Clinton proposes doubling funds to fight Alzheimer's

Democratic White House frontrunner Hillary Clinton on Tuesday unveiled a plan to battle Alzheimer's, saying she would more than double federal funding for research and treatment of the disease.

Fighting Alzheimer's, a form of dementia which affects five million Americans and currently has no cure, is a steadily growing effort in the United States.

Congress recently increased the federal research budget by $350 million, on top of the $586 million that the National Institutes of Health spent this past year.

But Clinton proposed raising that budget to $2 billion per year until 2025.

"We owe it to the millions of families who stay up at night worrying about their loved ones afflicted by this terrible disease and facing the hard reality of the long good-bye to make research investments that will prevent, effectively treat and make a cure possible by 2025," she said in a statement.

The Clinton campaign notes that some two-thirds of Alzheimer's patients are women, and that prevalence in elderly African-Americans is twice as high as in elderly whites.

Investment is vital, Clinton said, because the disease is already costing $200 billion per year in the United States and that figure will only grow with the country's ageing population.

"Our main bottleneck in this field has been funding," Rudolph Tanzi, a neurology professor at Harvard Medical School and chair of the Cure Alzheimer's Fund Research Consortium, told reporters on a call arranged by the Clinton campaign.

"We are a budget-constrained, not a knowledge-constrained field," he said.
— Agence France-Presse

saource: gmanetwork.com

Mid-life stress could be linked to Alzheimer's: study

NEW YORK - Middle-aged women with lots of stress are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease down the road, a new study suggests.

Why that might be the case is still a mystery, lead author Lena Johansson from the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology at Gothenburg University in Mölndal, Sweden, said.

It's also difficult to say how important stress may be in predicting dementia compared to many other influences like poverty, diet, smoking and blood pressure, she told Reuters Health. But the link remained after the researchers took those factors into account.

"I have no reason to think that this relation is not the same among men," Johansson added.

The new data come from a large study of Swedish women started in 1968, when participants were at least 38 years old. Researchers surveyed 800 of those women about their mental health and wellbeing at least once every decade until 2005.

For their study, Johansson and her colleagues looked at women's reporting of 18 stressful life events like divorce, widowhood or a relative's illness and how distressed they felt by those events.

They also consulted hospital records and results of neuropsychiatric exams to track which participants were diagnosed with dementia during the study.

By 2005, 153 women had developed dementia, including 104 with Alzheimer's disease, the researchers report in BMJ Open.

They found that for each additional stressor women reported in 1968, their risk of later developing Alzheimer's disease increased by about 20 percent.

Women who reported long-term distress also had a heightened risk of Alzheimer's, regardless of how many stressful life events they had experienced.

The study does not prove cause and effect, and some other factor common to the women might account for their risk of later dementia.

Still, Robert S. Wilson, who studies Alzheimer's disease at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said, "This is the best evidence by far to date linking psychosocial stressors with dementia. It's really astounding."

He said it was especially impressive that the study was able to link life events, not just how stressed women felt, to later dementia.

Everyone reacts to stressful events differently, but these events seemed to have a similar effect across the board, said Wilson, who was not involved in the study.

"These are low-level chronic stressors that affect virtually every family network," he told Reuters Health.

Still, people who have lost a spouse, been divorced or experienced other stressful events shouldn't necessarily be worried, he said.

"I think these are modest effects overall," Wilson said.

"Stress and stressors are just one of several risk factors," Johansson said. "Not everyone who had stress or stressors developed (dementia)."

By age 85, nearly half of people may have Alzheimer's disease, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"These problems are very common, and they are of definite public health importance," Wilson said. "I think we should be thinking about stress reduction as a more routine kind of healthcare option."

What many people think of as common life events may continue to cause distress for years, he said, and stress reduction techniques like "talking it out" or seeking professional help might be beneficial. — Reuters

source: gmanetwork.com

Battling Alzheimer’s in US, TOYM awardee Alberto Florentino thought of suicide

Exclusive of the Filipino Reporter, a content partner of GMA News Online

Alberto S. Florentino, one of the Philippines’ surviving literary treasures, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in early 2012 and has been suffering from depression ever since, according to his wife, Eva San Jose Florentino.

