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Alzforum, launched in 1996 to foster communication about Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders, recently celebrated its 20th anniversary with a new interactive timeline.

The detailed history of Alzheimer’s research stretches back to 1906, when Alois Alzheimer made a public presentation on his patient, Auguste Deter. His findings launched the investigation of a complex disease that has been under scientific scrutiny for more than a century.

The timeline is an interactive map of the twists and turns of Alzheimer’s research. Alzforum highlighted the events and images that remain relevant today. The poster version shows how the research of Alzheimer’s has grown from one single patient’s case to an expansive, multi-national research effort. The timeline includes 271 hallmark events.

To see the online version of the timeline and the poster presentation, please visit: http://www.alzforum.org/timeline

The first goal of the U.S. national Alzheimer’s plan is that, by 2025, researchers will discover ways to diagnose and treat patients before they have problems performing daily tasks like driving and managing finances, but the plan lacks a strategy to determine whether these treatments provide “meaningful clinical benefit,” two leading researchers argue in a recently published essay.

Drs. Jason Karlawish and Ken Langa wrote in the October 17, 2016, edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine that, since its creation in 2010, the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA) has encouraged joint efforts between the National Institutes of Health and pharmaceutical companies to conduct clinical trials aimed at preventing or delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. At least five are planned or under way.

Legendary local sportswriter Bill Lyon has a long list of titles — journalist, columnist emeritus, Pulitzer Prize nominee — and now he can add one more: hero.

The new resume bullet point was given by Dr. Jason Karlawish during a live interview on WHYY’s Radio Times October 4.

“Bill Lyon is a hero, and he’s a hero because he has the courage to talk publicly about having Alzheimer’s disease,” Karlawish said. “He’s educating and empowering the nation to be able to talk about this disease and face it.”

The American health care system is out of date and only recently has taken on a national goal to improve the care of older adults, according to a leading researcher.

Speaking during a live interview as part of The Atlantic’s “The New Old Age,” Penn Memory Center Co-Director Jason Karlawish said that older adults are “the last casualties of the Cold War.”

Take a peek around the Penn Memory Center, and you’ll see room after room filled with vital technology.

Over here, a multi-million-dollar MRI provides an incredibly detailed look at a living human brain. Over there, a pristine lab evaluates spinal fluid, providing researchers with invaluable data.

But in a small clinical evaluation room, an Alzheimer’s doctor faces his new patient and deploys the most powerful technology at his disposal:

“What’s a typical day?”

Dr. Jason Karlawish, Penn Memory Center Co-Director, testifies before the Elder Justice Coordinating Council Wednesday, April 27, 2016. (Screenshot of livestream.)

Penn Memory Center Co-Director Dr. Jason Karlawish is the 2016 recipient of the Rosalie S. Wolf Memorial Award, given to a researcher or someone involved in research “in recognition of a significant contribution to the knowledge and development in the fields of abuse of elders or persons with disabilities or Adult Protective Services.”

The National Adult Protective Services Association (NAPSA) Conference Awards Committee selected Karlawish for his “extraordinary” contributions to the field.