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Alzheimer's Disease and Elder Care Archived Newsletters
Mementos Help Alzheimer's Patients Preserve Their Memories
October 23, 2007
The Mayo Clinic has just published a great article on how mementos can help Alzheimer's patients preserve their memories. The article discusses various techniques that you can use to interview your loved one as well as different ways you can store memories externally. You can read the complete article at MayoClinic.com. You can also purchase a Shadow Box that you can use to display the treasured mementos that mean so much.
Geriatric Care Management Services Expanded into Western North Carolina
September 19, 2007
ElderCare Resource Center, Inc., has expanded it's Geriatric Care Management services into Western North Carolina. The ElderCare now serves patients, families and caregivers located in Canton, Clyde, Lake Junaluska, Maggie Valley, Asheville, Biltmore Forest, Black Mountain, Weaverville and all other cities located in Haywood and Buncombe Counties.
The ElderCare Resource Center is an Alzheimer's/dementia specific organization that provides comprehensive geriatric care management services, counseling & support, crisis intervention, geriatric assessment and long term care plans, information, education and training services. For more information or to join our team, call toll-free 800-209-4342.
Training Helps Alzheimer's Caregivers
REPRINTED:
By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer
The findings are stunning: Offering simple training to people struggling to care for loved ones with Alzheimer's disease not only eases their burden — it even can keep patients out of nursing homes for an extra 1 1/2 years. But the exciting research also runs headlong into a grim reality. Alzheimer's caregivers seldom can make time in their daily grind to seek out that kind of help. And when they do, they too often find waiting lists for services, or programs geared only toward people with advanced disease and not the larger pool in the purgatory that is dementia's decade-long middle ground between independence and helplessness.
That is one of Dolores Melnick's biggest frustrations.
Her husband refused to enroll in the "day care" for Alzheimer's patients near their Hainesport, N.J., home. It was hosting a singalong, and workers were setting up plastic bowling pins, too childish for Bob Melnick. That meant no time for her to sneak off to a caregiver support group. On weekdays she worries about whether he'll be OK because he's home alone while she's at work. "I feel bad sometimes because he's home. I feel bad that I have to leave in the mornings," Mrs. Melnick says, eyes brimming with tears. "I think he realizes he can't do much."_____
More than 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease. It afflicts one in eight people 65 and older, and nearly one in two people over 85.Worse, as the population ages, Alzheimer's is steadily rising. Sixteen million are forecast to have the mind-destroying illness by 2050, not counting other forms of dementia. Those figures are cited repeatedly in the push for more research into better treatments. But a frightening parallel goes largely undiscussed: As Alzheimer's skyrockets, who will care for all these people? And will the long-term stress of that care set up an entire population — once-healthy spouses and children — to suffer years of illness, even early death?
"I don't think society and policymakers have fully grasped the future magnitude of what we're up against, and how massive an operation we have to begin ... to deal with this," says Dr. Richard Suzman of the National Institute on Aging.
Already, an estimated 10 million people share the task of caring for a relative or friend with dementia, the Alzheimer's Association estimates. Nearly one in four provides care for 40 hours a week or more. Handling the wandering, aggressive outbursts and incontinence — plus eventual round-the-clock monitoring — is very different than, for example, learning to lift someone who's physically impaired but won't fight the caregiver.
Those are skills that families must be taught, says Mary Mittelman of New York University's School of Medicine, who is leading a new movement to develop customized training programs for Alzheimer's care. Today, most learn through trial and error. _____
Louise Eckert sits her 85-year-old mother, Dorothy, in a chair backed against the wall and pushes a heavy table in front of her. It keeps her from tipping her chair backward like a schoolchild. It's noon, but Dorothy roamed her Norristown, Pa., home for much of the night and just woke for breakfast. Louise spoon-feeds her mother: grapes and prunes mixed into cereal; toast cut into bites; Alzheimer's pills crushed into cottage cheese so she no longer can spit them out. The conversation is, well, unconventional.
