Alzheimers-Association

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

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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 have enrolled in clin­i­cal tri­als of the drugs

The deci­sion, which was announced in a press release yes­ter­day, was denounced in strong lan­guage by the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion. [Read more…] about CMS: anti-amy­loid drug Leqem­bi (lecanemab) doesn’t meet the “rea­son­able and nec­es­sary” stan­dard required for wider Medicare coverage

New survey highlights need to improve brain health literacy

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New Sur­vey: Sci­ence-Backed Habits Reduce Demen­tia Risk, But Many Amer­i­cans Are Mis­in­formed (Read­er’s Digest):

“Reader’s Digest part­nered with the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion to sur­vey approx­i­mate­ly 1,600 peo­ple dur­ing the month of May 2015 about their brain health and their knowl­edge of how lifestyle habits affect cog­ni­tive decline and dementia…respondents seemed to think they had more con­trol over their heart health than their brain health: [Read more…] about New sur­vey high­lights need to improve brain health literacy

Brain health paradigm shift: from one-time screenings to regular cognitive assessments

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Alzheimer_Word_cloud_conceptUSPSTF: No to Rou­tine Screen­ing for Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment (Med­scape):

“There is insuf­fi­cient evi­dence to rec­om­mend rou­tine screen­ing for cog­ni­tive decline in old­er adults in the pri­ma­ry care set­ting, accord­ing to a new review by the US Pre­ven­tive Ser­vices Task Force (USPSTF)…The USPSTF review­ers looked at drug ther­a­py and non­drug ther­a­py options for cog­ni­tive impair­ment and found more evi­dence on both than at the 2003 review, but not enough evi­dence that they lead to bet­ter health outcomes.

Elab­o­rat­ing on the views of the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion, Maria Car­ril­lo, PhD, vice pres­i­dent of med­ical and sci­en­tif­ic rela­tions, explained that “…no one should mis­con­strue this USPSTF guid­ance doc­u­ment to imply that there are no ben­e­fits to reg­u­lar cog­ni­tive eval­u­a­tions, [Read more…] about Brain health par­a­digm shift: from one-time screen­ings to reg­u­lar cog­ni­tive assessments

Upcoming webinar: The State of the Dig­i­tal Brain Health Mar­ket (Jan­u­ary 30th, 2013)

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We will dis­cuss the main find­ings and inno­va­tion opportunities/ chal­lenges iden­ti­fied in Sharp­Brains’ new mar­ket report The Dig­i­tal Brain Health Mar­ket 2012–2020: Web-based, mobile and bio­met­rics-based tech­nol­ogy to assess, mon­i­tor and enhance cog­ni­tion and brain func­tion­ing.

When: Wednes­day, Jan­u­ary 30th, 2013, 1–2.30pm US East­ern Time (live webi­nar will be record­ed for lat­er view­ing by reg­is­trants) [Read more…] about Upcom­ing webi­nar: The State of the Dig­i­tal Brain Health Mar­ket (Jan­u­ary 30th, 2013)

Medicare to update reimbursement criteria for degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, MS, Parkinson’s disease

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What Medicare Will Cov­er Even if You’re Not Like­ly to Get Bet­ter (The New York Times):

“Should the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment cov­er the costs of many kinds of treat­ments for patients who aren’t going to get any bet­ter? It didn’t, for many years. But after the set­tle­ment of a land­mark class-action this week, Medicare will soon [Read more…] about Medicare to update reim­burse­ment cri­te­ria for degen­er­a­tive dis­eases such as Alzheimer’s, MS, Parkinson’s disease

Alzheimer’s Disease: is our Healthcare System Ready?

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In the midst of much health­care reform talk, not Alzheimer's Disease reportenough 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 san francisco2008 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 more…] about Alzheimer’s Dis­ease: is our Health­care Sys­tem Ready?