Formerly based in New York City, he is now residing at an assisted-living facility in Portland, Oregon.

Eva lives in a nearby apartment and regularly checks on him.

Born in Nueva Ecija on July 28, 1931, Florentino, now 81, is a prolific author and playwright who shot to fame in the 1950s with his work, “The World is an Apple,” one of the most performed plays in the Philippines to this day and which also gave him his first Carlos Palanca Award in 1954 when he was just 23 years old.

He is a contemporary of Nick Joaquin, Jose Garcia Villa and NVM Gonzalez.

Also known as the main scriptwriter of the award-winning TV drama series in the 60s and 70s “Balintataw,” he has written 100 plays for television and cinema, and more than 50 for stage, besides having published several collections of his own plays and more than 70 titles by other Filipino authors.

He became a TOYM (Ten Outstanding Young Men) awardee for literature in 1960, an honor he shared with then Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., (for public service).

In 2008, Florentino was given a Presidential Medal of Merit for being a distinguished literary giant.

Today, the former University of the Philippines (U.P.) professor is no longer writing and spends most of his time reading books at Laurelhurst Village, a senior care community in Portland.

“He loves to buy books on sale and get the old ones thrown out by libraries,” Eva told the Filipino Reporter in an exclusive interview on Christmas Day.

“Yun na lang ang kaligayahan niya sa ngayon.”

“He has no friends here because we just moved here and most of his surviving friends are either in New York or Manila,” said Eva, herself a writer, art curator and retired university professor.

The couple relocated to Portland to be close to their daughter Lisa, a voice teacher who has a private studio there.

Eva recalled that her husband’s depression came upon when his doctor told him he’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

The diagnosis was a result of a medical test after Florentino got lost twice and couldn’t find his way home from his regular trip to a coffee shop.

“Bert couldn’t accept the fact that he has Alzheimer’s which he knows is a progressive disease that has no cure,” shared Eva.

“He used to be so good at computers but he couldn’t write anymore and his depression only worsened. He started acting strange and even became suicidal, threatening to jump from a building.”

At one point, Florentino reportedly requested for an assisted suicide, which is legal in Oregon, as long as it is self-administered.

But Eva said the doctor told him he’s not qualified to receive it since he has Alzheimer’s which, by definition, robs its victims of good judgment and the capacity to understand consequences — and ultimately the ability to carry out their own deaths.

Florentino’s condition has taken its toll on their family, according to Eva, which was aggravated by the sudden passing of one of their daughters, Sonya, 52, who was found dead in her Manhattan apartment in November.

The cause of death was pneumonia.

“We all try to be strong for each other,” Eva said, “especially me, I already had quadruple bypass. I cannot die. Not now. Hindi ako puwede mamatay because my husband needs me.”

“I thank God we’re holding up well and my whole family is my source of strength,” she added.

“Like this Christmas, all of our children and grandchildren are here with us. Even our daughter Leila, who is based in Paris, flew in with her daughter Tess to be with us again.”

The Florentinos’ have a fourth daughter, Angeli, who is a social worker in New York City.

At present, Florentino is under medication and has been seeing a psychologist every other week.

“He’s okay as long as he taking his medication religiously,” Eva said.

“Aside from reading, he goes to concerts and watches movies. Like the the other day we watched the movie ‘Lincoln’ and he loved it. We talked about the movie.”

“He hasn’t lose cognition,” she added.

“He still remembers people and events. He stays in my apartment during weekends, but it’s better that he’s in the assisted-living facility where he is closely monitored.”

When the Reporter got a chance to talk to Florentino on the phone recently, he sounded coherent and even talked about his illness.

“The doctor told me I have Alzheimer’s...and I’m battling this terrible depression,” he said.

“But I’m aware of what’s going on around me. I feel fine and I feel normal. I know you...and I know all of my friends. Just pray for me.”

For those who want to get in touch with Bert Florentino, e-mail Eva at evasjflorentino@aol.com

To send him a card or letter, e-mail it to Eva’s apartment at 333 NW 4th Avenue, Apt. 327, Portland, Oregon 97209. - Filipino Reporter

 

source: gmanetwork.com