International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease

Is there a difference between autobiographical memory and episodic memory? Are they identical, as some researchers have treated them, or is autobiographical memory “a superordinate system with episodic memory as a subsystem.”

Insulin resistance is a well-known underlying mechanism in such metabolic disorders as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and dyslipidemia, all of which increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

A poster by Daniel L. Murman, MD, University of Nebraska Medical Center, and colleagues asks a key question in this era of managed care, tightening healthcare budgets, and possible comprehensive healthcare reform: could a tool that measures the level of care needed by patients with Alzheimer’s disease be used to help evaluate the cost effectiveness of AD treatments and therapies?

The presenter discusses objective, design, and results of this study, which was undertaken to examine the long-term effect of combined pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions in geriatric patients with depression, mixed dementia, and cardiovascular comorbidities.

Today’s featured resource is the Internet-based Forecasting of the Burden of Alzheimer’s Disease (iFBAD) website developed by Ron Brookmeyer, PhD, Elizabeth Colantuoni, PhD, and colleagues in the Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Kara M. Erwin discusses the challenges faced by Alzheimer’s disease researchers seeking to find brain donors.

The theme for the Tuesday session was “Alzheimer's disease Biomarkers: Update from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative.”

Rodrigo O. Kuljis discusses the challenges to our understanding of neurodegenerative disorders and to the development of effective treatments and prevention presented because we lack a “satisfactory, unanimously agreed and unifying conceptual scheme” for them.

The number of people with Alzheimer's and dementia – both new cases and total numbers with the disease – continues to rise among the very oldest segments of the population in contradiction of the conventional wisdom.

Each morning at the 2009 ICAD conference, there is a media session featuring researchers who will be speaking or presenting that day. The session is recorded and posted online as brief videos. The theme for the Monday session was “Risk Factors for Alzheimer's; Update on Alzheimer's Prevalence/Incidence.”

MDNG is always on the lookout for new online resources for physicians and patients that promotes more effective communication, enhances the physician patient relationship, and helps patients and caregivers take a more active role in treatment.

Data presented at the 2009 International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in show that combination therapy with the investigational drug dimebon (latrepiridine) and donepezil HCl tablets was well tolerated in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease.