2nd International Conference on Alzheimers, Dementia and Related Neurodegenerative Diseases

So, what is multiple sclerosis (MS) and how do you get it? MS is a chronic disorder where cells from the immune system attack the nerve cells of the central nervous system (CNS). There's a special substance called myelin, which covers the nerve cells and allows messages to pass from your brain to the body and vice versa. During a flare, the immune system attacks the myelin, the nerve covering becomes inflamed and communication between the brain and body is disrupted. The inflammation and nerve covering damage cause multiple areas of scarring (sclerosis) within the CNS, which is where the name multiple sclerosis originates. Unfortunately, the cause of MS is not yet known. Scientists believe that it could be caused by an unknown interaction of genetic predisposition and environmental factors. Which part of the body is affected and what are the symptoms? Since the central nervous system is made up of your brain, spinal cord, and specialized eye nerves, multiple sc...

Maybe it recently took you a surprising amount of time to remember the name of your beloved sixth-grade teacher. Perhaps you’ve noticed an aging relative is forgetting to go to appointments they’d normally attend. There are various reasons why you might wonder if memory issues are normal or signalling something more serious. “It is very common for people to have memory concerns but forgetting things doesn’t always mean it’s a sign of something abnormal like [ dementia ]. Read on to learn how to distinguish between normal age-related memory decline and signs of dementia. It’s totally normal to forget things like the name of the street you grew up on as you age. The key difference is that memory decline related to age typically makes you forget information from a long time ago. Dementia impacts more recent memories first. One type of dementia tends to be more notorious than others, perhaps because of its prevalence. In general, your risk of dementia rises after you t...

More than 30 million people worldwide suffer from Alzheimer’s disease – the most common form of dementia. Unfortunately, there is no cure, only drugs to ease the symptoms. However, my own research suggests a way to treat the disease. I have found the strongest evidence yet that the herpes virus is a cause of Alzheimer’s, suggesting that effective and safe antiviral drugs might be able to treat the disease. We might even be able to vaccinate our children against it. The virus implicated in Alzheimer’s disease , herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV1), is better known for causing cold sores. It infects most people in infancy and then remains dormant in the peripheral nervous system (the part of the nervous system that isn’t the brain and the spinal cord). Occasionally, if a person is stressed, the virus becomes activated and, in some people, it causes cold sores. The virus can become active in the brain, perhaps repeatedly, and this probably causes cumulative damage. The likel...

A New Haven drugmaker and Hamden research center have been paired in a new, late-stage clinical trial to slow or stop the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease . Biohaven Pharmaceuticals announced it enrolled its first patient in August, and is still seeking more participants for the study, which is being coordinated by the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study at the University of California, San Diego. The GAP Center — the Geriatric and Adult Psychiatry Clinical Care and Research Center — in Hamden will be the first of 32 sites around the country to participate in the trial of Biohaven’s drug, troriluzole, which is designed to help people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s . The medication is based on another drug, riluzole, the first medication approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ALS more than 20 years ago. A 2012 study found it extended ALS patients ’ survival by two to three months. Like riluzole, Biohaven’s troriluzole influences the brain chemicals tha...

It starts out slowly ,  almost imperceptibly. The misplaced keys. The forgotten birthday or anniversary. Using the wrong word or losing the thread in mid-conversation. These are often dismissed as typical signs of aging, but in some people, they may be the earliest signs that something bigger is at work – the development of dementia or Alzheimer's disease .  When a doctor diagnoses dementia or Alzheimer's in your loved one, you should be sure to ask a lot of questions to make sure you understand your loved one's current state of being and so you can appropriately prepare for how this progressive disease could change over time. Is it Alzheimer's or another kind of dementia? What else could it be? How will the disease progress? Does my loved one understand what's going on? What do I, as a caregiver, need to know? What should my next steps be?

