Diet and Nutrition for Alzheimer's

Alzheimer's Weekly
Nurse Dina
There is some research that shows that foods containing omega 3 fatty acids and foods high in antioxidants and vitamins may help increase brain function and might slow the progression of the disease. There is an article on our site entitled: The Alzheimer's Diet. (You can find it under NEWS>TREATMENT).

I'd like to stress that eating a well balanced diet that is high in nutrients and.....read the whole thing

click here for the Alzheimer's diet

Alzheimer's disease and other dementias are hard on everyone

Clarion online
Amanda Newfield
This story is older, but it bears viewing because the subject matter is still relavent

She no longer remembers that she was married for many years. She doesn't even realize that she turned 85 this month.

During a special visit two weeks ago, my family and I walked into her room around 8 p.m. To our surprise, she was still awake. She looked up at us with a smile and when we said "Hi Grandma," and my father said "Hi, Mom" she merely laughed.

Somewhere in her heart I believe she knows us still, despite the struggle her mind is going through, despite the fact that she can no longer find the words to talk to us.

I remember learning about my grandmother's disease when I was in my early teens. I was confused. I thought, "How can my grandmother not know who I am?"

I suddenly understood why she carried around a piece of paper with our names on it.

Alzheimer's disease and other dementias are hard on everyone in
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Active Social Life May Reduce Men's Alzheimer's Risk

US News and World Report
(HealthDay News)

Home, family, club activities appear to enhance creation of new brain cells, study finds

-- Cognitive and social activity in midlife may significantly reduce men's risk of Alzheimer's and related dementias, says a U.S. study that followed 147 male twin pairs for 28 years.

Among the twins, higher cognitive activity scores predicted a 26 percent reduction in risk for developing dementia first. Twins who developed dementia first had significantly lower total cognitive activity scores than twins who didn't develop dementia....read the whole story

Alzheimer's - Still Searching for the Cure

BRADENTONHERALD.COM
Phyllis Johnson

Alzheimer's disease sufferers and their families and friends haven't had much to celebrate in terms of new treatments for the disease in recent years. No vaccine against the disease has been developed. No new drugs or treatments have been proven to reverse the progress of the disease as it marches inevitably toward death for its victims.

It was understandable, therefore, that there was excitement at the Alzheimer Association's International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Chicago last July, when some promising results from drug trials were reported that appeared to present a new understanding of how the neurological disease works.

Scientists are beginning to segregate out different therapeutic targets and develop drugs that have....read the whole article

Reversing Alzheimer's disease

KRGG mid Missouri
BACKGROUND: The possibility of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a scary thought for many. Alzheimer's sneaks up on patients and their families, destroying the memories of more than half of all people in the United States over age 85. There are currently two classes of medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat AD, including acetyl cholinesterase inhibitors and glutamate inhibitors, which may be used together or alone. The drugs are designed to treat the symptoms of AD and other factors that may be contributing to memory loss, but they cannot reverse the condition.

A NEW ALZHEIMER'S DRUG? A phase 3 trial of the drug bapineuzumab, a humanized, monoclonal antibody, is currently underway and is providing hope that AD can be not just slowed, but actually reversed. The therapeutic antibody works by binding to and clearing beta-amyloid, an abnormal protein in the brain associated with AD. Specifically, it targets amyloid-beta-42...read the whole article

Ending Alzheimer's One Step at a Time

redOrbit
by Kathy Tuckey
The number of people affected by Alzheimer's is growing at an alarming rate, and the increasing financial and personal costs will have a devastating effect on the world's economies, health-care systems and families. We must make the fight against Alzheimer's a global priority. It's up to every one of us to learn more about the disease and join the fight.

There are 26 million people in the world living with Alzheimer's, and that number will quadruple by 2050. This means by mid-century more than 100 million people will be living with this degenerative disease that kills brain cells and eventually the person.

Did you know Alzheimer's disease is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States - and 10 million baby boomers will develop Alzheimer's? There are some 5.2 million Americans living with Alzheimer's today, and that number is expected to increase to as many as 16 million by 2050.

