Why Netflix’s future is in “House of Cards,” “Arrested Development” – not Disney

LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Netflix hailed as a “game-changer” its landmark deal last week to bring Disney movies to the streaming service. But while that deal may be significant, it pales in importance next to another looming development – the February debut of its original series “House of Cards.”

The economic benefits of the Disney deal, which gives the company streaming rights to much of Disney‘s catalog and straight-to-DVD movies as well as the exclusive rights to the studio’s new movies from 2016 to 2018, won’t be felt for years.

But the rollout of new, made-for-Netflix shows, which moves the company into a game owned by broadcast and cable – and follows a model set by everyone from HBO to AMC – will be a near-term bellwether of the company’s future success, analysts and observers say.

“You don’t identify a movie you watch on TV with a channel, but you definitely identify an original series with a channel,” Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Securities, told TheWrap. “What Netflix is doing with its original series is getting something exclusive that makes you have to go to Netflix if you want to see it. It’s branding.”

They include the long-awaited rebirth of cult favorite “Arrested Development” and original pieces like Eli Roth’s “Hemlock Grove,” Jenji Kohan’s “Orange Is the New Black” and “House of Cards,” from director David Fincher and starring Kevin Spacey.

Like “Lilyhammer,” all episodes of the shows’ first seasons will be released at once, allowing for binge viewing by Netflix subscribers.

The Disney deal is momentous in that it marks the first time a digital pay-TV distributor has earned exclusive rights to a major studio’s new releases. Both analysts and studio executives say Netflix will pay more than $ 300 million a year for those rights, a startling sum for a company that has minimized the importance of films. Netflix has declined to discuss any figures.

Some analysts argue the Disney deal is a positive development, but one that will not move the needle when it comes to attracting new members.

“Netflix customers will like it when Disney movies show up, but not many people will want to sign up for Netflix because they have 15 new movies a year I want to see,” Pachter said.

That’s why Netflix bankrolled “Arrested Development,” a show canceled by Fox in 2006 that still has a small but loyal audience, one that will assuredly watch the new season on Netflix. That’s also why it has invested in so many new shows from established artists like Kohan, who created “Weeds,” and Roth, a successful horror filmmaker.

While the company’s first foray into original programming – Steven Van Zandt’s “Lilyhammer” – didn’t make much of a splash, the new shows debuting next year look far more promising.

It also has committed a reported $ 100 million for two seasons of “House of Cards,” as well as offering complete creative freedom to Fincher and his team.

The money the streaming service spends on its own shows is a pittance compared to what it shells out in licensing deals, but that original content will distinguish Netflix from competitors in broadcast, like HBO, and in digital, like Amazon.

“Everybody is trying to get their brand to the top of people’s minds, and sometimes that requires a substantial expenditure and doing something different, like original production,” Bill Carroll, vice president and director of programming at Katz Television Group, told TheWrap.

More than any of its competitors in the streaming-video market, Netflix is attempting to transform itself into a digitized form of HBO, which began by airing studio movies.

HBO later added lower-cost programming, such as stand-up comedy shows, and eventually original series and films. Showtime, Starz and others soon followed.

Because it is not locked into a schedule, Netflix can host an unlimited amount of programming and owns a wealth of information about its subscribers to tailor its offerings to specific viewers and track their success.

Figuring out just what constitutes a “hit,” however, will be difficult. As it has with previous original shows like “Lilyhammer,” Netflix will not release viewing numbers for its upcoming shows. The company stresses that immediate viewing is less important than developing a loyal following over time.

As for the Disney deal, Netflix already had rights to films from that studio and Sony under an agreement with Starz, which in September 2011 opted not to renew its deal.

“They got something they used to have and had to pay a lot more money for it,” Seth Willenson, a library-valuation expert, producer and former studio executive told TheWrap.

So what changed? Exclusivity.

Disney’s new releases will appear on Netflix during the same window when they would have been showing on an HBO or another pay channel. It also means that new rivals, such as Amazon and Hulu Plus, won’t be getting the latest “Avengers” sequel at the same time – or the upcoming series of new “Star Wars” films.

“The argument is that what they are getting now from Disney will only be on Netflix,” Vasily Karasyov, an analyst with Susquehanna told TheWrap. “What they were getting before was only on Starz. It’s more exclusive. They are trying to do what Starz did in the ’90s and buy up rights and put it on the map.”

At the UBS conference last week in New York, Chief Creative Officer Ted Sarandos teased the possibility of pursuing exclusive deals with more studios as well.

This new attraction to movies represents a change of tune for the Los Altos, Calif.-based company. After all, Netflix has been publicly dismissive in recent months of film’s importance to its service, stressing its viewers’ penchant for binge-watching television shows, like AMC’s “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men.”

About 60 percent of Netflix viewing time is spent on TV, a number that has only grown in recent years. Exclusivity increasingly motivates its decision-making on the TV side as well, which is one reason it allowed its deal with A&E Networks to expire in September, taking shows like “Storage Wars” and “Hoarders” off Netflix.

And nothing is more exclusive than content you fund yourself.

“It wants content unique to its platform,” Karasyov said. “No one says, ‘Come to my website because we have the same stuff everyone else does.’”

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“Dancing with the Stars” Brooke Burke says she is cancer free

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “Dancing with the Stars” co-host Brooke Burke said on Wednesday that medical tests indicate she is free of thyroid cancer.

“I just got the results back from all of my tests and great news – the thyroid cancer has been removed from my body and all my lymph nodes are clear,” Burke, 41, said in her blog on the website Modernmom.com.

“So I’m hoping that this is the end of the story. Woohoo!!! And thank GOD!” the former model added.

Burke, a former winner of ABC’s popular celebrity ballroom dancing competition, underwent surgery just over a week after the season finale of “Dancing with the Stars” on November 27.

The mother of four posted a picture of herself in Wednesday’s blog entry with a small bandage on her throat. She said the surgery will leave her with a large scar across her neck.

The thyroid is a gland in the neck that produces hormones that regulate vital body functions, such as heart rate and blood pressure.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Nick Zieminski)

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Fed sends clearer signal on keeping rates low

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve sent its clearest signal to date Wednesday that it will keep interest rates super-low to boost the U.S. economy even after the job market has improved significantly.

The Fed says it plans to keep its key short-term rate near zero at least until the unemployment rate drops below 6.5 percent — as long as expected inflation remains no more than 2.5 percent. Unemployment is now 7.7 percent. Annual inflation is about 2 percent.

That plan adds detail to what the Fed had said before: that it expects to keep the rate low until at least mid-2015.

In a statement Wednesday after its final policy meeting of the year, the Fed also said it will keep spending $ 85 billion a month on bond purchases to drive down long-term borrowing costs and stimulate economic growth.

The Fed will spend $ 45 billion a month on long-term Treasury purchases to replace a previous bond-purchase program of an equal size. And it will keep buying $ 40 billion a month in mortgage bonds.

“The Fed has become more explicit and more transparent,” said Steven Wood, chief economist at Insight Economics. “This should provide the markets with much more clarity around monetary policy action in the upcoming year.”

With its new purchases of long-term Treasurys, the Fed’s investment portfolio, which is nearly $ 3 trillion, would swell to nearly $ 4 trillion by the end of 2013 if its bond purchase programs remain in place.

The policies are intended to help an economy that the Fed says is growing only modestly.

Stocks and bond yields rose after the Fed’s statement was released. The Dow Jones industrial average was little changed just before the Fed news crossed at 12:30 p.m. Eastern time and jumped 69 points shortly after.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.69 percent from 1.65 percent as investors sold ultra-safe investments and moved money into stocks.

The Fed’s plan to keep stimulating the economy at least until unemployment has reached 6.5 percent is intended to reassure consumers, companies and investors, said Joseph Gagnon, a former Fed official who is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Having only a target date of mid-2015 for any increase in interest rates “sounded gloomy,” as if the economy would remain weak until then, Gagnon said. Specifying an unemployment rate — close to a normal rate of 6 percent or less — makes clear that the Fed will keep stimulating the economy even after the job market has strengthened.

“This is trying to get away from that sense of ‘Oh, my God, this is all about gloom and doom,’ ” Gagnon said.

The Fed’s new plan to link any rate increase to specific levels of unemployment and inflation mirrors a proposal pushed by Charles Evans, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Updated forecasts that the Fed released Wednesday illustrate why it thinks it should continue stimulating the economy. It expects unemployment to remain at least 7.4 percent next year and 6.8 percent by the end of 2014. The earliest it sees unemployment dropping below 6.5 percent is the end of 2015.

