The new guidelines cover how to choose appropriate patients, safely scale up to a full dose, monitor side effects and assess effectiveness. The authors also address when to stop therapy and what patients should not receive the drug.
A bout with COVID-19 can cause dementia-like brain changes and related functional decline, especially for seniors and in people who lose their sense of smell, researchers are finding.
The drug does not improve upon the current standard of care for Alzheimer’s disease, say advisers to the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, a drug pricing watchdog.
The acting chief of the Food and Drug Administration has called for an investigation into the events leading up to the approval of Biogen’s brain plaque-clearing dementia drug aducanumab (Aduhelm).
The FDA’s new label restricts Aduhelm’s use to Alzheimer’s patients with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia, drugmaker Biogen announced Thursday.
The true price to administer aducanumab — a controversial new Alzheimer’s treatment — may actually be closer to $100,000 annually than other, lower estimates and is just one reason the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services could refuse to cover it.
Clinicians’ responses to the controversial approval of Aduhelm range between excitement and disapproval, with questions abounding on how to advise patients on treatment and the cost to patients and Medicare.
Twist in the FDA’s Alzheimer’s decision: no limits on which patients can get the drug … Biden administration advises changes to policies linked to N95 shortages … Frailty tied to increased mortality in COVID: A living review and meta-analysis … In type 1 diabetes, blood sugar extremes are tied to sixfold risk of dementia … Exercise likely to be best treatment for depression in coronary heart disease … “Immunological memory” protects against COVID re-infection for at least 11 months, analysis shows
The evidence convincingly shows that aducanumab (Aduhelm) removes beta amyloid — a hallmark of Alzheimer’s — from the brain, slowing the disease’s progression and giving patients and families much-needed hope, FDA says. But long-term care clinicians are not keen on the drug, with some saying they will not prescribe it.
Cultural practices and disease processes may explain why Latino adults with dementia experience faster functional decline and higher rates of depression and anxiety, investigators say.
