HHS’s Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease Focuses on Care Access

Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released its updated National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease, highlighting achievements in the past decade and goals for a 2023 Risk Reduction Summit.

The announcement emphasized the recently created Indian Health Service Alzheimer’s Grant Program that supports education and training for healthcare providers and others working with patients who have Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia (ADRD). That program will be supported by the IHS Geriatric Scholars pilot, which aims to train primary care physicians to deal with aging patients.

Goals for 2023 underscored the focus on ADRD inequities and the need for additional federal programs and partnerships in underserved communities that unite the national effort to fight ADRD. According to the announcement, the CDC will also convene a National Summit on Dementia Risk Reduction in May of 2023 to advance public health strategies for ADRD.

“At HHS, we are committed to supporting all communities affected by Alzheimer’s disease,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “We are proud of the bold steps we have taken through our National Plan to reduce disparities in Alzheimer’s disease, support people with the disease and their caregivers, and reduce risk factors for the disease through public health measures.”

The national plan, based on guidance from the Alzheimer’s Project Act signed in 2011, has six overarching goals:

• prevent and treat ADRD by 2025
• enhance care quality and efficiency
• expand support for people with ADRD and their families
• enhance public awareness and engagement
• improve data to track progress
• accelerate action to promote healthy aging and reduce risk factors for ADRD

The recent advent of pharmacological and technological interventions for ADRD has aided prevention and treatment efforts. In May, the FDA permitted the marketing of the first in vitro diagnostic test to detect amyloid plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease. And one month prior, a group of researchers from the UK Dementia Research Institute identified 42 new genes associated with Alzheimer’s disease, showing for the first time the specific signaling pathways involving proteins implicated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Pharmaceutical drug development has also successfully generated several new promising treatments. In mid-2021, Eli Lilly entered a Phase 3 trial for its Alzheimer’s drug donanemab. Later that year, the FDA approved Biogen’s Aduhelm for early-stage Alzheimer’s patients. Biogen is also eyeing another approval for its new drug lecanemab, which slowed cognitive decline in a clinical trial.

Additionally, the FDA increased care access with guidance permitting the sale of affordable over-the-counter hearing aids to address hearing loss which can contribute to ADRD.