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a devastating condition with no known cure. Existing drugs only alleviate symptoms. Given repeated and costly drug failures, CUNY SPH Professor Mary Schooling and colleagues assessed systematically whether approved and investigational AD drugs are targeting products of genes strongly associated with AD and whether these genes are targeted by existing drugs for other indications which could be re-purposed. Schooling and her team identified genes strongly associated with late-onset AD from the loci of genetic variants associated with AD at genome-wide-significance and from a gene-based test applied to the most extensively genotyped late-onset AD case (n = 17,008)-control (n = 37,154) study, the International Genomics of Alzheimer's Project . They used three gene-to-drug cross-references, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes, Drugbank and Drug Repurposing Hub, to identify genetically validated targets of AD drugs and any existing drugs or nu...

Wearing a hearing aid can slow the progress of dementia by up to 75 per cent, according to a new study. Scientists believe that keeping older people engaged and active by adopting the devices can significantly reduce age-related cognitive decline . They followed the progress of 2,040 individuals between 1996 and 2014, asking them to complete word memory tests at various stages and monitoring the rate of decline before and after getting a hearing aid. The research team found that while the aids did not halt or reverse cognitive decline, they slowed it down by three-quarters, meanwhile in a separate group of 2,068 who underwent cataract surgery, decline slowed by around half. The team at the University of Manchester said the strength of the association between hearing aids , cataract surgery and mental deterioration meant policy makers should consider hearing and sight loss screening for all older adults. Dr Piers Dawes said: "These studies underline just how ...

We’re just going to go ahead and state the obvious: Alzheimer’s disease is terrible, and no one should ever have to deal with it. Whether you fear a loved one is showing signs of Alzheimer’s or they’ve received a diagnosis, you may be confused, scared, and not sure what to expect. Here, we’ve rounded up 10 essential facts about Alzheimer’s disease to offer some understanding of what the condition entails. Alzheimer’s disease is an irreversible, progressive condition that destroys a person’s memory and other important mental (and eventually physical) functions. Alzheimer’s progresses through five stages, and the first one doesn’t cause any symptoms at all. Normal forgetfulness is a thing, and it’s very different from Alzheimer’s-related memory loss. Alzheimer’s affects millions of people in the United States, causing over 110,000 deaths each year. Doctors aren’t totally sure what causes Alzheimer’s disease, but brain changes are definitely involved. There’s also a genetic c...

# Neurodegenerative disease is an umbrella term for a range of conditions which primarily affect the neurons in the human brain. # Alzheimer's is a type of dementia that causes problems with #memory, thinking and behavior. Symptoms usually develop slowly and get worse over time, becoming severe enough to interfere with daily tasks. # Dementia is a general term for a decline in mental ability severe enough to interfere with daily life. Memory loss is an example. #Alzheimer's is the most common type of dementia. International #Conference on #Alzheimers, Dementia and Related # Neurodegenerative Diseases scheduled on 03-04  # December , 2018 at  # Madrid , Spain is having limited  # Speaker  and  # Poster  Presentation Opportunities for researchers from the field of  # Neuorodegenerative  Diseases... Submit Abstracts to be a part of the Expert  # Gathering .. Don't miss the opportunity to show your Research to the world... T...

You’re in the middle of telling a story about your friend’s dog when a memory lapse strikes and—poof! —the name of the pup disappears from your mind. Or maybe you’re typing up a work report when a word that was on the tip of your tongue slips from your mental grip. It began with a V, right? Or maybe it was an R? If all of this sounds eerily familiar, you’re not alone. Random brain farts like these happen to a lot of us. In one 2014 study in the journal PLOS ONE, 14.4 percent of the 4,425 18- to 39-year-olds surveyed thought they had memory issues. If your mind veers off into worst-case-scenario territory every time you have a memory lapse—early-onset Alzheimer’s, a brain tumor—stop it right there. There are various potential reasons you might be dealing with memory issues, and most of them aren’t a huge deal at all. Maybe your working memory is overloaded. Your brain is aging (which is normal!). You’re dealing with depression Your medication could be impacting your ...

There are about 50 million people in the world living with dementia . It's the umbrella term given to the symptoms caused by various diseases - most commonly Alzheimer's. This is expected to go up to 152 million in 2050, according to Alzheimer's Research UK . Despite the massive impact dementia has on the economy and people's livelihoods, there are still many misconceptions around it. There are also some facts that still surprise people. Alzheimer's disease and dementia are not the same thing People react differently to the words Dementia isn't an inevitable part of getting older More people at 90 don't have dementia than have it Almost half of adults don't realise it causes death A brain that is affected by Alzheimer's can weigh 140 grams less than an unaffected brain There are more symptoms than memory loss A third of risk factors are within our control Heart health and brain health are intrinsically linked Mid-life is the most...

An Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis isn’t just devastating for the person with the condition. Many people will end up serving as caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s , which can be incredibly distressing, isolating, and life-altering. Try to be as patient as you can with your loved one. Don’t waste energy reminding them that they’ve learned something before. Keep things simple so they’re easier for your loved one to understand. Have go-to methods of calming them when they’re upset. Use aids to help them keep track of time. Build in more time for chores and self-care tasks than your loved one would have needed before. Accommodate (or anticipate) their requests if you can, even if you don’t understand them. Pay attention to signs that the disease is progressing. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Build a support network. Remember that you deserve care, too.

The number of people projected to have Alzheimer's disease or dementia in the United States is expected to double by 2060, says a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2014, there were 5 million people in the U.S. with Alzheimer's or dementia. The CDC estimates by 2060, that number will grow to 13.9 million. "Early diagnosis is key to helping people and their families cope with loss of memory, navigate the healthcare system , and plan for their care in the future," said CDC Director Dr. Robert R. Redfield in a statement. The study, which the CDC said is the first to forecast estimates of Alzheimer's by race and ethnicity, found non-Hispanic whites will have the most total cases of Alzheimer's and dementia . However, because of population growth, Hispanic Americans will see the largest projected increase in cases. Among people who are 65 and older, African-Americans have the highest prevalence of Alzheimer's and...

There is a positive association between residential levels of air pollution and being diagnosed with dementia , according to a study published in the September issue of BMJ Open. Iain M. Carey, Ph.D., from the University of London, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study involving 130,978 adults aged 50 to 79 years with no recorded history of dementia or care home residence. A first recorded diagnosis of dementia was identified during 2005 to 2013. The researchers found that 1.7 percent of subjects received an incident diagnosis of dementia (39 and 29 percent mentioned Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia, respectively). A positive exposure response relationship was identified between dementia and all measures of all pollution except for ozone; the correlation was not readily explained by further adjustment. The risk for dementia was increased for adults living in the highest versus the lowest fifth of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentration (...

Your sense of smell may give doctors early clues as to whether you’ll deal with Alzheimer’s disease. Since there’s no cure for Alzheimer’s disease , researchers are focused on ways to identify early signs and create treatments before dementia sets in. Dr. Shannon Risacher is one of those researchers whose study focused on how people’s sense of smell could be connected to Alzheimer's disease. Risacher and a team of researchers gave a “scratch and sniff” test of 40 different smells to a group of 34 people. “What we wanted to do, was look at whether or not the performance on this test was linked to certain proteins known to be involved in the Alzheimer’s disease in the brain ,” said Risacher. The findings suggest there’s an association between a low score on the “scratch and sniff” test and the protein that accumulates in regions of the brain where Alzheimer’s tends to show up. The study also found that the sense of smell can be associated with atrophy in certa...

Researchers have discovered a new mechanism that may contribute to Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury. They now hope to launch a clinical trial to test a potential treatment in humans. What causes Alzheimer’s disease is unknown, but a popular theory suggests a protein known as amyloid-beta slowly builds up a plaque in the brains of people with the disease. But in a recent study in the journal Cell Death & Disease , researchers looked at a new mechanism, which involves a non-amyloid-beta protein, a potassium channel referred to as KCNB1. Under conditions of stress in a brain Alzheimer’s disease affects, KCNB1 builds up and becomes toxic to neurons and then promotes the production of amyloid-beta . A chemical process commonly known as oxidation causes the build-up of KCNB1 channels. KCNB1 BUILDS UP AND BECOMES TOXIC TO NEURONS AND THEN PROMOTES THE PRODUCTION OF AMYLOID-BETA. “Indeed, scientists have known for a long time that during aging or in neu...

