April 2010 Newsletter

Dear Subscriber,

Spring has sprung--bringing with it a desire to shake off the daily drudge and start (and perhaps read) something new. Hoping to inspire and educate, we present a bouquet of fresh, new ideas and information in our April newsletter. We hope you will find the included news informative and beneficial.

Thank you,
The Team at American Companion Care

Physician Specialist Referrals: An Unseen Issue

A recent study in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice finds that a disturbingly low number of patients referred to a specialist actually see that specialist. Only 71% of the patients referred to a specialist were actually scheduled for an appointment and only 70% of THAT group of patients actually made it to the appointment. Reasons varied: failure of the primary care physician's office to actually make the appointment, failure of the specialist's office to receive that consultation request, failure to confirm the visit with the patient and also some problems on the patient's end, such as the lack of transportation.

Read the full study here.

The New Old Entrepreneurs

Americans age 55 and above represent almost 20% of those who are starting new businesses. As the number of Americans in the 55-and-over age category rises rapidly, many are not ready to go into retirement but would instead like to try something new with their experience, passions, hobbies and resources. Read the full article here.

Positive Testing of Alzheimer's Drugs

Faster drug testing could help with faster development of Alzheimer's treatments. Historically, the problem has been that it takes a long time to artificially develop the brain plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Now the big guys of science are looking to a little squirt to speed up the process. Sea squirts may be our closest invertebrate relatives; in their immature tadpole form, they resemble proper vertebrates, and they share about 80% of their genes with us. Turns out that sea squirts are model organisms to model Alzheimer's disease.

In a recent study reported in the Disease Models and Mechanisms Journal, it was found that in only one day, dosing the sea squirt tadpoles with a mutant protein found in human families with hereditary Alzheimer's resulted in aggressive development of plaques. More importantly was that these could be reversed by treating with an experimental anti-plaque forming drug. Why is this SO important? It is a real possibility that using the sea squirt could result in excellent testing for new drugs in the fight against Alzheimer's disease.

Access Disease Models and Mechanisms Journal: http://dmm.biologists.org

Read the full article here.