What’s the U.S. Government Doing About Alzheimer’s?

VIDEOS & ARTICLE

Watch videos on the newly released National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease: 2013 Update. Read about the new timeline for achieving its first goal – prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease by 2025 – and a review of all the progress to date.

The first-ever National Alzheimer’s Plan, initially released in May 2012, was mandated by the bipartisan National Alzheimer’s Project Act, which Congress passed unanimously in 2010.

“The Alzheimer’s Association commends HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for her ongoing work to ensure a strong implementation of the National Alzheimer’s Plan,” said Harry Johns, CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association.

“So that this plan called for by Congress can be translated into results, Congress now must continue its leadership by supporting the additional $100 million included in the President’s fiscal year 2014 budget for the fight against Alzheimer’s.”

New Details

In addition to a clear timeline, the 2013 Update includes new details such as:

• Creation of important milestones to facilitate achieving the goal of preventing and effectively treating Alzheimer’s by 2025;
• Development of a unified Alzheimer’s disease training curriculum for primary care providers;
• Convening an expert panel on advanced dementia to examine the unique and often unaddressed needs of those in the late stages of the disease; and
• Expanding public outreach efforts to increase awareness of the disease and connect those with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers to available resources.

Action Steps

This updated version of the National Plan includes a summary of progress achieved so far as well as new goals in the areas of research, care and services. Highlights of the updated plan include additional action steps that HHS and its partners will take, such as:

• Expansion of efforts to detect and address elder abuse and neglect, including demonstration grants to help promote legal services groups that assist families and communities impacted by Alzheimer’s.
• Development of an expanded Dementia Capability Toolkit to help communities provide dementia services.

Achievements

The 2013 Update includes a review of accomplishments over the past year, such as:

• Work by the Alzheimer’s Association to launch the International Alzheimer’s Disease Research Portfolio (IADRP) database in partnership with the National Institute on Aging (NIA).
• Consistent with the National Alzheimer’s Plan objective of fostering international collaboration, the Alzheimer’s Association and the NIA also co-hosted a funders meeting in July 2012 at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC).
• Arraning for the convening of representatives of several funding organizations around the world for regular teleconferences.
• A conference planned for Boston next month at AAIC 2013 tocontinue efforts to better understand the global Alzheimer’s research effort and enable research funders to coordinate planning, leverage resources, avoid duplication and identify new opportunities for collaboration.
• The Alzheimer’s Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will release the second in a series of “Road Maps” to advance cognitive health as a vital, integral component of public health.

“Congress must see to it that the necessary resources are committed to accelerate and prioritize the government’s efforts on Alzheimer’s,” said Johns. “Without these new resources, efforts in Alzheimer’s research, care and support will continue to be hampered to the determent of millions of families and the economic well-being of the nation.”