Genetics aside, everyone should keep a sharp eye out for the signs of Alzheimer’s disease . Scientists have recently uncovered some surprising early symptoms, beyond memory loss or confusion while driving. Now, research published in the journal Annals of Neurology says that one marker for Alzheimer’s disease could be written all over your face, too. Rosacea (a skin condition that causes facial redness) could be linked to Alzheimer’s disease, according to a 2016 study. To determine their results, lead author Dr. Alexander Egeberg and his team examined data from the Danish national health registry system for the years 1997 to 2012. The nation’s entire population of roughly 5.6 million men and women were included in the study, and about 82,000 had rosacea . The final data showed that people with rosacea were seven percent more likely to develop any form of dementia—and 25 percent more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease —than people without rosacea. The association seemed ...

Scientists have developed an algorithm that can more accurately predict cognitive decline that leads to Alzheimer’s disease . Early preventive measures may help delay and even halt the disease’s onset. Dr Mallar Chakravarty, a computational neuroscientist at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, and his colleagues from the University of Toronto and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, designed an algorithm that learns signatures from magneticresonance imaging (MRI) , genetics, and clinical data. This algorithm can help predict whether an individual’s cognitive faculties are likely to deteriorate towards Alzheimer’s within the next five years. Commenting on how the algorithm could positively impact the onset of the disease, Chakravarty, who is an Assistant Professor in McGill University‘s Department of Psychiatry , said: “At the moment, there are limited ways to treat Alzheimer’s and the best evidence we have is for prevention. Our AI methodology could have s...

Your financial habits may be just as important as a brain scan when it comes to diagnosing Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia . Look no further than anyone who’s been diagnosed with a form of dementia, and their families will tell you the signs were there. They just didn’t know what to look for. There's something about financial transactions that are so sensitive to difficulties with thinking, concentrating , paying attention, learning new information that often they're the first things when you look back, where the signs were there before the repetitive questions, the repetitious stories, the burned dinner, etc," Karlawish is considered one of the nation’s leading Alzheimer’s researchers . He’s a Professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics and Health Policy and Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania and is the Co-Director of the Penn Memory Centre. He identified financial habits as tools for early diagnosis when new patients continued to land in his office...

Scientists at the University of Texas have implicated a type of cellular stress for the first time as a player in Alzheimer's disease . And their discovery could lead to treatments for more than 20 human brain diseases including Alzheimer's and traumatic brain injury. One author of the study went as far as to say the treatment that researchers used on mice to rid them of the stressed cells stopped Alzheimer's disease "in its tracks." They established a link between tau tangles and the stressed or senescent cells they found in Alzheimer's-diseased tissue. Senescence is the process by which cells irreversibly stop dividing or growing without dying. Already proven to be involved in cancer and aging, tau protein accumulation is known to exist in 20 human brain diseases . Senescent cells are stressed. They are toxic. But they don’t die. They are, in effect, zombie cells. And what’s worse, these senescent cells accumulate in tissues and may contribute to...

Dementia is a term used to describe symptoms that arise from damage to the brain caused by different diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease . One of the types is frontotemporal dementia - but what is this, and are you at risk of it developing? Diagnosis of epilepsy occurs most often in the young and the over 60s and because life expectancy is increasing there are more and more epilepsy diagnoses in the older population.   It has been known for a while that the risk of late onset epilepsy is associated with stroke and dementia , but a new study suggests that there may be a genetic risk as well as life-style factors such as diabetes, smoking and physical activity.   “People with dementia are at higher risk of epilepsy, and people with epilepsy are at higher risk of developing dementia” says Andres Kenner, MD, of the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami, who was not involved in the research “And now, among the risk factors for late-onset epilepsy is the pr...

This is one of an occasional series of opinion columns on Lewy body dementia , other dementias, and end of life issues written by a writer who happens to have the brain degenerative disease. As you can see by the chart the broad category is Lewy body disease. That's describing a brain disorder that creates the proteins believed to be the culprit of damage through brain cell loss. That includes Parkinson's and Lewy body dementia.  Both Parkinson's and Lewy body, as you can see, are sisters under Lewy body disease. Alzheimer's is not on this chart because it is not a Lewy body brain malfunction. With Lewy body disease, the proliferation of a protein, which when clumped together are called Lewy bodies. They are named after their founder, Dr. Friederich Lewy, a German neurologist .