Smell, disgust and Alzheimer’s
As I describe in Tattoo, my first symptom of Alzheimer’s occurred over fifteen years ago when I first noticed a decrease in my ability to smell and then began to have episodes of illusory odors...
Category: Alzheimer’s disease
Music and Alzheimer’s Disease
Music has been an important part of my life, almost from the beginning. My mother was a very good, amateur pianist, and I have early memories of trying to emulate her playing. By age...
New twin study informs our understanding of genetic vs modifiable risks for Alzheimer’s
Abnormal tau protein found in neurofibrillary tangles can be found in the brain at least several years before the onset of cognitive impairment in Alzheimer’s disease. Now a fascinating Dutch study of 78 cognitively normal,...
Alzheimer’s and work
Wendy Mitchell, in her wonderful book Somebody I Used to Know: A Memoir, tells of her frustration when asking her supervisors in the UK National Health Service for accommodation for her early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Wendy...
Medicare is doing the right thing to limit payment for Aduhelm to participants in approved clinical trials
Ten days ago, officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that Medicare coverage for Aduhelm (aducanumab) would apply only to patients participating in approved clinical trials. Recall that on June...
New healthy aging goal added to the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease
The National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA) was signed into law by President Obama on January 4, 2011. The act created the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease (and related dementias). The plan has been updated annually,...
Does cataract surgery really decrease the risk of dementia?
Our vision appears to have a complicated relationship to dementia. Posterior cortical atrophy is a rare variant of Alzheimer’s disease in which the amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles first form in the back of...
Things to look for in the New Year
Perhaps the biggest Alzheimer’s news in 2021 was the controversial FDA approval of the anti-amyloid monoclonal antibody Aduhelm (aducanumab). Controversy surrounds the mixed results of two parallel phase 3 trials. Both trials showed efficacy at removing...
Cheese, please?
Among the lifestyle modifications that can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s and slow its progression is adherence to a Mediterranean-style diet. The MIND diet (Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay) is an amalgam of the...
Repurposing old drugs for Alzheimer’s treatment
We’ve talked a lot so far about clinical trials of several so-called disease-modifying drugs for Alzheimer’s disease. These are medications designed to slow and perhaps even stop the progression of Alzheimer’s. Most of them so...
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