NFL vets seek assistance for dementia

NF Reporter · 05-30-2007, 06:03 PM

AP - Gene Upshaw was taken aback when he first saw the list of retired NFL players applying for financial help under a new program to help those with dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

Full Story...

waltky · 04-07-2008, 12:54 AM

Maybe they could be diagnosed earlier...

Alzheimer's blood test 'promise'
Sunday, 6 April 2008 - A US company hopes to be the first to market a blood test to detect early signs of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

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Several teams are working on such a test but Power3 Medical Products says its could be launched in Europe this summer, Chemistry and Industry reports. The diseases can currently only be diagnosed once symptoms develop. UK experts said the test sounded promising for detecting and monitoring the diseases but more work was needed.

The company plans to launch the test in Greece first, before promoting it in the US by the end of the year. It hopes the test could be launched in the UK early next year, if authorities are satisfied with trial results.

Monitoring aid

The test, called NuroPro, measures levels of 59 biomarkers - proteins in the blood. The relative levels of the markers is used to distinguish between Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and another neurodegenerative disease called Lou Gehrig's disease. "A blood test could be particularly useful in monitoring the progression of Parkinson's" - Kieran Breen, Parkinson's Disease Society

More BBC NEWS | Health | Alzheimer's blood test 'promise'

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Parkinson's Disrupts Stem Cell Therapy Transplants
SUNDAY, April 6,`08 -- Dopamine neurons may not work long-term, as disease causes pathologic changes in cells

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Current therapies using stem cell transplants in the brains of patients with Parkinson's disease may not work long-term, because the disease is an ongoing process that continually causes damage, new findings suggest. Dopamine cells are sometimes transplanted into the brain of Parkinson's patients in the hope that they can replace those neurons that have degenerated. In theory, this should improve the disease's symptoms, which include tremors, stiffness of the limbs and trunk, slowed movement and impaired balance and coordination.

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and Rush University Medical Center in Chicago studied brain tissue from a patient who had received a dopamine transplant 14 years earlier and found that the transplanted cells developed changes characteristic of Parkinson's disease (PD) and did not appear to function normally. The patient had improved initially after the transplant but then deteriorated, noted the study, published in the April issue of Nature Medicine.

"While, on the one hand, these results may sound disappointing, this information is crucially important if we are to develop better therapies for PD. The more knowledge we gain about the nature of the disease, the better our chances to find the cause of why cells degenerate and to develop a treatment that can protect them," Dr. C. Warren Olanow, director of the Robert and John M. Bendheim Parkinson's Disease Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement. "These findings also do not mean that transplant strategies such as stem cells cannot be made to work -- our findings just represent another obstacle that will have to be overcome."

According to researchers, these new findings counter the theory that a single event, like an infection, causes the initial damage to cells and triggers their gradual degeneration over time. Since the newly implanted cells in the Parkinson's patient also became damaged, they suggest that the disease process is ongoing.

Parkinson's Disrupts Stem Cell Therapy Transplants

waltky · 05-15-2008, 05:16 AM

Alzheimer's families ask Senate for more research...

Senators Hear From Alzheimer's Patients
May 14, 2008 - Patients and Caregivers Ask for Greater Research Commitment

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Chuck Jackson has early-onset Alzheimer's disease. So does his older brother and three of his cousins. Jackson, an Alzheimer's patient from Albany, Ore., said 17 of his relatives have lost their battle with Alzheimer's, most before the age of 65. In 1967, at the age of 13, he became a caregiver for his mother.

Jackson joined several other Alzheimer's patients and caregivers on Capitol Hill Wednesday to ask lawmakers to increase their commitment to researching the disease. Alzheimer's affects as many as 4.5 million Americans, according to the National Institute on Aging. It is a disease in which a protein called A-beta becomes excessive in the brain, cutting off communication between nerve cells, eventually resulting in memory loss.

Among those testifying today before the Senate Special Committee on Aging is former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. O'Connor retired from the court in 2006 to care for her husband, who has Alzheimer's.

"It's so painful for someone you care about to see them disappear, in effect, before your eyes in every way, both mentally and physically. Very depressing," O'Connor told ABC News' Jan Crawford Greenburg in an exclusive interview before the hearing.

More ABC News: Senators Hear From Alzheimer's Patients