One out of eight people age 65 and older have Alzheimer's disease, and nearly one out of every two over age 85 has it. Every 71 seconds, someone in the United States develops Alzheimer's disease; by mid-century someone will develop Alzheimer's every 33 seconds. \

Alzheimer's is not a disease that affects only "old" people. People with young onset are being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in their 40s and 50s, and some as young as their 30s. Odds are you know or are caring for someone with Alzheimer's. There are almost 10 million caregivers in the United States. Initial symptoms include memory loss, but as the disease progresses and kills more of the brain, the brain is unable to tell the body how to move, swallow or....read the whole article

Alzheimer's Takes Its Toll on Caregivers

Liz Palka
WCAV TV
Charlottesville, Va

In many ways we lose our loved ones twice. Because as they're losing their memory, we're losing the connections we have with them," said Sue Friedman, President and CEO of the Alzheimer's Association.

What would it be like for a loved one to still be with you, but they can't remember you? When all you have are the old memories and you can't make any new ones.

"It is the burden of being apart. Being married, but yet separated. Unable to realize what's going on, what's happening or how long this could go on," said Ward Campbell, whose wife has Alzheimer's.

Caring for someone with Alzheimer's takes a tremendous toll on a person. Ward's wife Peggy was 65 when she was diagnosed with the disease. A year and a half ago, he made the difficult decision to place her in assisted living.

"I thought it was bad when I was taking care of her. It was tough, but she was....read the whole story

Living with Alzheimer's

By Gail Wood | The Olympian •
One family fights disease with patience, understanding and love
Wayne Donaldson fiddled with the domino in his hand, puzzling over his next move.

What is it?

Alzheimer's disease is a brain disorder named for German physician Alois Alzheimer, who first described it in 1906. It is:

• A progressive and fatal brain disease affecting about 5 million in the United States. It destroys brain cells, causing problems with memory, thinking and behavior. It is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States.

• The most common form of dementia, a general term for the loss of memory and other intellectual abilities. Vascular dementia, another common type of dementia, is caused by reduced blood flow to parts of the brain. In mixed dementia, Alzheimer's and vascular dementia occur together.

• Not curable. Treatment for symptoms, combined with services and support, can make life better for patients and families.

Warning signs

•Memory loss and forgetting recently learned information

•Difficulty performing familiar tasks, such as preparing a meal, making a phone call or playing a game

•Trouble using language effectively

•Disorientation to time and place

•Poor or decreased judgment

•Problems with abstract thinking

•Misplacing things

•Rapid changes in mood or behavior

•Changes in personality

•Loss of initiative

Local resources

To learn more about Alzheimer's and related dementias, go to the Western and Central Washington Alzheimer's Association Web site at www.alzwa.org. Or call 866-ALZ-4199.

Lewis–Mason-Thurston Area Agency on Aging publishes a Senior Resource Directory that has resources for Alzheimer's patients and their loved ones. Go to www.limtaaa.org. Get a paper copy by calling 360-664-3162.

A dozen special care centers for dementia patients exist in South Sound, as well as several adult day care centers that take high-functioning Alzheimer's patients. Seniors age 60 or older who have questions about services for Alzheimer's patients can contact June Moore at 360-664-3162, ext. 133, or via e-mail at mooreje2@dshs.wa.gov.

If an unpaid family member is caring for an Alzheimer's patient, the agency's Family Caregiver Support Program can help the caregiver maintain his or her own mental, physical and emotional health. Contact John Rodgers at 360-664-3162, ext. 106, or via e-mail at rodgejh@dshs.wa.gov.

South Sound Alzheimer's Council provides support, education and advocacy for patients, their families and caregivers. It meets at 3:30 p.m. the third Wednesday of every month at the Olympia Center, 222 Columbia St. N.W., Olympia. The council's annual fundraising walk is at 10 a.m. Sept. 20 at Marathon Park on Capitol Lake. Go to www.southsoundalzheimerscouncil.org or write to PMB 159, 3430 Pacific Ave. S.E., No. A-6, Olympia, WA 98506.

Eventually, he needed prompting, reminders on the rules of a children's game. Julie, Wayne's wife, grew increasingly frustrated....read the whole story
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Cognitive Rehabilitation for those with Alzheimer's and other dementias

Tangled Neuron
Preliminary results of a large trial of cognitive rehabilitation for people with Alzheimer's are encouraging. Cognitive rehabilitation could help keep people with mild Alzheimer's functioning in the community and at home.

Another great presentation in the "Psychosocial Issues and Neuropsychology" session at ICAD 2008 was Dr. David Loewenstein's update on a clinical trial of cognitive rehabilitation for people with Alzheimer's. Dr. Loewenstein is Director of Research and Neuropsychology at the Wien Center for Alzheimer's Disease and Memory Disorders, and professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine.