"I want to hit you," Dorothy whispers.
"You do not want to hit me," Louise calmly responds. Minutes later mother and daughter are grinning affectionately.
"She'll hit you and two minutes later, she loves you," says Dorothy's husband, John Eckert, 88.
Not too long ago, the Eckerts despaired of achieving this calm. Dorothy's mild-mannered Alzheimer's suddenly morphed into outright aggression. She climbed furniture, pulled the TV on herself, tried to climb out the window. Area aging services offered little advice. The Eckerts finally found the right mix of medication and caregiver tricks. Take Dorothy's night roaming, a dementia trademark. Her husband installed bed rails; she crashed over them. He slept holding a belt tied to her waist; she slipped it off without waking him. Now the couple sleeps on a mattress on the floor. Large wind chimes jangle when Dorothy's up.
"In the beginning there was pressure. Now we expect it's going to happen," her husband says of new symptoms. "You go along with the flow."
John Eckert brushes aside questions about the strain. He looks fit but has had prostate cancer, a small heart attack and mild stroke. Louise tried to hire a respite-care service so her dad could take a walk. But it requires a four-hour daily minimum, more than they need. Alzheimer's day care runs in the mornings, when Dorothy sleeps. They manage because Louise, the couple's youngest daughter, lives with them and can rush home from her counseling job at a nearby school if needed. They're determined to make Dorothy's days as lighthearted as possible.
"You could be mad about it, or constantly sad about the whole thing, but why? This is just who Mom is now," Louise explains.
So, they play Bobby Darin, and Dorothy dances around the dining room. Song done, she curls onto her husband's lap, head tucked under his chin. She can't recall his name, or the last name they've shared for 60 years. But she can cuddle.
"She knows I belong here, I guess," John says.
NYU's Mittelman says customized training can help caregivers ease the chaos that the Eckerts battled through, and proved it with a one-of-a-kind experiment. She tested 406 elderly New Yorkers caring for spouses with Alzheimer's. Half received training tailored to their family's unique needs. Half got today's standard: a list of Alzheimer's resources.
Mittelman tracked these families for up to 17 years. Custom-trained caregivers kept their loved ones out of a nursing home for an average of 1 1/2 years longer than their untrained counterparts. With annual nursing home costs now averaging $60,000, that's a savings of $90,000 per patient, Mittelman reported last fall in the journal Neurology.
It didn't come at the spouse's expense as trained caregivers experienced less depression, and fewer physical health problems. Importantly, the training was simple: Social workers met with caregivers once a week for six weeks, to assess each family's circumstances, discuss how Alzheimer's worsens, and teach coping skills. Caregivers were given phone numbers to call counselors for more advice whenever they wanted.
That ongoing tailored care is "a really crucial element," stresses Mittelman. Without it, when the patient "has a personality change and hits somebody for the first time in her life, you won't have anyone to turn to." Mittelman has begun new studies targeting training to early - and middle-stage Alzheimer's.
And the National Institutes of Health is studying a similar program that mixes in-home and telephone training, sessions that include role-playing to let caregivers practice the coping skills they're learning. The NIH study has tracked 640 dementia caregivers in five states for just six months so far. But initial results agree with Mittelman: Trained caregivers report improved quality of life, and feel they do a better job.
Together, the research represents a major shift in scientists' approach to Alzheimer's caregiving — from an emphasis on just giving families a break through respite care, to the idea of empowering them to better handle the stress of the job. The challenge is how to spread those findings.
Have a short conversation with Bob Melnick, and it's not immediately clear that anything's wrong with the smiling 67-year-old. He'll reminisce over old fishing photos; proudly tell of his two grown children; ask socially correct questions:
"How are you today?" "Want to come along while I walk the dog?"
Then the phone rings, and this former accountant fumbles it, unsure how to answer. He can't close the sliding glass door in his kitchen. At lunch, he carefully sets his hoagie on his place mat, next to the empty paper plate. This is the often-hidden middle stage of Alzheimer's disease, the stage where caregivers seem to struggle most.
