cognitive dysfunction

Trend: Pharma industry warming up to digital therapeutics

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– Som­ryst app by Pear Therapeutics

Dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics have poten­tial but com­mer­cial suc­cess unproven (Van­tage):

“Devel­op­ing drugs to treat dis­or­ders of the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem is famous­ly fraught with dif­fi­cul­ty. Sev­er­al com­pa­nies, includ­ing Pear Ther­a­peu­tics and Dthera, are tak­ing a wild­ly dif­fer­ent approach: dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics. These are pieces of soft­ware designed to treat dis­ease that are reg­u­lat­ed, pre­scribed and even paid for as if they were drugs … Pear is so far the only com­pa­ny to have brought a dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic to mar­ket – but it is by no means the only com­pa­ny in this space. Akili Inter­ac­tive has­filed for FDA approval of AKL-T01, a com­put­er game designed to treat ADHD, and [Read more…] about Trend: Phar­ma indus­try warm­ing up to dig­i­tal therapeutics

Cognitive Deficits May Hinder Self Care in Patients with Heart Failure

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Cog­ni­tive Deficits May Hin­der HF Self Care (Med­Page):
— “Mild cog­ni­tive dys­func­tion may pre­vent patients with heart fail­ure from respond­ing appro­pri­ate­ly to wors­en­ing symp­toms, researchers found.”

- “Among those (patients) with mild cog­ni­tive dys­func­tion, how­ev­er, a greater bur­den of symp­toms was asso­ci­at­ed with worse self care, she report­ed at the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion of Heart Fail­ure Nurs­es meet­ing here.”

- “…some degree of cog­ni­tive dys­func­tion may be present in 25% to 74% of patients with heart fail­ure, which might influ­ence the abil­i­ty of patients to reli­ably take their med­ica­tions, weigh them­selves dai­ly, and rec­og­nize and respond to symp­toms at home.”

Relat­ed Arti­cle: Should Hos­pi­tals Mon­i­tor, and Work to Main­tain, Patients’ Cog­ni­tive Function?

Can Brain Fitness Innovation Enhance Cognitive Rehab and Driving Safety?

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Today we share must-read insights from  Kather­ine Sul­li­van, Direc­tor of the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter at Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Cen­ter, and Peter Kissinger, Pres­i­dent of the AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty. Both of them will dis­cuss their ongo­ing work and lessons learned at the upcom­ing 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit (March 30th — April 1st, 2011). The inter­views below were con­duct­ed via email.

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Kather­ine Sul­li­van is the Direc­tor of the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter at Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Center.

1. Kather­ine, how would you define “brain fit­ness” vs. “phys­i­cal fitness”?

In our con­text (help­ing active duty ser­vice mem­bers and vet­er­ans recov­er from cog­ni­tive dys­func­tion most asso­ci­at­ed with trau­mat­ic brain injury), I’d say brain fit­ness is the out­come we work towards: the cog­ni­tive resources required to return to duty or rein­te­grate into dai­ly and pro­fes­sion­al lives as much as pos­si­ble. In this sense, [Read more…] about Can Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Enhance Cog­ni­tive Rehab and Dri­ving Safety?