March 2021 Newsletter
Mike Splaine Presents this Friday
Progress on cognitive health, dementia, and aging research lags because there are simply not enough people volunteering to participate.
Opportunities to make a difference by volunteering range from things one could do from the couch or home office, to complex clinical trials sites in major medical centers.
Recruitment Partners’ Managing Partner Mike Splaine will review how, why, and where one can be a participant in research.
Read more about the presentation and register here.
Race, Ethnicity, and Alzheimer’s
This month the Alzheimer’s Association released an accompaniment to the 2021 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures report, which examines perspectives and experiences of various races in regards to Alzheimer’s and dementia care. Findings noted in Race, Ethnicity, and Alzheimer’s include non-White groups experience more access barriers to care and are less likely to participate in clinical research trials.
Access the full report here.
Do you have caregivers of persons with AD in your network that may benefit from participating in positive emotion research? Email us to receive a copy of the LEAF Study flyer and to discuss best ways to connect caregivers to the study, or visit the study website.
Real life effects of research participation
Watch a mother and son reunite after a year of separation, thanks to the hundreds of thousands of Covid-19 vaccine trial volunteers who rolled up their sleeves for science.
What’s Happening in the Alzheimer’s Field?
A new action brief, “Promoting Caregiving Across the Full Community: The Role for Public Health Strategists” was released this week by the CDC’s Division of Population Health. The action brief provides an overview of the challenges of caregiving for people living with dementia and offers a 360-degree plan for action to help guide state, local, and tribal public health leaders set priorities and goals for services, policies, systems, and environments that effectively support caregiver health. Access the full brief here.
A genetic connection
In a recent study, lead by the National Institute on Health, researchers found that although Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Lewy body dementia are very different disorders, they may be caused by the same genes. In support of future research, the team published the genome sequence data from the study on the database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP), a National Library of Medicine website that researchers can freely search for new insights. Read more about the study here.
A drug success?
Attention for Eli Lilly has risen since the company announced success for its experimental AD drug donanemab. While the Phase 2 study met its primary outcome, it missed the mark on other endpoints. Also, the study targeted a very narrow subset of AD patients, meaning Lilly will need to run a larger trial including participants with more varied backgrounds, demographics, and disease severity. Read more here.