The 2014 update to the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease was unveiled at the Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care, and Services in Washington, DC. Check out this list of encouraging highlights.
The 2014 update to the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease was unveiled at the Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care, and Services in Washington, DC.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius spoke briefly to the Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s, saying,
“We face huge challenges, and the work is far from over, but I don’t think there is any question that advances have been made.”
Updated annually since it was introduced in 2012, the Plan focuses on five goals:
- Finding ways to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease by 2025;
- Enhancing care for Alzheimer’s patients;
- Expanding support for people with dementia and their families;
- Improving public awareness;
- Carefully tracking data to support these efforts.
Highlights HHS cited during the past year include:
- Identification of 11 Alzheimer’s risk genes, providing new insights about disease pathways and possible drug targets
- Dementia training and support to more than 23,000 health care providers
- Focused and coordinated public-private efforts that reduced by nearly 14 percent the inappropriate use of antipsychotics among long-stay nursing home residents with dementia
- Funding to states to develop dementia-capable long-term services and support system
The Plan also identifies the following action steps led by HHS to better research, treat, and prevent Alzheimer’s disease:
- Accelerate efforts to identify the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease and to develop and test targets for intervention
- Move research and care forward by increasing collaboration in science, data sharing, and priority setting among Alzheimer’s disease experts, health care providers, and caregivers
- Expand current work to strengthen dementia-care guidelines and quality measures, including meaningful outcomes for people with dementia and their families
- Help health care providers to better address ethical considerations related to caring for people with dementia, including how to balance privacy, autonomy, and safety
- Enhance support for global collaboration on dementia, including hosting a February 2015 follow-up meeting to the December 2013 G8 Summit on Dementia
The 2014 update to the National Plan is available at http://aspe.hhs.gov/daltcp/napa/NatlPlan2014.shtml.
In the text above ,clicking in the link “to develop and test targets for intervention” we can find that one of the targets of research is Mitochondrial Proliferation Gene Promotes Dendritic Growth, and suggests that the protein PGC-1α plays an important role in forming and maintaining healthy dendrites and synapses in the hippocampus.Between others published research articles that shows that ALCAR improves BDNF production in the neurons , we can find one published in the medical journal Rejuvenation Research (april2012), “The obtained results revealed that acetyl L carnitine (ALCAR) treatment was able to up regulate the PGC-1alpha/PGC-1beta dependent mitochondrial biogenesis activating pathway’-
I have been caring for my husband who has Parkinson's and Dementia for 4 years 24/7. No training no support. His Neurologist just asks what day is it and what year. If I mention a new problem I get another prescription. My husband has days he refuses to take the meds……..I read everything I can and Teepa Snow has been a blessing with her videos. I wish I could afford herrDVDs and books.
I have learned more from her videos than any Dr.
Don't see much help for the caregivers shouldering most, if not all of the burden of caring for their loved one.
Thanks so much for sharing this information about updates in the US Plan to Address Alzheimer's. Will share this in a Tweet.