In the midst of much healthcare reform talk, not enough attention seems focused on ensuring healthcare systems’ preparedness to deal with cognitive health issues -with Alzheimer’s Disease as the most dramatic example- which are predicted to grow given aging population trends.

Today is World Alzheimer’s Day, and the USA Today comments on a new report that makes stark predictions:
Global Alzheimer’s cases expected to rise sharply (USA Today)

- “The 2009 World Alzheimer’s Report, released today, estimates 35 million people worldwide are living with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. The figure is a 10% increase over 2005 numbers.”

- “The number of people affected by Alzheimer’s is growing at a rapid rate, and the increasing personal costs will have significant impact on the world’s economies and health care systems,” said Harry Johns, President and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association. “We must make the fight against Alzheimer’s a priority here in the United States and worldwide,” he said.

- “The report by London-based nonprofit Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI), an international federation of 71 national Alzheimer organizations (including the Alzheimer’s Association), indicates that the number of people with dementia is expected to grow sharply to 65.7 million in 2030 and 115.4 million in 2050.”

Link to report: Here

The Alzheimer’s Association is organizing multiple Memory Walks to raise awareness and funds. You can learn more and join Here. (Perhaps a good opportunity to organize a “walking book group” as Arthur Kramer suggested in the SharpBrains Guide?)

The City of San Francisco, led by its Department of Aging and Adult Services (DAAS), convened since 2008 an Alzheimer’s/ Dementia Expert Panel to identify gaps and issue recommendations to address the growing crisis in dementia care at the city level, and is about to release a pioneering plan that may well influence public health initiatives in other cities and states. An interim document can be found here: 2020 Foresight-Strategy For Excellence in Dementia Care (pdf)

One of the major areas of focus for that strategy was Education & Prevention, and below we can share a summary of the preliminary findings and recommendations. We will highlight the final report when ready.

ALZHEIMER’S/DEMENTIA EXPERT PANEL

EDUCATION AND PREVENTION SUBCOMMITTEE

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The subcommittee’s charge was to consider how best to educate the San Francisco community about Alzheimer’s and related dementias to change attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, standards of practice, and outcomes associated with the disease.

Specific topics addressed include:
· Protective factors relating to dementia, including risk factors and brain health
· Early identification of dementia
· Early access to services
· Community education
· Education of professionals and nonprofessionals, including physicians, psychiatrists and psychologists, social workers, nurses, and other caregivers, both paid caregivers and informal caregivers such as family and friends
· Ethical issues
· Policy issues

The dissemination of accurate information about Alzheimer’s and related dementias can play an important role in Read the rest of this entry »

Given the fact I love Kindle, and some of our Twitter friends had been asking for a Kindle version of our new book The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness…well, here it is:
Amazon.com: The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness (Kindle Edition, $9.99)

The book has also received two excellent new endorsements:

“Kudos for an excellent resource! This SharpBrains Guide is full of top notch information, provides practical tips and helps separate hype from hope in the brain health arena.”
— Elizabeth Edgerly, Ph.D., Chief Program Officer, Alzheimer’s Association

“The SharpBrains’ Guide to Brain Fitness helped answer many of my questions on the importance of both physical and mental exercise to stay sharp as we age, as they act in synergy on one another. The Guide also provided guidelines and specific calls to action to expand what we traditionally do in our fitness clubs. This is an important book for anyone in the fitness industry, and, for that matter, for anyone with a brain.”
— Robin Klaus, Chairman, Club One Fitness Centers

More information on the book: The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness

Also: Book Club Discussion Guide

The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America just released a thoughtful report advocating for widespread cognitive screenings after the age of 65 (55 given the right conditions).

According to the press release,

- “The report shatters unsubstantiated criticism and instead emphasizes the safety and cost-effectiveness of these tools and calls on Congress to develop a national dementia screening policy.”

- “Lifting the barriers to early detection is long overdue,” Hall said. “Conversations about brain health are not taking place. We must educate and empower consumers to talk openly about memory concerns, particularly with primary care providers, so they get the attention and quality of life they deserve.”

- “Demand for screenings is evidenced by the success of AFA’s recent sixth annual National Memory Screening Day held on November 18, during which an estimated 50,000 people were given free confidential memory screenings at nearly 2,200 community sites nationwide. During last year’s event, approximately 16 percent of individuals who had a face-to-face screening scored positive and were referred to their primary care providers for follow-up. An AFA survey of participants revealed that fewer than one in four with self-reported memory complaints had previously discussed them with their physicians despite recent visits.”

Excellent report available: here

Please note that the Alzheimer’s Association recently argued in the opposite direction (no screenings) – which probably triggered this response.

We see emerging trends that suggest the position in favor of cognitive assessments may in fact gather momentum over the next few years: widespread computerized cognitive screenings in the US Army, insurance companies like OptumHealth adding such tools to its clinical decision-making systems, polls such as the American Society of Aging’s a couple of years ago indicating a very strong demand for an “annual mental check-up”, the availability of useful assessment tools and research-based preventive advice.

The starting point is to understand what those assessments are NOT: they are not diagnostic tools. When used properly, they can be used as a baseline to track performance in a variety of cognitive domains over time, so that both the individual AND the physician are not blinded by a one-time assessment, comparing an individual with his or her peers (instead of his or her past performance) when serious symptoms have frequently already been going on for a while.

