Alzheimer's Club

Alzheimer's incidence expected to grow but research not in budget

The incurable brain disease affecting more than 60,000 South Carolinians warrants more attention than it's getting on the local, state and national levels, national experts told an Orangeburg audience last week.

Without a cure, the incidence of Alzheimer's disease in the state is expected to increase by 49 percent by the year 2025, with more than 75 percent of these individuals expected to receive in-home care by an elderly spouse or adult child, according to Kate Gordon, National Alzheimer's Association associate director of grassroots advocacy.

"There are a high number of people with Alzheimer's, about 50 percent, living in nursing homes, but we know that families take on the greatest burden of care," Gordon said, speaking at Victory Tabernacle Deliverance Temple Wednesday.

The situation with federal funding for Alzheimer's research and care programs is discouraging, she said. Research funding has been on a steady decline since 2003, and funds for key Alzheimer's care program, including the 24/7 Contact Center, Safe Return and the Alzheimer's State Matching Grants Program, have been eliminated in the president's 2008 budget proposal to Congress, she said.

The FDA has over 20 drugs "in the pipeline" for Alzheimer's prevention or treatment, but money to move them forward has been declining steadily over the last 15 years, which dashes NAA's hopes for a cure within the next five to 10 years.

The reductions decrease services available for families, and Gordon encouraged such families to communicate with elected officials about what is needed.

The national association will hold its 19th Annual Public Policy Forum March 18-20.

Via "Virtual Visits," on-line users can write their personal Alzheimer's stories and voice their opinions against proposed budget cuts. State advocates will send the letters to the appropriate elected officials in Washington, D.C.

With baby-boomers approaching the highest risk age, 65, the numbers with Alzheimers will explode, Gordon said. A cure would decrease the burden on the country's overall health care system.

Alzheimer's is not "just a quiet, behind-closed-doors family issue," she said. "It's touching an entire community," said Gordon, stressing the need for caregivers.

Striking a population under 60, early-onset Alzheimer's disease is challenging for doctors specializing in older patients to diagnose, Gordon said. Ineligible for Medicare, early-onset victims don't have the resources of older patients, which offers an extra challenge to communities trying to offer services.

Hospice Care of Tri-county's Orangeburg office serves Orangeburg, Bamberg, Calhoun and Barnwell counties and a portion of Aiken County. Jerri Zeigler, community education coordinator with Hospice Care, is working to create an Alzheimer's support group with meetings likely rotating between her office and Morningside Assisted Living Center.

"My husband's grandmother died a few years ago with the disease, so it's very important to me to have a support group," she said. "I know how important it is to the community."

Hospice care can offer a critical link for those in the late, terminal stages of the disease. "People don't see hospice as a service for people with Alzheimer's disease because it's not widely known that it is a terminal disease," she said.

Family members and other caregivers experiencing burn-out can take advantage of respite care and other services that hospice provides, said Janice Harris, community education coordinator at Hospice Care of Tri-County's Columbia office. The respite program provides care for up to five days and can be used every three months, according to Zeigler.. She said the office has also helped individuals with light, taxes and other bills.

Harris, who has cared for four of her own family members with Alzheimer's, said she speaks at senior centers about how to detect the early stages of the disease. Memory loss and language problems are among the 10 warning signs of the disease.

Harris also does a 'Caring for the Caregiver' program and education programs on maintaining the brain, staying healthy, and understanding the challenging behaviors of those with Alzheimer's in nursing facilities and homes..

In book, "When Roles Reverse: A Guide To Parenting Your Parents," author Jim Comer identifies issues in families that need attention and helps them develop an action plan.

Among the 50 questions Comer said families must ask to save time, money and tears are: Who will be the primary caregiver or share responsibility when a parent becomes ill or incapacitated? What specific plans has the family made for a sudden parental illness or emergency? T

"Have a family discussion in a relaxed atmosphere, not in the middle of a holiday celebration, birthday or anniversary. These questions deserve a time slot of their own. If a family is geographically dispersed, ... arrange for a conference call," Comer says in his book.

Gordon is particularly excited about the creation of a local support group which she said will empower the community to fight Alzheimer's more effectively.

Because there is no cure, NAA advocates families getting involved in the fight for a world without the brain disease.

"People are suffering in our communities, and we need help," Gordon said.

Source: Dionne Gleaton, T&D Staff Writer. Alzheimer's incidence expected to grow but research not in budget (19 Feb 2007) [FullText]

T&D Staff Writer Dionne Gleaton can be reached by e-mail at dgleaton [at] timesanddemocrat.com

Labels: Alzheimer's funding, Alzheimer's grant

A completely new approach to the study of Alzheimer's disease, initiated by a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, may solve a critical piece in the puzzle of the disease. This tragic neurological illness progressively erases memory in its millions of victims. The key to the new approach is understanding the way certain proteins in the brain fold, or rather "misfold."

