USA2 SPOTLIGHT

A December 11, 2018 Terri Broussard Williams post spotlighted Nihal Satyadev, Co-Founder of The Youth Movement Against Alzheimer’s (YMAA). Satyadev is rallying the troops in his millennial generation to channel their energy into productive activism. According to the article, “Of the 3 million family caregivers for people with Alzheimer’s, 40 percent are diagnosed with depression. As the number of people with Alzheimer’s grows, the mental health crisis among caregivers will also grow. Caregivers may also end up leaving the workforce due to their responsibilities and have trouble resuming their careers later. So much for the idea that Alzheimer’s doesn’t affect younger people, right?” YMAA is an UsAgainstAlzheimer’s coalition partner.

MUST READS

A December 10, 2018 The Washington Post Magazine article interviewed people who deal with death for a living, to hear their reflections on life, death, dying and grief. A woodworker, Michael Schmiedicke, whose grandmother had dementia, designed and built her casket with other family members. It proved to be a comforting and beautiful process. Home funeral guide, Jennifer Downs, cared for her mom in her own home before before she died of dementia. According to Downs, “We’re in a culture that doesn’t really want to deal with death that much. But death can be a meaningful experience that families share. It allows the grief to be hands-on.”

A December 10, 2018 Medical News Today article sought out the best approach to designing the future of Alzheimer’s disease therapy via a new comprehensive review from the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation. According to the article, “The reviewers observe that therapies targeting beta-amyloid and tau proteins have not, so far, been able to significantly slow down the development of Alzheimer's, but that the trials have offered more important clues about the condition's mechanisms.”

VETERANS SPOTLIGHT

A December 12, 2018 Medpage Today article reported that a study of female veterans who experienced traumatic brain injury (TBI), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or depression found that they were more than twice as likely to develop dementia as those who did not. According to the article, “It's become increasingly apparent that military veterans are at higher risk than the general population for TBI, PTSD, and depression, observed Andrea Schneider, MD, PhD, and Geoffrey Ling, MD, PhD, both of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, in an accompanying editorial. “More women are joining the military, and there is increasing evidence of sex differences in dementia risk in the general population.””

CAREGIVING CORNER

A December 11, 2018 MemoryWell article by Rosalynn Carter of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving (RCI) stressed the need for caregivers to also care for their own health and wellbeing. According to Carter, “Supporting a loved one with serious medical problems — possibly combined with physical and mental disabilities —  still places considerable demands on caregivers, who too often feel they must find a way to attend to every need… There never seems to be enough time in the day, so some needs must go unmet, and usually the caregiver’s needs are the first to go.” RCI programs support caregivers of people living with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and other chronic conditions.