Our contributor  Dr. Joshua Silverman, from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, recently generated a nice debate on the topic by asking our readers their reaction to these 3 questions: Read the rest of this entry »

Brain-fitness plan can improve memory (Sydney Morning Herald), reports on the recent endorsement of Posit Science’s programs (Posit Science Program Classic, focused on auditory processing training, and Posit Science Cortex^™ with InSight^™, on visual processing). Quotes: Read the rest of this entry »

We recently prepared a Directory of Web Sites as part of our  Resources section. You will find some gems here, in a variety of areas:

>> The Dana Foundation offers several excellent online resources:

- Brainy Kids Online offers children, teens, parents and teachers links to games, labs, education resources and lesson plans.

- BrainWeb: general information about the brain and current brain research, as well as links to validated sites related to more than 25 brain disorders.

- Brain Resources for Seniors provides older adults and their caretakers with links to sites related to brain health, education and general information.

Read the rest of this entry »

Round-up of interesting recent news on cognitive health and fitness: the field is in motion.

1) Baycrest creates Centre for Brain Fitness with $10-million Investment from Ontario Government (Canada NewsWire)

2) Cognitive tests are the best way to select medical students (EurekAlert)

3) High blood pressure hard on the aging brain (Reuters)

4) Alzheimer’s tests beneficial for seniors (Atlanta-Journal Constitutional)

5) Dementia-Dreading Baby Boomers Spur Race to Invent Brain Games (Bloomberg)

6) Vivity Labs launches Fit Brains brain-training game site (VentureBeat) 

7) Depression and Alzheimer’s (NHS Choices)

For selected quotes and comments, Read the rest of this entry »

Several recent news (including video of our recent panel discussion):

1) Study Finds Improved Cognitive Health among Older Americans (Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association)

- “Societal investment in building and maintaining cognitive reserve through formal education in childhood and continued cognitive stimulation during work and leisure in adulthood may help limit the burden of dementia among the growing number of older adults worldwide”.

- “Cognitive impairment dropped from 12.2 percent in 1993 to 8.7 percent in 2002 among people 70 and older.” 

Read the rest of this entry »

A spate of recent news coverage on brain fitness and “brain training” reflects a growing interest in natural, non-drug-based interventions to keep our brains sharp as we age. This interest is very timely, given the aging population, increasing Alzheimer’s rates, and soaring health care costs that place more emphasis than ever on prevention and changing lifestyle.

This past Tuesday, the MIT Club of Northern California, the American Society on Aging, and SmartSilvers sponsored an event on The Emerging Brain Fitness Software Market: Building Better Brains to explore the realities and myths of this growing field. The panel was moderated by Zack Lynch, Executive Director of the Neurotechnology Industry Organization, and composed of a venture capitalist and 3 CEOs of program developers in the field. Before the panel, I had the chance to present an overview of the state of the Brain Fitness Software Market based on our upcoming report to be released on March 4th.

Why are we talking about this field at all? Well, for one, an increasing number of companies are achieving significant commercial success in packaging “brain exercise”. An example is the line of Nintendo games, such as Brain Age and Brain Training, that have shipped over 15 million units worldwide despite limited scientific support, since 2005. What is less visible is that a number of companies and scientists are Read the rest of this entry »

Roundup of several insightful articles and recent research:

Fish Oil May Help Prevent Alzheimer’s (Washington Post)

- “The omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil might play an important role in preventing Alzheimer’s disease, according to a research team at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).”

- “Publishing in the Dec. 26 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, the scientists demonstrated that the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) increases the production of LR11, a protein that is found at reduced levels in Alzheimer’s patients. LR11 is known to destroy the protein that forms the plaques associated with the disease, the researchers explained.” 

- “Alzheimer’s is a debilitating neurodegenerative disease that causes memory loss, dementia, personality change and ultimately death. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that 5.1 million Americans are currently afflicted with the disease. The association predicts that may increase to between 11 million and 16 million people by 2050.”

 ‘Finding Alzheimer’s Before a Mind Fails’ (New York Times)

- “Ms. Kerley is part of an ambitious new scientific effort to find ways to detect Alzheimer’s disease at the earliest possible moment. Although the disease may seem like a calamity that strikes suddenly in old age, scientists now think it begins long before the mind fails.”

- “Many scientists believe the best hope of progress, maybe the only hope, lies in Read the rest of this entry »

Hello, this is Andreas again, the MD/ PhD student in cognitive neuroscience and new summer intern here.

Cognitive/ brain health is finally getting more attention by Public officials. On June 10th the National Public Health Road Map to Maintaining Cognitive Health was released by the CDC and the Alzheimer’s Association. The authors propose a set of 44 actions to reach a lofty goal: To maintain or improve the cognitive performance of all adults. This is great timing, given all the research and media attention that this field is getting.

I want to share with you the 10 top actions proposed by this report:

1) To determine how diverse audiences think about cognitive health and its associations with lifestyle factors. This work has all-ready yielded in a phenomenal report on Baby boomers’ current opinion of Brain Health and Fitness.

2) To disseminate the latest science to increase public understanding of cognitive health and to dispel common misconceptions. The discovery of lifelong neuroplasticity and neurogenesis has given us a new positive view
upon the human brain – This is still a concept not many know of. “Use it or lose it” and “Use It and Get More of It” needs to reach all people. See this good overview on the topic.

3) Help people understand the connection between risk and protective factors and cognitive health. Protective factors are well summarized in this blog post on the results from the Macarthur study of successful aging.

Read the rest of this entry »