It expects the economy to grow no more than 3 percent next year before picking up to 3.5 percent in 2014 and 3.7 percent in 2015.

The Fed said it can pursue the aggressive stimulus programs because inflation remains below its target. Its statement was approved on an 11-1 vote. Jeffrey Lacker, president of Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, objected for the eighth time this year.

The meeting was held against the backdrop of the looming “fiscal cliff,” the sharp tax increases and spending cuts that will hit the economy in January if Congress and President Barack Obama are unable to reach an agreement this month to avert them.

Bernanke has said that the Fed’s efforts will not be able to rescue the economy if the budget negotiations fail and the country does go over the fiscal cliff.

Fears of the cliff have led some U.S. companies to delay expanding, investing and hiring. Manufacturing has slumped. Consumers have cut back on spending. Unemployment remains elevated. If higher taxes and government spending cuts were to last for much of 2013, most experts say the economy would sink into another recession.

The latest bond-buying program would replace an expiring program called Operation Twist. With Twist, the Fed sold $ 45 billion a month in short-term Treasurys and used the proceeds to buy the same amount in longer-term Treasurys.

Twist didn’t expand the Fed’s investment portfolio, it just reshuffled the holdings. But the Fed has run out of short-term securities to sell. So to maintain its pace of long-term Treasury purchases and to keep long-term rates low, it must spend more and increase its portfolio.

The Fed’s portfolio totals nearly $ 2.9 trillion — more than three times its size before the 2008 financial crisis.

The Fed has launched three rounds of bond purchases since the financial crisis hit. In announcing a third program in September, the Fed said it would keep buying mortgage bonds until the job market improved substantially.

Skeptics note that rates on mortgages and many other loans are already at or near all-time lows. So any further declines in rates engineered by the Fed might offer little economic benefit.

Inside and outside the Fed, a debate has raged over whether the Fed’s actions have helped support the economy over the past four years, whether they will ignite inflation later and whether they should be extended.

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North Korea’s new leader burnishes credentials with rocket

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – North Korea successfully launched a rocket on Wednesday, boosting the credentials of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to its opponents.

The rocket, which North Korea says put a weather satellite into orbit, has been labeled by the United States, South Korea and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting targets as far as the continental United States.

“The satellite has entered the planned orbit,” a North Korean television news-reader clad in traditional Korean garb triumphantly announced, after which the station played patriotic songs with the lyrics “Chosun (Korea) does what it says”.

The rocket was launched just before 10 a.m. Korea time (9 p.m. ET on Tuesday), according to defense officials in South Korea and Japan, and easily surpassed a failed April launch that flew for less than two minutes.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said that it “deployed an object that appeared to achieve orbit”, the first time an independent body has verified North Korean claims.

North Korea followed what it said was a similar successful launch in 2009 with a nuclear test that prompted the United Nations Security Council to stiffen sanctions that it originally imposed in 2006 after the North’s first nuclear test.

The state is banned from developing nuclear and missile-related technology under U.N. resolutions, although Kim Jong-un, the youthful head of state who took power a year ago, is believed to have continued the state’s “military first” programs put into place by his deceased father Kim Jong-il.

North Korea lauded Wednesday’s launch as celebrating the prowess of all three Kims to rule since it was founded in 1948.

“At a time when great yearnings and reverence for Kim Jong-il pervade the whole country, its scientists and technicians brilliantly carried out his behests to launch a scientific and technological satellite in 2012, the year marking the 100th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung,” its KCNA news agency said.

Washington condemned Wednesday’s launch as a “provocative action” and breach of U.N. rules, while Japan’s U.N. envoy called for a Security Council meeting. However, diplomats say further tough sanctions are unlikely to be agreed at the body as China, the North’s only major ally, will oppose them.

“The international community must work in a concerted fashion to send North Korea a clear message that its violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions have consequences,” the White House said in a statement.

Japan’s likely next prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who is leading in opinion polls ahead of an election on December 16 and who is known as a North Korea hawk, called on the United Nations to adopt a resolution “strongly criticizing” Pyongyang.

