[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 34 (Thursday, March 21, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2282-S2284]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. MIKULSKI (for herself, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Hutchinson, and 
        Mr. Dodd):
  S. 2059. A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for 
Alzheimer's disease research and demonstration grants; to the Committee 
on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Alzheimer's 
Disease Research, Prevention, and Care Act of 2002. I am pleased that 
Senator Kennedy and Senator Hutchinson are joining me as original 
cosponsors of this legislation. This bill expands and directs 
Alzheimer's disease research at the National Institutes of Health 
(NIH), and expands and reauthorizes the Alzheimer's Demonstration Grant 
Program. This important legislation gets behind our Nation's families, 
both in the lab and in the community.
  Alzheimer's disease is a devastating illness. Four million Americans 
including one in 10 people over age 65 and nearly half of those over 
85, have Alzheimer's disease. The total annual Cost of Alzheimer's care 
in the United States today is at least $100 billion.
  As our population ages and baby-boomers become seniors, Alzheimer's 
disease will take an even greater toll. Unless science finds a way to 
prevent or cure Alzheimer's disease, 14 million people in the United 
States will have Alzheimer's disease by the year 2050. The race to find 
a cure is more urgent than ever.
  But these statistics do not begin to tell the story of what 
Alzheimer's means to families. My dear father suffered from Alzheimer's 
disease. My family and I watched him die one brain cell at a time. I 
know the pain that patients and families go through when Alzheimer's 
disease strikes.
  I believe that honor thy mother and father is not only a good 
commandment to live by, it is also a good policy to govern by. That's 
why I have introduced this legislation that meets the day-to-day needs 
of seniors and the long-range needs of our Nation.
  The Alzheimer's Disease Research, Prevention, and Care meets seniors' 
day-to-day needs by reauthorizing the Alzheimer's Demonstration Grant 
Program. The purpose of the program is to develop and replicate 
innovative ways to provide care to Alzheimer's patients that are 
traditionally hard to reach or undeserved. These grants enable States 
to provide support services like home care, respite care, and day care 
to Alzheimer's patients and their families. This legislation expands 
the Alzheimer's Demonstration Program by authorizing the funding needed 
to support these outstanding programs in every State.

  In my own State of Maryland, Alzheimer's Demonstration grants have 
been used to train workers at nursing homes and assisted living 
facilities to care for people with dementia. This training means that 
Alzheimer's patients will get high quality care when they leave their 
homes and enter a nursing home. And it means that families can rest 
assured that their mom or dad is safe and in good hands.
  This legislation also meets the long term needs of our aging Nation 
by expanding and directing Alzheimer's disease research at the National 
Institute on Aging.
  Our best shot at curbing the number of families who suffer from 
Alzheimer's disease is to find ways to prevent it before it starts. 
This bill authorizes the Alzheimer's Disease Prevention Initiative. The 
National Institute on Aging is currently conducting seven prevention 
trials. The Alzheimer's Disease Research, Prevention, and Care Act 
supports the National Institute on Aging's Prevention Initiative and 
directs the Institute to focus its efforts on identifying possible ways 
to prevent Alzheimer's and conducting clinical trials to test their 
effectiveness.
  Clinical trials can involve millions of dollars, tens of thousands of 
participants, and years or even decades. This bill establishes an 
Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study Group to improve and enhance the 
National Institute on Aging's ability to conduct several large scale, 
complex clinical trials simultaneously. Promising therapies should not 
have to wait to be tested until current trials are complete and 
resources are made available. This legislation authorizes a national 
consortium for cooperative clinical research at the National Institute 
on Aging to improve the existing clinical trial infrastructure, develop 
novel approaches to design these clinical trials, and make it easier to 
enroll patients.
  This bill directs the National Institute on Aging, in consultation 
with other relevant institutes, to conduct research on the early 
diagnosis and detection of Alzheimer's disease. As promising therapies 
become available that can delay the progression of Alzheimer's, new 
technologies are needed

[[Page S2284]]

to detect and diagnose the disease before its symptoms strike.
  There is still much that is not known about the causes of Alzheimer's 
disease. In the last few years, for example, scientists have found that 
in stroke patients who later develop Alzheimer's disease, their 
dementia will worsen much more quickly than in Alzheimer's patients who 
have never had a stroke. This bill directs the National Institute on 
Aging to study this connection between vascular disease and Alzheimer's 
disease. Finding answers to questions about this connection will open 
new doors for researchers to explore promising ways to prevent and 
treat Alzheimer's disease.
  This legislation establishes a research program at the National 
Institute on Aging on ways to help caregivers of patients with 
Alzheimer's disease. Family caregiving comes at enormous physical, 
emotional, and financial sacrifice, which puts the whole system at 
risk. Three of four caregivers are women. One in eight Alzheimer 
caregivers becomes ill or injured as a direct result of caregiving, and 
older caregivers are three times more likely to become clinically 
depressed than others in their age group. Research is needed to find 
better ways to help caregivers bear this tremendous, at times 
overwhelming responsibility.
  Finally, this legislation increases the funding authorized for the 
National Institute on Aging to $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2003. 
Investments we make now in Alzheimer's Disease and aging research mean 
longer, healthier lives for all of us. If science can help us delay the 
onset of Alzheimer's by even 5 years, it would save this country 
billions of dollars--and would improve the lives of millions of 
families.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this important 
legislation that gets behind our nation's families. I ask unanimous 
consent that a letter of support from the Alzheimer's Association be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                                   March 21, 2002.
     Hon. Barbara Mikulski,
     U.S. Senate, Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Mikulski: On behalf of the Alzheimer's 
     Association, I am writing to strongly support your 
     legislation, the Alzheimer's Disease Research, Prevention and 
     Care Act of 2002. I congratulate you on your continued 
     leadership on issues important to older Americans as well as 
     issues important to individuals with Alzheimer's disease.
       Right now, 14 million Americans--most of them babyboomers--
     are living with a death sentence of Alzheimer's disease. For 
     most of them, the process that will destroy their brain cells 
     has already started. We have to act now, or it will be too 
     late to save them. Your legislation will support ongoing 
     efforts at the National Institute on Aging to find a way to 
     prevent and cure this disease. We are particularly pleased 
     that your bill places an emphasis on promising areas of 
     research, including the connection between Alzheimer's and 
     vascular disease and the development of new diagnostic 
     technologies.
       Your legislation will also reauthorize a highly successful 
     Alzheimer demonstration program at the Administration on 
     Aging (AoA). These state grant projects demonstrate how 
     existing public and private resources within states may be 
     more effectively coordinated and utilized to enhance 
     educational needs and service delivery systems for persons 
     with Alzheimer's, their families and caregivers. In addition, 
     AoA has also identified ``best practices'' among the projects 
     and disseminated information on successful innovative 
     approaches. The demonstration program has fostered 
     collaborations between Alzheimer's Association chapters and 
     state aging and mental health agencies, public health 
     departments, private foundations, universities, physicians 
     and managed care organizations, as well as more than 300 
     local community agencies.
       On behalf the 4 million Americans with Alzheimer's disease, 
     I thank you for your efforts to support research and programs 
     for these individuals and the family members who care for 
     them. We look forward to continuing to work with you and your 
     staff on this important legislation.
           Sincerely,
                                                Stephen McConnell,
                                        Interim President and CEO.
                                 ______