This morning, the Obama Administration announced it will make more money available for Alzheimer’s research and caregiving support. The official announcement reads:
The Obama Administration today announced new efforts to fight Alzheimer’s disease, including immediately making an additional $50 million available for cutting-edge Alzheimer’s research. In addition, the administration announced that its Fiscal Year 2013 budget will boost funding for Alzheimer’s research by $80 million. Today’s announcement also includes an additional $26 million in caregiver support, provider education, public awareness and improvements in data infrastructure.
In January 2011, President Obama signed the National Alzheimer’s Project Act, which calls for an aggressive and coordinated national Alzheimer’s disease plan. The Act also establishes an Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care, and Services, which brings together some of the Nation’s foremost experts on Alzheimer’s disease to inform the development of the national plan. The preliminary framework for the National Alzheimer’s Disease Plan identifies key goals including preventing and treating Alzheimer’s disease by 2025. As work on the plan continues, the Obama Administration is taking action.
“Today’s announcement reflects this administration’s commitment to confronting Alzheimer’s, a disease that takes a devastating toll on millions of Americans,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “We can’t wait to act; reducing the burden of Alzheimer’s disease on patients and their families is an urgent national priority.”
As many as 5.1 million Americans currently suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, which is a progressive, irreversible brain disorder that destroys memory and thinking skills. With the aging of the U.S. population, the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease could more than double by 2050.
“These projections are simply staggering,” said National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. “This new funding will accelerate NIH’s effort to use the power of science to develop new ways of helping people with Alzheimer’s disease and those at risk.”
Together, the fiscal years 2012 and 2013 investments total $130 million in new Alzheimer’s research funding over two years – over 25 percent more than the current annual Alzheimer’s research investment.
The additional NIH research funding will support both basic and clinical research. Investments will include research to identify genes that increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and testing therapies in individuals at the highest risk for the disease. On the clinical side, the funds may be used to expand efforts to move new therapeutic approaches into clinical trials and to develop better databases to assess the nation’s burden of cognitive impairment and dementia.
The initiative announced today also includes $26 million to support additional goals in the preliminary National Alzheimer’s Disease Plan. While the plan continues to be developed, experts have identified several goals that will be supported by today’s announcement, including support for caregivers in the community, improving health care provider training, and raising public awareness.
“These new funds will help increase our understanding about how to manage Alzheimer’s disease, especially those services that allow families to plan in the early stages and support family caregivers,” said HHS Assistant Secretary for Aging Kathy Greenlee.
So, what do you think? How would like the funds for caregiver support to be used? Please share your thoughts in our comments section, below.
You are a disruptor. The delivery of health care starts with you, continues because of you, and ends with you. Let's disrupt together to make the world better for family caregivers. 
Francine
My husband has brain damage – wish I’d get caregiver support!!!!!!!
G-J
Well, it sounds good but what exactly does it mean? Our government has huge financial deficits now, so how could they possibly afford this? Is it just to make the government look good? I’d love to know how they plan to split the $50 million and what the current plans are for the $26 million in caregiver support. And is that caregiver support just for families impacted by Alzheimer’s or is it for all caregivers?
melissa
How do you go about applying for caregiver support? I care for my 88 year old Mother.
Denise
Hi Melissa, You can check in your community about any programs which could help you. Each community differs, so you may or may not find help you need. You can visit these websites for the organization(s) to contact in your community:
–Eldercare Locator: http://eldercare.gov/Eldercare.NET/Public/Index.aspx
–BenefitsCheckUp: http://www.benefitscheckup.org/
Please let us know what you find out.
Kathy
I think along the same lines as G-J here.
Also, what does this mean to Hubby, to me?
He doesn’t have Alzheimers but does have Lewy Body Dementia.
What works for one doesn’t necessarily work for the other.
What about other dementias?
“In January 2011, President Obama signed the National Alzheimer’s Project Act, which calls for an aggressive and coordinated national Alzheimer’s disease plan. The Act also establishes an Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care, and Services, which brings together some of the Nation’s foremost experts on Alzheimer’s disease to inform the development of the national plan. The preliminary framework for the National Alzheimer’s Disease Plan identifies key goals including preventing and treating Alzheimer’s disease by 2025. As work on the plan continues, the Obama Administration is taking action.”
A Plan? A planning committee? More Experts to get together and do more surveys and decide that Alzheimers caregivers have stress and needs? They just need to join a couple of caregiving sights and they can get all the data they need for planning.
A FB acquaintance and Alz patient wrote the following:
“In 1906 Alzheimer’s was identified. That was 106 years ago. Only 3 drugs in all that time have been found to maybe help slow progression. It is fatal. It has no cure. the National Plan proposes “effective treatment by 2025″. 13 years away. In that time another 1, 376,208 Americans will die from Alzheimer’s. Thats based on the death rate from 2006. AD has increased 66% in that time. I will be one of those who will die. I am only 50.”
Heart breaking. And no planning can reduce that.