The value of cognitive rehabilitation is well-established for people with brain injuries and for older adults in general, he said. But for people with Alzheimer's, it's a bit more complicated. This is because rehabilitation.....read the whole post

Forgetting: Is It Aging or Alzheimer's?

usnews.com
Planning to Retire
Emily Brandon
Everyone forgets their keys occasionally, gets lost sometimes, or just can't quite remember the name of someone they were introduced to in the past. Young people usually shrug off these temporary bouts of memory loss. But older people may wonder if it could be the beginning of mild cognitive impairment or even Alzheimer's disease. U.S. News asked William Uffner, medical director of the Friends Hospital Older Adult Program in Philadelphia, how to tell when memory loss is a normal sign of aging or something more serious. Excerpts:

How do you know what's normal (like forgetting your keys) and when things are growing more serious?
The brain is unable to recognize when something is wrong with it. People generally are not aware when they have crossed over from a mild memory problem into dementia. More often, it is going to be a family member or an associate or someone else who makes the realization that a person isn't appropriately functioning and managing their affairs anymore. The individual themselves is likely to call the bank and say the bank made a mistake. That's a sign of true cognitive decline.

What signs should family members be on the lookout for?
Most people over the age of 55 will tell you that their memory is not as good as it used to be. Everyone has had the experience of going up the stairs to their bedroom and thinking, "What did I come up here for?" As you age, you may begin to worry more about that. But this does not represent a problem. It's when a person has memory problems that are very severe [that] you need to worry, when they can't make use of information and turn that information into a useful course of actions. Also, when they start to show problems with their judgment and when they repeatedly make mistakes. It's OK to...read the whole post

Patterns: Examining Alzheimer's Disease Related Dementias and Weight Loss

New York Times
Health
Vital Signs
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Weight loss may be associated with the onset of Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia in women, but not in men, a new study suggests.

There have been conflicting studies on the association between body weight and the risk for dementia, with some suggesting that obesity in middle age is a risk factor and others showing that weight loss precedes dementia’s onset. This study, which appears in a recent issue of Neurology, examined 481 dementia patients, comparing them with a matched, healthy control group.

The researchers found that women....read the whole article

Is hearing loss an early sign of Alzheimers or another dementia?

lundi sept 2008 |Destination Santé
According to an American study, minor memory problems could be associated with an auditive deficit. Does this mean that hearing loss could be one of the first signs of dementia ? For the time being, the authors of the report can’t answer this. They simply state the facts, and recommend that healthcare professionals carry out hearing tests on the elderly as a matter of course.

The researchers studied 313 individuals over the age of 80, all of whom were taking part in a programme to monitor neuro-degenerative diseases, with Alzheimer’s disease at the forefront. Of those studied, 232 showed no memory problems (control group) ; 17 were diagnosed as suffering from dementia ; and 64 had slight memory loss. All participants underwent a hearing assessment. The patients with dementia and memory problems received the......read the whole story

JAMA study

and interscience said....

Click here for info on
deafness and dementia

What if you are deaf and are misdiagnosed with dementia?
Click here to find out

Preventing Alzheimer's by keeping the mind active

ILLINOIS STYLE: Will games help dementia?
By MIKE DANAHEY | The (Aurora) Beacon-News
2:31 AM CDT, September 17, 2008
GENEVA, Ill. - He would drive all the way from DeKalb to Peoria to visit his mother, but sometimes a heartfelt hello would take the back seat to a TV game show.

"If I arrived at the time of Jeopardy, I'd have to wait to talk to her. I figured there must be some strength in the game," said Alan Robinson....read the whole article

Click here for a comment

What do do to keep your mind active?
What do you do to keep the mind of someone with Alzheimer's, active?

Elder Care & Elder Rage: Know the Warning Signs of Alzheimer's!

News Blaze
By Jacqueline Marcell
For eleven years I pleaded with my elderly father to allow a caregiver to help him with my ailing mother, but after 55 years of loving each other - he adamantly insisted on taking care of her himself. Every caregiver I hired to help him sighed in exasperation, "Jacqueline, I just can't work with your father-his temper is impossible to handle. I don't think you'll be able to get him to accept help until he's on his knees himself."