"Many people have a stereotypical idea that Alzheimer's disease is what you see in a nursing home," Mittelman says. But, "in the middle stage, there are behavioral problems which are difficult to cope with."
Dolores Melnick has looked, in vain, for help. As her husband was turning 60, Mrs. Melnick noticed he'd lose his wallet or keys a lot. Trouble with routine accounting work soon forced him to retire. Worried, Mrs. Melnick sought long-term care insurance. She listened in as her husband was screened over the phone, aghast that he was failing simple memory tests. The insurer turned him down, and soon Alzheimer's was diagnosed.
To fill his days, Melnick got a job at a nearby convenience store, mopping floors and doing other easy tasks until he was fired for forgetting instructions. Mrs. Melnick is 63, two years shy of Medicare and three years away from her normal retirement date. She loves her job, a statistician at a cancer center. But she considered quitting to care for her husband, only to learn that retaining health insurance for herself plus his Medicare expenses would cost a staggering $700 a month.
"It's kind of hard to retire," she says with a weary smile. But what to do with Melnick while she's at work?
He can't remember a plot long enough to read or watch movies. He used to take pride in household chores, but now can't work the appliances. Even emptying the dishwasher ended when "dishes were all over and I couldn't find them!" Mrs. Melnick says with a laugh. He refuses adult day care. Insurance won't pay the $17 to $22 an hour that local home-health agencies charge for a visiting aide, and Mrs. Melnick couldn't afford that.
So she cobbled together a compromise: She pays a friend about $30 a day to stop by around noon for three hours, to make lunch, help walk the dogs and provide some companionship. Melnick spends the mornings and late afternoons alone, outfitted with an electronic tracking bracelet provided by the sheriff's department in case he wanders outside and gets lost. When she has an out-of-town business meeting, her 85-year-old mother-in-law comes to stay. Every few weekends, her daughter makes the three-hour drive from Washington, D.C., to help out. And Mrs. Melnick races home from work at 5:15. If she's late, she'll find her husband pacing, wondering where she was. It's a hint of Alzheimer's classic "sundowning," where agitation increases with dusk.
Some states are trying new ways to increase Alzheimer's services. In Colorado, for example, officials experimented with giving $1,000 stipends to help families hire monitoring for their loved ones so they could attend a six-session training program called the Savvy Caregiver. That doesn't buy much respite, but it's a good investment, says Cheryl Dunaway of the Colorado Alzheimer's Association.
"The caregiver is the one who sets the stage for whether it's a good day or bad day, calm day or chaotic day, in how they respond to the way the person with dementia is behaving," she explains.
In Congress, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., is pushing legislation that would provide a $3,000 federal income tax credit to offset some of the expenses and lost income incurred by caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's and other diseases.
NIH's Suzman says those costs increase as dementia worsens, from about $7,400 a year for moderate dementia to $17,700 for severe dementia
Back in New Jersey, Mrs. Melnick is anxiously hoping that tax credit will help. Within the year, she expects to have to hire someone to watch her husband all day while she works. Trying to plan beyond that brings only fear. "Do I have to think about a nursing home in a year, two years? ... It's not like cancer, where they say you have six months to live. They really can't say that with Alzheimer's."
Counseling Helps Keep People with Alzheimer’s Out of Nursing Homes
Spouses who cared for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease were much less likely to place their partner in a nursing home if they received targeted counseling and support, researchers report. This delay in institutional care can be beneficial for both family members and those with Alzheimer’s and save millions of dollars in health-care costs. The findings are based on results from a long-running study led by Dr. Mary Mittelman and colleagues at the Silberstein Institute at the New York University School of Medicine.
Interventions that help reduce nursing home placement without overburdening family members will be essential for our society, which is faced with a projected tripling of cases of Alzheimer’s disease in the decades ahead. Given the average cost of more than $65,000 per year for nursing home care in the United States in 2006, a delay in placement of one and half years represents about a $100,000 savings per patient.