BEIJING BLOCK

China had expressed “deep concern” prior to the launch which was announced a day after a top politburo member, representing new Chinese leader Xi Xinping, met Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang.

On Wednesday its tone was measured, regretting the launch but calling for restraint on possible counter-measures, in line with previous policy when it has effectively vetoed tougher sanctions.

“China believes the Security Council’s response should be cautious and moderate, protect the overall peaceful and stable situation on the Korean peninsula, and avoid an escalation of the situation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told journalists.

Bruce Klingner, a Korea expert at the Heritage Foundation, told a conference call: “China has been the stumbling block to firmer U.N. action and we’ll have to see if the new leadership is any different than its predecessors.”

A senior adviser to South Korea’s president said last week it was unlikely there would be action from the U.N. and that Seoul would expect its allies to tighten sanctions unilaterally.

Kim Jong-un, believed to be 29 years old, took power when his father died on December 17 last year and experts believe the launch was intended to commemorate the first anniversary of the death.

The April launch was timed for the centennial of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of its current ruler.

Wednesday’s success puts the North ahead of the South which has not managed to get a rocket off the ground.

“This is a considerable boost in establishing the rule of Kim Jong-un,” said Cho Min, an expert at the Korea Institute of National Unification.

There have been few indications the secretive and impoverished state, where the United Nations estimates a third of the population is malnourished, has made any advances in opening up economically over the past year.

North Korea remains reliant on minerals exports to China and remittances from tens of thousands of its people working on labor projects overseas.

The 22 million population often needs handouts from defectors who have escaped to South Korea in order to afford basic medicines.

Given the puny size of its economy – per capita income is less than $ 2,000 a year – one of the few ways the North can attract world attention is by emphasizing its military threat.

Pyongyang wants the United States to resume aid and to recognize it diplomatically, although the April launch scuppered a planned food deal.

It is believed to be some years away from developing a functioning nuclear warhead although it may have enough plutonium for around half a dozen nuclear bombs, according to nuclear experts.

The North has also been enriching uranium, which would give it a second path to nuclear weapons as it sits on vast natural uranium reserves.

“A successful launch puts North Korea closer to the capability to deploy a weaponized missile,” said Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

“But this would still require fitting a weapon to the missile and ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy. The North Koreans probably do not yet have a nuclear weapon small enough for a missile to carry.”

Pyongyang says that its development is part of a civil nuclear program, but has also boasted of it being a “nuclear weapons power”.

(Additional reporting by Jumin Park and Yoo Choonsik in SEOUL; David Alexander, Matt Spetalnick and Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Linda Sieg in TOKYO; Sui-Lee Wee in BEIJING; Rosmarie Francisco in MANILA; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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Web host Go Daddy appoints former Yahoo executive as CEO

(Reuters) – Go Daddy, one of the world’s biggest Internet hosting firms, appointed Yahoo Inc‘s former Chief Product Officer Blake Irving as chief executive.

He will take over from interim CEO Scott Wagner on January 7. Irving left Yahoo, where he headed a centralized products group that straddled several client types, on April 27.

“Blake Irving’s deep technology experience and his history of developing new cutting-edge products and leading large global teams make him a … compelling choice to drive Go Daddy to the next level of its … growth,” said Bob Parsons, Go Daddy’s executive chairman and founder.

Irving also served in various positions at Microsoft Corp from 1992 to 2007.

Go Daddy, which describes itself as the top provider of domain names, filed to go public in 2006 but withdrew its IPO due to poor market conditions.

(Reporting by Neha Alawadhi in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das, Maju Samuel)

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FX orders “Tyrant” from “Homeland” producers

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – FX has ordered the Middle Eastern drama pilot “Tyrant” from “Homeland” producers Howard Gordon and Gideon Raff, as well as “Six Feet Under” and “Lost” producer Craig Wright.

The pilot follows an American family drawn into the troubles of a turbulent Middle Eastern nation. The series, written and created by Raff, was developed by Gordon and Wright. The pilot comes from Gordon’s shingle at 20th Century Fox Television, Teakwood Lane.

Gordon, Raff and Wright are executive producers in association with Keshet Broadcasting. If “Tyrant” becomes a series, Wright will serve as showrunner.