My father had always been 90% great, but boy-oh-boy that bad temper was a doozy. He'd never turned it on me before, but then again - I'd never gone against his wishes either. When my mother nearly died...read the whole story

Newsweek writer discuss dementia:My Mother’s Case of ‘Pleasant Dementia’

By Sara Davidson | NEWSWEEK
Published Sep 13, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Sep 22, 2008
She lost her memory but gained a kind of inner peace. And after years of worry and fear, so did I.
My mother, Alice, had always been strong-willed, opinionated and demanding, a fiery real-estate agent who was a life master in bridge and a maven of musical theater. She'd told my sister, Terry, and me never to put her in a care facility. But at 93, she had advancing dementia and was living in L.A., 1,200 miles from my home in Colorado and twice that distance from Terry's in Hawaii. For years we'd put off moving her, fearing she would yell and berate us for disobeying her wishes. I trembled when the day finally came to transport Alice to a home for the memory-impaired. What I hadn't reckoned on was the radical personality change that accompanied her dementia—a condition, I learned later, known as "pleasantly demented."

It had not been pleasant, though, when Alice, in her late 80s, started forgetting the.....read the whole story

Mysteries of Memory

New research explores how the brain records and then recalls events.
By Jeneen Interlandi | NEWSWEEK
Published Sep 13, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Sep 22, 2008

It's no trivial matter. One of the most devastating effects of dementia and Alzheimer's disease (expected to afflict 14 million Americans by 2040) is the loss of what's known as episodic memory—the capacity to remember experiences in detail. Despite years of research and some initial progress, the ability to restore this function to aging or diseased brains continues to elude doctors. But research published earlier this month in the journal Science has provided some important clues into how the brain builds memories......read the whole article

Pharmacist Selects Healthy Tips

By Luanne Austin

David Mattichak draws on 40 years of experience as a pharmacist to read and select the best tips from medical studies in his new book, "Please Help Me Stay Healthy.

PORT REPUBLIC - Did you know that eating raw honey made by bees from local plants (and therefore, local pollen) can help prevent allergies?

Did you know that, in addition to protecting your heart, taking aspirin can help prevent colon cancer?

Did you know that drinking one cup of coffee gives you the antioxidant power of three oranges?

Those are just a few of the tips David Mattichak offers in his book, "Please Help Me Stay Healthy."

For the book, he draws on his education and experience as a research pharmacist and then 40 years as a drugstore pharmacist. He also reads a number of medical studies.

"Most people don't have time to do all this research," says Mattichak, 80.

All of Mattichak's seven brothers died of heart attacks. He didn't want that to happen to him, so he started paying attention to his heart a long time ago.

As a pharmacist in the store, customers often talked to him about their health. Many people with high cholesterol never had a heart attack, while others with low cholesterol had suffered heart attacks. So he realized cholesterol was only part of the picture when it came to heart health.

Mattichak also discovered that blood cholesterol tests can vary widely from......read the whole story and a comment

Findings on Alzheimers and other dementias by Israeli researchers

Israeli21c
By Karin Kloosterman
September 04, 2008

Are you the type of guy who sulks in the office after you've had a blowout with your wife, or are you the one who easily sloughs off family troubles and lets the good times roll? According to Israeli researchers, your reaction to conflict in both the work and home environment -- with your spouse, peers and superior at work -- may determine your risk for Alzheimers and other dementias.

The Israeli research was recently revealed at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Chicago, and joined a number of insightful research projects on dementia and Alzheimer's around the world......Read the whole article

Any new studies, like this recent Israeli

Alzheimers in the news, top killer in Florida

Linda Shrieves | Sentinel Staff Writer
September 2, 2008
Exercise and diet -- key to prevention?
Alzheimer's disease robs people of their personality, of their brain and their abilities. It can be devastating not just to the patient, but to their families.

So is there anything you can do to prevent it?

Maybe, say doctors.

Exercise your body. Physical exercise is probably the closest thing we have to a cure, says Dr. Glen Finney, a neurologist at the University of Florida College of Medicine. Cardiovascular exercise, or exercise that's good for your heart
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Q&A about Alzheimers

New Approach Can Better Predict Alzheimers and Other Dementias

By : ANI
The accuracy of the prediction of Alzheimers and other dementias among older adults can be improved by measuring how much a person's performance varies across several neuropsychological tests, according to a study.

Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University say that developing strategies to improve the prediction and diagnosis of dementia has critical therapeutic and public health implications.
"Typically, when neuropsychological tests are used for diagnostic purposes, an individual's level of performance on specific tests is measured against healthy individuals to determine cognitive impairment," says Dr. Roee Holtzer, assistant professor of neurology and psychology at Einstein and lead author of the study.

"However, this approach does not take into account intra-individual variability in cognitive function," he adds.....

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