May 1, online in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Researchers know that some elderly patients have problems with cognitive function for weeks, sometimes months, following surgical procedures, says senior author David Warner, M.D., a pediatric anesthesiologist at the Mayo Clinic Children’s Center. There has been concern that exposure to anesthesia may be associated with long-term cognitive changes including dementia, he says. The concern stems in part from a series of studies in which animals were exposed to anesthesia and lesions similar to those observed in Alzheimer’s disease appeared in the brain - including accumulation of amyloid, a protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease. “It’s reassuring we’re adding to the body of knowledge that there is not an association of anesthesia and surgery with Alzheimer’s,” Dr. Warner says. “There are a lot of things to worry about when an elderly person has surgery, but it seems that developing Alzheimer’s isn’t one of them.” Dementia News 2013-05-01T09:15:46+00:00