She was, and is, a close and cherished friend. Someone decided she had Alzheimer’s. At least somebody said she did. She had wonderful plans for retirement. Now the retirement community she had been dreaming of did not seem to want her and her husband around. She has just made the decision (I don’t know with who’s help) that it is a better idea she does not drive. She would surely not remember the details of how the diagnosis was made. I wonder if it had been made properly. Probably not.
Filed under Aging, Alternative Medicine, Alzheimer's Disease, Diagnosis, Disease by on Jan 9th, 2017. Comment. 
Most of the time I see a single piece of research related to psychiatry reported by multiple news services, I figure the institution that produced it has a prizewinning public relations person. I figure it is popular for some kind of unspoken agenda.
Maybe it is consistent with some level of political correctness.
Do you think that’s a cynical thought? Perhaps I should be a little more cautious. Read more on Cynicism and Alzheimer’s…
Filed under Alzheimer's Disease by on Jun 25th, 2014. Comment.
My husband has a fondness for what I generally call “testosterone movies.”
These are usually loud and fast-moving with lots of car chases (ending in crashes and explosions), gun fire (preferably automatic weapons) and huge gouts of flame erupting just as the hero is fleeing in slow motion.
One of the features of these movies is the “mano a mano” scene – where the good guy confronts the bad guy and they duke it out. Fisticuffs. Knuckle sandwiches. There are so many colorful phrases these tough guys use. Read more on Ain’t That A Kick In The Head?…
Filed under Alzheimer's Disease, Brain Damage, News by on Apr 18th, 2011. Comment.
Okay, let me get this straight. We are looking for new science to stop an aged population from getting Alzheimer’s and getting dependent on others for that structured “senile” type care that is expensive and — let’s be honest — usually not enough to keep people really productive.
The first of the two studies reported here is basically saying that people with lower amounts of measurable beta amyloid marker have more cognitive decline over the nine years studied. Another report on the elusive “marker” for Alzheimer’s. If someone can tell with a blood test that you got it, what are you going to do? There are several drug companies, presumably including the folks at Avid Pharmaceuticals, who sponsored the second study, for a molecule that binds to the protein that ends up in microscopically visible “tangles” that show up in biopsies and autopsies of Alzheimer’s type brain tissue. It is also reported that educated people are less likely to get Alzheimer’s. Frankly, this sort of finding is usually attributed to a “use it or lose it” analogy to the physical workout. In some ways this is true. I remember some lovely studies when I was in France that led La Nation to tell seniors to slowly practice memorizing their shopping lists, and they did indeed seem to improve their recent memory.
I also remember a study I suspect the rest of the world has forgotten, called the “Minneapolis Nun Study.” Read more on Misguided Research Is Dithering Around Alzheimer’s Again…
Filed under Alzheimer's Disease, Disease, Research by on Mar 22nd, 2011. Comment.
Even I – a supposed expert — have only scraps of information on this drug.
I remember a wonderful professor in medical school, who introduced me to her mother, who had some problems with dementia. Mother had improved greatly, it seemed, in a loving homey institution on a medication called “Centrophenoxine” — which I have since learned is also called “meclophenoxate” or “Lucidryl.” Read more on Mostly Harmless “Smart Drug” — But No Endorsement (Yet)…
Filed under Alzheimer's Disease by on Jan 12th, 2011. Comment.
I first found out about this list of so-called “Influential Doctors“ in the USA Today newspaper and did not finish the article before I became aware of two powerful realities: 1. This list does not sound like it will help people who need a doctor, but more likely it will benefit someone else in the health care industry. 2. Nobody compiling a list of influential doctors is going to add me because I’m a professional pain in the rear-end of the other doctors on the list.
It sounds like one of those times when somebody is making money from patients pockets by marketing drugs or services, via insurance companies or drug companies.
Hello “parasite!” Hello person-making-money-from-sick-people without adding “value” to healing them. Read more on Turning The Brain Back Ten Years And Slowing The Decline…
Filed under Alzheimer's Disease, Brain, Disease by on Aug 24th, 2010. Comment.
She was a friend. Other people sometimes live their entire lives in one place and keep friends for life, but she was more distant, clinging to me loosely, trying to live off free advice. Like almost all the friends I have in one particular region, she was a therapist. Not a bad thing to be, and I believe her to be a competent therapist. But she had the same problem most people in my age group have. She wanted help fighting it.
I suppose the name for it these days is “cognitive loss for age.” Not Alzheimer’s, that “presenile” (the earliest cases described by Kraepelin himself was in mid-fifties) dementia, but getting older.
Mainstream medicine comes up with names and categories and prescriptions, that may or may not offer significant clinical improvement. The human spirit comes up with, well, at least a little good anger. If there is one piece of poetry I quote more than any other, it is Dylan Thomas “Do not go gentle into that good night/Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.” Of course this brilliant Welsh poet, the way I heard it, died of alcohol poisoning in New York; not exactly how I plan to rage against the dying of my light. Oh, how many people who have tried to feed me alcohol I have told I cannot afford to lose any brain cells by that method. I need everything I have to continue to live by my wits. Read more on Advice From A Poet About Memory Loss…
Filed under Alzheimer's Disease, medicine by on Jul 13th, 2010. Comment.
The last time I saw my maternal grandfather, my Zadie, alive, he was mostly bedridden, in an institution for the aged in Springfield, Massachusetts.
He was 88 years old. He had long since retired from his profession of pawnbroking and about eight years before had been hauled in by the police since he was unable to locate the rented room where he desired to live alone, limiting his contact with his three daughters so that he could reassure himself he was not a burden. My mother worked frantically to convince him that she was indeed his daughter who lived in Boston. After a while, she finally elicited a smile from him.
“Boston. I have a daughter who lives there.” His inability to recognize my mother left her crying uncontrollably, despite my then meager (I think I had only recently become a doctor) attempts to explain to her what was then known about his brain disease, known as Alzheimer’s. Read more on Alzheimer’s Prevention Not As Important As Looking HOT!…
Filed under Alzheimer's Disease by on Apr 20th, 2010. Comment.