Step 2: After the installation process completes, launch AnyGo app and connect your iDevice to the PC. Step 3: A map will appear on your screen and you’ll see the pointer flashing on your current location. He lives in Durham.In case it’s not showing the accurate location, simply tap the “Center-On” button to reconfigure it. He serves on the boards for the NC Alzheimer's Association, Voices of Alzheimer's and the Alliance for Aging Research. Jay Reinstein is a retired Fayetteville assistant city manager. It's crushing that Medicare has stripped us of our autonomy, too. But Americans deserve the freedom to weigh medical risks on their own, and make those decisions with their doctors.Īlzheimer's has already taken so much from me and millions of other Americans. CMS is denying patients that precious time. For patients struggling with Alzheimer's, any drug that slows the progress of the disease could mean additional years with family and friends. Not content to trust the actual scientists at the FDA, the bureaucrats at CMS are demanding their own data showing that amyloid-targeting drugs produce a "statistically significant and clinically meaningful difference in decline in cognition and function." The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services - the agency in question - is essentially doubting the FDA, which already determined that the drug is likely to provide a clinical benefit. Patients in rural communities would almost certainly live too far away from clinical trial sites, which are generally in urban areas, to participate. Clinical trials generally need only a few hundred, or at most a few thousand, participants. Right now, lecanemab isn't slated for any government-approved trials, which means Americans with early-stage Alzheimer's - the population eligible for the drug based on the FDA label - can't access it through Medicare.Įven if a trial were ongoing, the vast majority of early-stage Alzheimer's patients wouldn't be able to join. There are more than 6 million Alzheimer's patients in the United States, and by 2050, that number could reach nearly 13 million.4 Every year, about 672,000 Americans - roughly 1,800 people per day - slip from the early stages of the disease, where cognitive impairment is only mild, to the more severe "moderate" stage. Ranks upon ranks of Americans share my predicament. More: UNC-Pembroke professor a leader in Alzheimer’s researchĪlarmed, I talked with my doctor and went through a battery of testing, and was ultimately diagnosed. I struggled to process and comprehend what colleagues were saying. But gradually, I started having issues with my short-term memory. Previously, as a city manager for Fayetteville, I had run meetings and retained information with ease. Patients living with Alzheimer's should be able to access all FDA-approved medications - and it's up to the White House to ensure they can. Medicare officials lack the scientific authority to second-guess the FDA. This blatant discrimination against Alzheimer's patients needs to end. More: Fayetteville city leader has Azheimer's Disease So the drugs are effectively out of reach for the millions of Medicare beneficiaries with Alzheimer's. The only exception is for patients who enroll in government-approved clinical trials.įinding and enrolling in one of these trials is extraordinarily difficult. That's because, last year, the federal agency that oversees Medicare announced, in an unprecedented decision, that it would refuse to cover any amyloid-targeting Alzheimer's drugs that the FDA approves on an accelerated basis in the future. More: Our family and Alzheimer’s: Soaking in the moments with my grandpa But even if we decide it's the right choice, actually obtaining the drug will be an enormous challenge. I'm currently talking with my doctor about whether I should start the treatment.
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