Alzheimer's Disease, Dementias and Healthy Aging

October Newsletter

Just released:

The Vermont Action Plan for Alzheimer's Disease, Related Dementias and Healthy Aging is intended to serve as a guide to improve the quality of life for all Vermonters. The Plan includes goals and strategies from the National Alzheimer's Plan, the Healthy Brain Initiative Road Map and the National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers that will advance our efforts to reduce the risk and increase earlier detection of dementias, decrease avoidable hospitalizations of individuals with dementia through comprehensive chronic disease management, and to bolster and promote caregiver supports. Click thumbnail to view the Action Plan.

Younger-onset Alzheimer's Disease

Younger-onset (also called early-onset) Alzheimer's is a form of dementia that affects people younger than age 65. About 5% to 6% of people with Alzheimer's disease develop symptoms earlier in life, most when they are between 30 and 60 years old. Since health care providers generally don't look for Alzheimer's disease in younger people, getting an accurate diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's can be a long and frustrating process. Symptoms may be incorrectly attributed to stress and conflicting diagnoses are common. People living with early-onset Alzheimer's may be in any stage of dementia — early stage, middle stage or late stage.

What Does It Mean to Be Age-Friendly?

Becoming an Age-Friendly Health System entails reliably providing a set of four evidence-based elements of high-quality care, known as the “4Ms,” to all older adults in your system: What Matters, Medication, Mentation, and Mobility.

What Matters: Align care with every older adult's specific health outcome goal and care preferences, including, but not limited to - end of life care.

Medication: If medication is necessary, use age-friendly medications that do not interfere with What Matters to the older adult, their mobility or mentation, across settings of care.

Mentation: Prevent, identify, treat and manage dementia, depression, and delirium across settings of care.

Mobility: Ensure that older adults move safely every day in order to maintain function and do what matters.

October 10, 2022

Indigenous Peoples' Day (IPD) honors Native Americans - their resilience and their contributions to American society throughout history, even as they faced assimilation, discrimination and genocide spanning generations. To recognize IPD in Vermont we offer a reading suggestion. This book, written by Dr. Frederick Matthew Wiseman, gives a historical and modern day account of the Abenaki community and culture. Dr. Wiseman currently presents Working Toward Understanding: Lunch and Learn Series which was created to provide Agency of Human Services personnel with insight into the Vermont Abenaki culture and community.

Adult Vaccination as a Protective Factor for Dementia

Researchers conducted a meta-analysis and systematic review to investigate the effect of different vaccinations on dementia risk, taking into account the influence of age, sex, and dose.  This meta-analysis shows that routine vaccinations are significantly associated with dementia risk reduction and may be an effective dementia prevention strategy.  More research is currently underway.