Michael Bowers, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, developed this project, which is being funded by the National Institutes of Health. Bowers's laboratory will receive $1.3 million of the total $9 million project grant, plus biological samples worth an additional $500,000. The grant covers a five-year period. Four institutions are involved.

Bowers is using specialized chemical research methods and applying them to biology. His research will depend upon the study of rare peptides, or strings of amino acids, that are difficult to produce. These will be provided by co-investigator David Teplow, a professor at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, who has been involved in Alzheimer's research for over 10 years. Joan-Emma Shea, also a professor in UCSB's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, heads the theoretical modeling aspect of the project.

"Until about five or six years ago, everyone assumed that the large amyloid plaques, or neurofibrillary tangles, that were found in the brains of Alzheimer's victims were the cause of the disease," said Bowers. "However, recent scientific discoveries indicate that these large, insoluble aggregates might merely be markers of the disease ---- they do not cause the disease. Rather, smaller soluble oligomers, or peptide complexes, are now felt to be the causative agents, and I find that very interesting."

He explained that now the hunt is on for the "small stuff." Because of their expertise in certain chemical methodologies, Bowers and his research group are able to track down the molecular level changes that lead to development of the disease.

The process of aggregation of proteins that cause the plaque begins in a way that Bowers has begun to clarify. The goal is to find non-toxic drugs that will interrupt the aggregation process. "If we can do that, we can stop the disease," said Bowers. "However, once you start losing neurons, things become very difficult, because the body doesn't readily replace them due to their very large size. If we could find a marker, early on, to indicate when the patient first has the disease, then the new drug or drugs that we hope to develop could prevent further damage."

Bowers described his approach as a whole new way to determine the structure and composition of the Abeta 42 peptide and its oligomers that are primarily responsible for Alzheimer's disease. The research team is analyzing the way this peptide folds, causing it to aggregate and disrupt neuronal function.

"In biology, structure and function are tightly coupled," said Bowers. "When it became clear that small soluble oligomers were most probably the toxic agents, I realized our ion mobility methods could contribute, since we could measure the oligomer distribution and shapes of these peptides for the first time."

Three years of preliminary work convinced the National Institutes of Health to provide funding. "In the last several months, I believe we have uncovered the identity and shape of the primary toxic oligomer," said Bowers. "Our results are consistent with findings on transgenic mice, recently published in the journal Nature, indicating that soluble oligomers with masses matching those we have identified have been extracted from the brains of the diseased animals."

The transgenic mice that Bowers refers to are laboratory mice that have had the gene that creates the Abeta 42 precursor protein spliced into their genome. This process has been shown experimentally to produce memory loss in the animals.

The key aspect of ion mobility is its ability to measure accurate cross sections of complex aggregations of proteins and obtain information on their three-dimensional shape. When coupled with mass spectrometry, electrospray ionization, and high-level molecular modeling, it becomes a very powerful technique.

The experiment starts with electrospray ionization, a method of spraying the solution containing the peptides of interest into fine droplets and then letting the droplets evaporate. Following evaporation, mass spectrometry is employed to determine the mass or weight of the species that were in the solution, and from that to determine the composition. Finally ion mobility is used to show the shape of the Abeta 42 peptide and its oligomers.

"Our experimental and theoretical methods allow us to investigate structure, aggregation, and energetics in a variety of protein systems," said Bowers. "In addition, we are able to explore correlations between solution and gas phase protein structures, learning that in many critical cases, these structures are very similar."

The experimental methodology for the Alzheimer's study was developed at UCSB 15 years ago, in studies involving "buckyballs." Buckyball is the nickname for the versatile carbon molecule known as C60, which scientists named "buckminsterfullerene" after American architect R. Buckminster Fuller, who designed geodesic domes in a soccer-ball shape. "Our ion mobility and mass spectrometry methods provide a new way to attack the molecular basis of neurological diseases that has not been explored until now," said Bowers.

Bowers and his group are currently investigating proteins involved in the study of several neurological diseases. Besides Alzheimer's disease, they are studying Parkinson's disease and the various transmissible spongiform encephalopathies or "prion" diseases. In this latter case Bowers is receiving funding from the British government to find an ante-mortem test for the bovine prion disease usually called "mad cow" disease. The same test, if successful, should also work on deer and elk; an epidemic in the Midwestern United States now affects these animals.

Besides Teplow and Shea, co-investigators on the Alzheimer's project include Gal Bitan, assistant professor at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine; Eugene Stanley, physics professor at Boston University; and, George Benedek, physics professor at MIT.

Source: Innovative Alzheimer's Research May Solve Critical Piece In Disease's Puzzle. Science Daily (15 Feb 07) [FullText] Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University of California - Santa Barbara.

Labels: Alzheimer's funding, Alzheimer's grant