Making the decision to place a loved one with Alzheimer’s in a nursing home can be a wrenching decision for any caregiver. Although such a move may ease day-to-day burdens of care, it can cause considerable distress in care partners. For example, it may evoke feelings of guilt, worries that loved ones are not receiving adequate care, and conflicts with professional staff. Nursing home care is also very costly.
Home care can also benefit the person with Alzheimer’s, who is being cared for and supported in a familiar and loving environment. It can be very difficult and confusing for someone with Alzheimer’s to adjust to a strange new environment like a nursing home. The move can cause disorientation, and sometimes a worsening of symptoms. Nevertheless, nursing homes can be a valuable option for overburdened care partners, particularly as the disease progresses and symptoms become more severe.
Enhanced Counseling and Support
In study, NYU researchers studied 406 spouse caregivers for up to 17 years. Half of the spouses received enhanced counseling and support services. This targeted support included six sessions of individual and family counseling, participation in a support group, and the availability of ongoing telephone counseling as needed. The remaining half received the standard care available at NYU. This routine care, better than in many places, included information, guidance, and access to counselors and support groups for caregivers and family members who requested it but no formal counseling sessionsStudy participants were also given regular in-depth questionnaires. The surveys addressed such issue as levels of stress, how they were coping with the demands of home care, physical complaints, problem behaviors related to Alzheimer’s, and how they felt about support from family and friends.
Caregiver spouses who received the enhanced counseling and support delayed placing their ailing spouse in a nursing home by one and a half years compared to caregiver spouses who received standard care. The study also found that caregivers who received the enhanced counseling were more satisfied with the social support they received from family and friends. They were also better able to tolerate “problem behaviors” in those they cared for. These factors appeared to play a large role in allowing caregivers to keep loved ones with Alzheimer’s to remain at home.
Caregivers in the treatment group were not only able to keep their spouses at home with them longer, but as a result of the intervention had greater tolerance for patient memory and behavior problems, improved satisfaction with the support provided by family and friends, and fewer symptoms of depression.
These finding are consistent with earlier reports showing that enhanced counseling offers a bounty of benefits for Alzheimer’s caregivers. Such benefits include easing feelings of sadness and isolation and bolstering feelings of well-being.
Researchers have noted that greater access to effective programs of counseling and support could yield considerable benefits for caregivers, people with Alzheimer’s disease and other chronic illnesses, and society at large. Enlisting ongoing help and support throughout the care-giving process can be critical for maintaining well-being and helping to manage the extreme demands of caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease.
Concierge Medicine: A Natural Partner for GCMs
Robert Briskin, M.D., FACP
Our healthcare “system” today has become highly impersonal. Patients struggle with the “client services” representatives from their health plans in order to see physicians or access other healthcare services or providers, to have necessary tests or procedures performed, and to get their prescriptions filled. Physicians are forced to treat more patients more quickly with the “Patient-Doctor relationship” often a casualty of this “high volume” system. Geriatric Care Management has emerged as a growing field to “fill in the gaps” in care delivery which are so common for our most vulnerable growing elderly population. How can physicians, particularly Concierge Physicians, work cooperatively with Geriatric Care Managers (GCMs) to provide our patients with the personal care and advocacy they deserve?
A new type of medical practice has emerged and has been growing in popularity over the past 10 years as a direct response to the often impersonal, “assembly line” type of healthcare which has become the “norm” in our country. Patients and physicians have responded to these challenges by creating innovative, direct, unfettered, private relationships between them, in order to improve upon the patient experience and to return to the “good old days” when they had highly personal, direct, and mutually satisfying “patient-doctor” relationships. This new type of medical practice is commonly known as “Concierge Medicine”.
