CMS: anti-amyloid drug Leqembi (lecanemab) doesn’t meet the “reasonable and necessary” standard required for wider Medicare coverage

By SharpBrains | February 28, 2023

CMS Sticks to Sharply Lim­it­ed Cov­er­age of New Alzheimer’s Drug, Leqem­bi (Man­aged Health­care Exec­u­tive): For now, CMS (Note: Cen­ters for Medicare & Med­ic­aid Ser­vices) is stick­ing to the cov­er­age deci­sion it made for Aduhelm (adu­canum­ab) and apply­ing it Leqem­bi (lecanemab). The deci­sion lim­its Medicare cov­er­age of the two Alzheimer disease’s drugs to Medicare ben­e­fi­cia­ries who…

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Ballroom dancing can reduce aging-related brain atrophy in the hippocampus (and, more than treadmill walking!)

By The Conversation | January 11, 2023 |

Social ball­room danc­ing can improve cog­ni­tive func­tions and reduce brain atro­phy in old­er adults who are at increased risk for Alzheimer’s dis­ease and oth­er forms of demen­tia. That’s the key find­ing of my team’s recent­ly pub­lished study in the Jour­nal of Aging and Phys­i­cal Activ­i­ty. In our study, we enrolled 25 adults over 65 years…

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Study finds sharp decrease (nearly one-third) in the prevalence of dementia among those 65+ in the United States

By SharpBrains | November 14, 2022

Demen­tia plum­mets by near­ly one-third among U.S. seniors, RAND says (UPI): The preva­lence of demen­tia in the Unit­ed States is declin­ing among peo­ple over age 65, falling dra­mat­i­cal­ly from 2000 to 2016, a RAND Corp. study says. Nation­wide, the age-adjust­ed preva­lence of demen­tia fell to 8.5% of peo­ple over age 65 in 2016, down by nearly…

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Combined tDCS neurostimulation and cognitive training found to improve working memory among older adults–especially those with lower starting capacity

By SharpBrains | October 25, 2022

Giv­ing mem­o­ry a lift: Can games and brain stim­u­la­tion do it? (Med­ical­New­sTo­day): A person’s work­ing mem­o­ry may decline with age or if they have demen­tia, Parkinson’s dis­ease, or have had a stroke. When this occurs, the loss can affect their day-to-day qual­i­ty of life, turn­ing even sim­ple tasks into often-demor­­al­iz­ing challenges.

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Building cognitive reserve helps delay memory and thinking decline regardless of genetic or childhood markers

By SharpBrains | August 30, 2022

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain news and a few fun brain teasers to test your per­cep­tu­al and cog­ni­tive skills. #1. Study: Build­ing cog­ni­tive reserve helps delay mem­o­ry and think­ing decline regard­less of genet­ic or child­hood mark­ers “While our child­hood can influ­ence our mem­o­ry and think­ing skills lat­er in life,…

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