“We are thrilled to bring ‘Tyrant’ to FX,” said Nick Grad, FX’s executive vice president of original programming. “The brilliant and wholly original concept just blew us all away. It’s pretty amazing when you read a script and can instantly imagine it becoming one of the best shows on television. We’re grateful to the producers for choosing to bring it to FX and look forward to continuing our partnership with our friends at Fox 21.”

“‘Tyrant’ is exactly the type of project we aim to do at Fox 21 – working with extremely talented writer/creators to create provocative material with big, breakout characters and themes,” said Bert Salke, president of Fox 21. “This script has excited everyone who’s read it and it’s particularly gratifying to be back working with FX, with whom we have had such a successful partnership on the fantastic ‘Sons of Anarchy.’”

Production is tentatively slated to begin in the spring.

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Petrol strike threatens to cause chaos and hit economy in Italy

ROME (Reuters) – Italian petrol stations began a 60-hour strike late on Tuesday to protest against rising costs and falling profits, causing long queues as drivers rushed to fill up before pumps closed.

Hitting at the peak shopping period before Christmas, the strike comes at unwelcome time for retailers. Weak consumer spending has been a key factor in Italy‘s sluggish economy, which has been dipping in and out of recession since 2008.

“It is incredible, with all that petrol costs us nowadays, that they can even think of going on strike,” Rome resident Ida Lauro said as she queued in her car.

Unions have agreed to maintain minimum service on motorways, with at least one station open every 100 km (62 miles).

In a joint statement, unions said they called the strike to combat “a true aggression against the roughly 24,000 small businesses and 120,000 workers in the sector”.

They say oil companies have forced stations to absorb the costs of discounting campaigns, allowing them a profit of just one euro for every 100 euros ($ 130) or 55 liters of petrol sold.

Oil distributors in Italy Esso and Shell were not immediately available for comment. A government attempt to come to an agreement with the unions this week fell through.

Workers will demonstrate outside government buildings in Rome on Wednesday to pressure the state to intervene.

The strike will end on Friday morning on ordinary roads and late on Thursday on motorways.

Between December 17 and 22 the petrol stations will refuse to pay oil companies for refills. Then, between Christmas and New Year, they will refuse credit and debit card payments in protest at bank charges on electronic payments.

Mario Monti‘s technocrat government has cut spending and raised taxes since it was appointed last year to pull Italy out of a debt crisis, and is the focus of increasing protests.

The government was thrown into crisis last week when the party of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi withdrew its support, prompting Monti to announce he would resign once the 2013 budget bill is passed before Christmas.

(Reporting by Eleanor Biles and Naomi O’Leary)

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China party chief stresses reform, censors relax grasp on internet

BEIJING (Reuters) – China must deepen reforms to perfect its market economy and strengthen rule of law, Communist Party chief Xi Jinping said in southern Guangdong, echoing groundbreaking comments by reformist senior leader Deng Xiaoping in the same province 20 years ago.

Xi’s call for reform was reported on Monday, coinciding with an apparent easing of Internet search restrictions that the party has energetically used to suppress information that could threaten one-party rule.

China’s largest microblog service unblocked searches for the names of many top political leaders in a possible sign of looser controls a month after new senior officials were named to head the ruling party.

Searches on the popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblog for party chief Xi Jinping, Vice Premier Li Keqiang and other leaders – terms that have long been barred under strict censorship rules – revealed detailed lists of news reports and user comments.

Xi’s comments on the economy came on Sunday during a trip to Guangdong where he paid tribute to Deng, whose visit in 1992 ushered in an era of breakneck economic reform and growth.

“The government earnestly wants to study the issues that are being brought up, and wants to perfect the market economy system … by deepening reform, and resolve the issues by strengthening rule of law,” Xi was quoted by Xinhua state news agency as saying.

Experts say that unless the stability-obsessed party leadership pushes through stalled reforms, the nation risks economic malaise and social woes that could deepen unrest and threaten its grip on power.

It was too early to detect a change of heart on censorship, but Zhan Jiang, a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University, said the signs were good.

“Things are changing quietly, and it matches what Xi Jinping said before – to achieve progress and change in a steady way,” Zhan said.

Various search terms for Premier Wen Jiabao, who was at the centre of recent New York Times reports that said his family had accumulated massive fortunes during his tenure, were still blocked on Monday.