We began a “hybrid” model of concierge care under the name of “VIPCARE” in the summer of 2000, the first such practice in Florida. We (Drs. Briskin and Milstein) are now known as “VIP Primary Care Associates”. Our motivation was to spend more time with our patients, to see them the same or next day when they called, and to provide more comprehensive wellness and prevention-oriented services to them. Our concept was based on “Patient-Provider Partnership”, consistent with a “Marcus Welby” approach to the provision of healthcare services. On the popular 1970s T.V. show, Dr. Welby had personal, direct, and unfettered relationships with his patients, he made house calls, and his patients had his home phone number. His patients looked to him as a friend, an advocate, and a knowledgeable doctor who had their interests at heart.
Geriatric Care Managers serve as liasions between the patient, their families, their physicians, and all available healthcare resources. Like Concierge Physicians, GCMs are available 24/7 directly by cell phone, to assure patients immediate, personalized, and attentive care. The natural synergistic relationship between Concierge Physicians and Geriatric Care Managers provides the opportunity for unparalled, patient-centric healthcare, with the goal of improved healthcare outcomes for all of our patients in a cost-effective and compassionate manner.
Robert Briskin, M.D., FACP
VIP Primary Care Associates
www.vipprimarycare@yahoo.com
561-746-9404
New Studies to Diagnose Alzheimer's Disease Earlier
There's no cure for Alzheimer's disease, but even if there were, it wouldn't be useful unless patients were diagnosed early enough. Right now, most people with Alzheimer's are diagnosed after symptoms start, which means the disease has already progressed a great deal.
"What happens today is people get a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease after they've had it for several years, and so I think we do too little, too late," Dr. Gary Small from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA said.
There are currently no therapies approved to reverse the symptoms, but there are FDA-approved drugs to slow them. An earlier diagnosis could mean a longer life and more time with fewer severe symptoms. Also, there are many promising drugs in the clinical trial arena. These therapies would also be more effective if given very early in the disease -- before symptoms start. Unfortunately, the only way to make a 100 percent accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer's is through an autopsy -- when the patient is dead!
However, researchers are getting closer to diagnosing the disease earlier with two new technologies. Researchers at UCLA have developed a new imaging technique that may detect Alzheimer's before symptoms start. They use a positron emission tomography (PET) scan to measure brain abnormalities. First, a small molecule - called FDDNP - is injected into the patient's arm. That molecule binds to abnormal proteins - amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles - that may cause the disease. Previously, only an autopsy could determine the existence of these deposits.
Study results showed the new method was able to track disease progression over a two-year period and was more effective than conventional imaging techniques in distinguishing patients with Alzheimer's and mild cognitive impairment from normal study subjects. The study included 83 volunteers. Based on cognitive tests, 25 patients had Alzheimer's disease, 28 had mild cognitive impairment and 30 were normal.
Researchers found distinct differences among people with normal brain aging, people with Alzheimer's and people with mild cognitive impairment. Patients with Alzheimer's showed the most FDDNP binding, indicating a higher level of plaques and tangles than other subjects. In one case, a brain autopsy performed on a follow-up Alzheimer's patient who died showed high plaque and tangle concentrations in areas that had previously demonstrated high FDDNP binding values on the PET scan.
Researchers at Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medical College think the key to early detection lies in the spine. They identified a panel of 23 protein biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid that act as a neurochemical "fingerprint" doctors could use in the future to identify patients living with Alzheimer's.
In the study, investigators compared 2,000 cerebrospinal fluid proteins from 34 patients with autopsy-proven Alzheimer's disease to those of 34 age-matched control patients without the disease. Their results showed 23 proteins that individually might not point to Alzheimer's but when combined together formed an identifying pattern specific to the disease. A validation group of 10 patients with suspected Alzheimer's and 18 healthy and demented control patients turned up similar results.
Based on their clinical symptoms, the new screen had a 93-percent sensitivity to probable cases of Alzheimer's and a 90-percent accuracy in avoiding false diagnosis. Researchers hope a simple spinal tap test may one day be all they need to accurately diagnose the disease earlier.
Can an Omega-3 Fatty Acid Slow the Progression of Alzheimer's Disease?
