U.S. launches national war on Alzheimer’s
By admin at January 17, 2012 | 9:17 pm | Print
U.S. launches national war on Alzheimer’s
GREAT FALLS, VA.— When doctors told Carol Blackwell that her husband — her best friend and the love of her life — had Alzheimer’s disease, they assured her “a cure was just around the corner.”
Bob Blackwell was 64, recently retired from the CIA as an analyst on the former Soviet Union and Europe and still functioning normally. “He was brilliant then.”
That was five years ago.
“Here we are, and there’s no cure and no promise of a cure,” Carol says, sitting in her family room, eyes wet with tears.
She is Bob’s primary caregiver, and the last couple of months have been “tough,” she says. There are days when Bob doesn’t know she’s his wife. “I’ve been through a lot of grieving,” she says. “I know it’s too late for a cure for Bob, the disease has moved into too many parts of his brain, but I’m praying for my children and grandchildren. We have to find a cure.”
Carol will be paying close attention to government meetings today and Wednesday in Washington where Health and Human Services officials are gathering with other medical experts to discuss the framework for the first national plan to fight the disease. The No. 1 goal stated in the early draft of the National Alzheimer’s Project Act is to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s by 2025. Although the funding levels have not been determined, disease experts compare the multi-agency federal approach of NAPA to the wars on heart disease and cancer.
Alzheimer’s, which is a form of dementia that causes progressive loss of intellectual and social skills, is the only disease among the top killers for which there is no prevention, cure or treatment that will slow its progression.
“I think the potential impact of this plan is huge,” says Ron Petersen, chairman of the NAPA non-federal advisory council and director of the Mayo Clinic’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.
“Given the economic problems, it’s a bit of a challenge, but this is our chance to make a bold statement.”
President Barack Obama signed NAPA into law last January. Experts have spent a year formulating the framework for the plan, and the final draft is due later this month or early February.
Source: APP.com