Chinese social media sites have posed a unique challenge for party leaders whose overarching goal is to maintain political control, while at the same time allowing people to blow off steam.

Analysts have been searching for signs that China’s new leaders might steer a path of political reform. Many expected at least a temporary loosening of censorship rules after the 18th Party Congress.

“Excessively strict control of the Internet will only make things worse,” said Hu Xingdou, a professor at Beijing Institute of Technology. “So we need to allow people to speak and allow them to voice their grievances.”

(Writing by Michael Martina and Terril Yue Jones. Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard, Sally Huang and Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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Seeing Through the Fog of ‘Chemo-Brain’

Two weeks ago, Diem Brown, contestant of the Real World/Road Rules Challenge, shared on her PEOPLE.com blog her frustration with her chemo-brain, after having received chemotherapy over the Thanksgiving holiday for recently diagnosed ovarian cancer.

She writes, “Stressed out, overwhelmed and soooo annoyed that your mind isn’t working as it should. This, my friends, is an example of chemo brain!”

Unfortunately, as a surgeon, I have witnessed too many patients get the diagnosis of cancer. If they can transcend the initial shock, there is a desperation to understand what their lives will be like as cancer patients, and what the odds are that they will be cancer survivors.

But for many women, their fear of death is as strong as their fear of chemotherapy, the poison that along with hope, is inseparable from the Hollywood images of the sick, nauseated, thin and bald.

Diem refers to “chemo-brain”, also known as “chemo-fog”, a side effect of chemotherapy that causes problems with memory, information processing, and mood –- effects that can persistent for as many as 20 years after treatment has subsided.

Mental dullness or fatigue and an inability to focus characterized by difficulty organizing thoughts and keeping memories has also been described by patients who suffer from chemotherapy induced cognitive dysfunction.

For years, chemo-brain went largely unrecognized by health care professionals, and those who suffered from it were left without answers to their confusion.

Recently, through the Internet, web chatting and blogging, many women who suffered from chemo-brain realized they were not alone, and over the last few years, several studies have been done giving credit to the condition. But, as they say, you have to see it to believe it.

And now we can see it. In the process of presenting my own research discussing the use of imaging in breast cancer patients at this week’s San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, I stumbled across a presentation discussing how scientists are trying to clear the chemo-fog by imaging the brain.

Dr. Bernadine Cimprich from the University of Michigan, along with a group of scientists from the University of Washington and University of Toronto took the stage in San Antonio Friday to shed some light through the fog, and offer a strategy at prevention.

Since chemo-brain doesn’t affect all cancer patients to the same degree, they asked the question, are some patients who receive chemotherapy predisposed to developing the disease?

Chemo-brain has been studied before, but has been difficult to characterize because so many different types of drugs and regimens are used, and for the most part patient’s memory and cognition are not studied prior to starting cancer therapy.

To help shed some light on the subject, these researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI – a technology that uses magnets to image the brain as it works.

By taking pictures of the brain before and after chemotherapy, they found that patients who suffered from this condition had inherently different function from those who did not before they had even received treatment.

“Brain imaging before treatment showed reduced function in frontal [brain] regions” says Dr. Cimprich, the precise regions that are needed to perform working memory and guide our day-to-day activities, such as remembering the shopping list, our finding our way home.

Identifying patients who may be predisposed to developing chemo-brain can help oncologists alter treatment strategies in efforts to reduce or eliminate the fog.

Who are the patients at highest risk? Dr. Cimprich’s team used surveys to evaluate pre-treatment cognitive function and found that fatigue is a major factor. He suggests that “early interventions targeting fatigue may improve cognitive function and reduce the distress of chemo-brain”.

While the small study involved 98 patients, only 29 of which received chemotherapy, it still lays ground to understand the true nature of chemo-brain, and as Dr. Cimprich emphasizes, identifying the problem early is crucial, because early cognitive problems can become worse over time.

In her blog, Diem suggests making lists as a way to overcome her chemo-brain. And while we all know that stressful times can side track our minds and dull our spirits, until science can give us better answers, research suggests that a deep breath and a little yoga may help do the job of lifting the fog on chemo-brain.

Dr. Christopher Tokin is a surgical resident at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and a resident alumnus of the ABC News Medical Unit.

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