NIA NEWS
For Immediate Release
May 10, 2007NIH-Supported Researchers Launch Nationwide Trial
Nutritionists have long endorsed fish as part of a heart-healthy diet, and now some studies suggest that omega-3 fatty acids found in the oil of certain fish may also benefit the brain by lowering the risk of Alzheimer's disease. In order to test whether an omega-3 fatty acid can impact the progression of Alzheimer's disease, researchers supported by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health, will evaluate one in a clinical trial, the gold standard for medical research.
The study will be conducted nationwide by the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS), a consortium of leading researchers supported by NIA and coordinated by the University of California, San Diego. The trial will take place at 51 sites across the United States and seeks 400 participants age 50 and older who have mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. Joseph Quinn, M.D., associate professor of neurology at Oregon Health and Science University, is directing the study.
Researchers will be evaluating primarily whether the omega-3 fatty acid DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), taken over many months, slows the progression of both cognitive and functional decline in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's. During the 18-month clinical trial, investigators will measure the progress of the disease using standard tests for functional and cognitive change.
"The evidence to date in observational and animal studies on omega-3 fatty acids and Alzheimer's disease warrants further evaluation in a rigorous clinical trial," says NIA Director Richard J. Hodes, M.D. "This study is one of a number we are undertaking in the next few years through the ADCS to test compounds that might play a role in preventing or delaying the symptoms of this devastating disease."
"By participating in this study, volunteers will make an invaluable contribution to Alzheimer's disease research progress," says Quinn, the study's principal investigator. "We are indebted to those who graciously volunteer to participate in clinical studies."
The trial will use DHA donated by Martek Biosciences Corporation of Columbia, Md. Participants will receive either two grams of DHA per day or an inactive placebo pill. About 60 percent of participants will receive DHA, and 40 percent will get the placebo. Doctors and nurses at the 51 research clinic sites will monitor the participants in regular visits throughout the trial. To ensure unbiased results, neither the researchers conducting the trial nor the participants will know who is getting DHA and who is getting the placebo.
In addition to monitoring disease progression through cognitive tests, researchers will also evaluate whether taking DHA supplements has a positive effect on physical and biological markers of Alzheimer's, such as brain atrophy and proteins in blood and spinal fluid.
To learn how to participate in the study, contact NIA's Alzheimer's Disease Education and Referral (ADEAR) Center at 1-800-438-4380 or by email to adear@nia.nih.gov. To view a list of the research sites, go to http://www.nia.nih.gov/Alzheimers.
NIA leads the federal effort supporting and conducting research on aging and the medical, social and behavioral issues of older people, including Alzheimer's disease and age-related cognitive decline. For information on dementia and aging, please visit the NIA's ADEAR Center at www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers, or call 1-800-438-4380. For more general information on research and aging, go to www.nia.nih.gov.
NIH--the nation's medical research agency--includes 27 institutes and centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
Reversing Alzheimer's Disease May be Possible
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mental stimulation and drug treatment may help people with brain ailments such as Alzheimer's disease regain seemingly lost memories, according to research published on Sunday.
Scientists used two methods to reverse memory loss in mice with a condition like Alzheimer's -- placing them in sort of a rodent Disneyland to stimulate their brains, and also using a type of drug that encourages growth of brain nerve cells.
Neuroscientist Li-Huei Tsai of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said such methods might yield similar benefits in people with Alzheimer's disease or other types of dementia that rob them of their memory and ability to learn.
"We show, I believe, the first evidence that even if the brain suffered some very severe neurodegeneration and the individual exhibits very severe learning impairment and memory loss, there is still the possibility to improve learning ability and recover to a certain extent lost long-term memories," Tsai said in a telephone interview.
Tsai said if apparently lost long-term memories could be retrieved, this suggested the memories had not been actually erased from the brain.
Instead, she and colleagues reported in the journal Nature, the memories probably remained in storage but could not be accessed or retrieved due to the brain damage.
The researchers used genetically engineered elderly mice in which they were able to activate a protein that triggered brain pathology very much like that of people with Alzheimer's, with atrophy and loss of nerve cells.
MOUSE FUNHOUSE
Previous research has shown that regular mental stimulation such as reading or playing a musical instrument may reduce one's risk for Alzheimer's. And a stimulating environment also has been shown to improve learning in mice.
In one part of their study, the researchers took mice out of their usual bland cages and placed them in a sort of mouse playground loaded with an ever-changing assortment of colorful toys, treadmills and other mice.
The researchers previously had used a "fear-conditioning" test -- placing mice in a chamber and delivering a mild electric shock to their feet -- to establish an enduring memory.
Mice with Alzheimer's-like brain damage put in the stimulating environment could remember that shock test far better than similar animals kept in standard cages. The playground mice also were better at learning new things than those kept in standard cages.
After exploring the biological mechanism behind the improvement in mice placed in the enriched environment, the researchers tested on the mice a class of drugs called histone deacetylase, or HDAC, inhibitors.
Memory and learning improved in the mice, similar to improvements caused by environmental stimulation, the researchers said. They said this indicated such drugs represent a potential way to treat people with conditions like Alzheimer's.
Tsai said most current treatments for Alzheimer's were intended to affect the disease's early stages before profound memory loss occurred, but this research showed that even after major brain damage had occurred it was still possible to improve learning and memory.
Americans Underestimate Alzheimer's Disease
Today, nearly half of Americans say they know someone who has Alzheimer's disease, yet 94 percent say they feel they don't know much about the disease. The Alzheimer's disease information gap is evident from the results of a new survey released today by the Alzheimer's Association. The survey found Americans don't know that Alzheimer's is fatal and many people don't understand the healthcare implications on our nation.
In the face of this education need, the Alzheimer's Association today launched a first-of-its-kind initiative - the Champions Consumer Education Campaign - to correct misperceptions and motivate Americans to champion a cure for Alzheimer's. For details on the campaign, visit www.actionalz.org. To read the complete article, click on the title above.
Many Alzheimer's Caregivers Seek Help in God
About a third of those who take care of loved ones with the disease feel 'more religious' because of their experiences, a new national study says. You can read the complete article published by the LA Times, by clicking the article title, above.
Alzheimer's Disease: Daily Care of the Alzheimer's Patient
The approach to take for people with Alzheimer's disease will differ depending on their symptoms and the progression of the disease. These factors help to determine how much and what types of assistance are needed for the person and his or her family.
It is important to remember that lost skills will not be regained. However, proper management of the disease and its symptoms can make living with Alzheimer's disease -- or a person with Alzheimer's disease -- a little easier.
Keep the following in mind:
© Physical exercise, proper nutrition, good general health, and socialization are important for people with Alzheimer's disease.
© Plan daily activities to help provide structure, meaning, and a sense of accomplishment for the person with Alzheimer's. It is always best to establish a routine with which the person can become familiar.
© Choose the best times to do activities according to the part of the day when the person is usually at his/her best.
© As functions are lost, adapt activities and routines to allow the person with Alzheimer's to participate as much as possible.
© Keep activities familiar and satisfying, and keep instructions simple.
© Allow the person with Alzheimer's to complete as many things as possible by him/herself, even if you have to initiate the activity.
© Provide "cues" for desired behavior. For example, if you label a drawer according to what it should contain, the person is more likely to put things in the correct place.
© Keep the individual with Alzheimer's out of harm's way by removing things that could endanger them. For example, hide the car keys and matches. Also try to keep the environment safe. Remember: What appears safe to you may not be safe for a person with Alzheimer's.
© As a caregiver, it is important to understand and act according to your own physical and emotional limitations. Be sure to take care of yourself, and allow yourself periods of rest and relaxation.
Try the link below to learn some easy relaxation techniques!
Mind-Body Relaxation
(it may take several seconds to load)
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