Researchers report major advances on two vexing questions about Alzheimer’s: How do you know if someone who is demented has it? And how can you screen the general population for risk?
See more here:
Tests Show Promise for Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s
Robert Sargent Shriver, former Democratic candidate for vice president and Peace Corps founder, has died at 95, family sources say. Shriver had a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He is the father of Maria Shriver, former first lady of California,…
See the rest here:
Sargent Shriver Dies
Ronald Reagan may have shown signs of Alzheimer’s as early as the 1984 election, says his son in his new memoir, My Father at 100, to be published by Viking. Ron Reagan remembers that, in the mid-1980s, Reagan struggled with his memory, and looked…
Read more here:
Reagan Showed Signs of Alzheimer’s in ’84
“(C)reating positive emotional experiences for Alzheimer’s patients diminishes distress and behavior problems,” The New York Times announced , with the force of revelation, in a lengthy front page story on December 31st (it was a slow news day, but still…). The story began with an anecdote about an apparently revolutionary Arizona nursing home that allowed a 96-year-old Alzheimer’s patient to “to sleep, be bathed and dine whenever she wanted” and to “eat anything, too, no matter how unhealthy, including unlimited chocolate.” I don’t quite understand why anyone would consider denying even a slightly elderly woman (not suffering from diabetes) the comfort of chocolate (or a flexible bathing, sleeping and eating schedule), but I have only common sense, not an advanced degree in nutrition or health care to guide me—unlike bureaucrats in Arizona who “tried to cite (the nursing home) for having chocolate on the nursing chart.” You might well mock state officials for their utter lack of common sense, but, with a very straight face, the Times suggests that what they lacked instead was an understanding of current “research” on “non-pharmacological techniques” for effective Alzheimer’s care. These techniques include “using food, scheduling, art, music and exercise to generate positive emotions; engaging patients in activities that salvage fragments of their skills; and helping caregivers be more accepting and competent.” You need only a little common sense to know when you should rely on your store of it and when you should develop or seek out expertise. But while expertise like this is exalted when all that’s required is common sense (let them eat chocolate), common sense is exalted, especially by politicians, when what’s required is expertise: managing a household budget or even a small business will not help you understand financial markets and the global economy. Exploiting the confused anti-elitism that too often turns ignorance and inexperience into political advantages, these cynical or simply stupid appeals to common sense do resonate politically. So it’s not entirely surprising to hear a lawyer for the conservative Christian Alliance Defense Fund ( ADF ) assert that commemorating a public war memorial with a giant cross is merely a “common sense idea.” He was protesting a 9th Circuit ruling ( PDF ) that a Latin cross is a sectarian religious symbol, maintained by the state in violation of the First Amendment. Whether the cross is a secular or religious symbol is indeed a question that can be answered with reference to common sense, and the Court answered it correctly, to ADF’s dismay. But common sense will not tell you whether or when the Constitution prohibits government from endorsing and maintaining sectarian religious symbols: that determination requires a measure of expertise and inevitably involves ideology. If the ideal of church state separation, in the interests of religious freedom, is fairly simple and straightforward, the case law interpreting and applying that ideal is voluminous, nuanced, and convoluted. The giant Latin cross case, in particular, Trunk v City of San Diego , has quite a complicated legal and political history that dates back over 20 years (and includes legislation offered by convicted felon and former congressman Duke Cunningham designating the cross a national veteran’s memorial.) If the 9th circuit’s decision in Trunk is eventually reviewed by the Supreme Court, common sense will have relatively little to do with arguments before the Justices or their rulings on the case. If you don’t study constitutional law, with a particular focus on the First Amendment, until you know it in your bones, you should probably avoid arguing any establishment clauses cases in federal court. Conversely, if you run a nursing home and don’t instinctively try to “create positive emotional experiences for Alzheimer’s patients,” you should probably get out of the business of care giving. Obviously. You need only a little common sense to know when you should rely on your store of it and when you should develop or seek out expertise. So why are experts often invoked when they’re least needed and denigrated when they’re needed most? In part, our cultural confusion is a legacy of the inaptly named self-help tradition, which encourages us to rely on self-appointed experts for advice on getting in and out of the rain. As I’ve frequently observed, personal development authors, “life coaches” and “relationship experts” prosper by mystifying the obvious, packaging, at best, common sense insights as special, secret formulas or “techniques” for achieving mental or spiritual well-being. These experts rarely, if ever, appeal to the intellect. They generally offer to hone our emotional or psychic intelligence, in language easily accessible to anyone with a junior high school education—which makes the celebration of their “expertise” entirely consistent with the denigration of expertise offered by maligned intellectual elites. It may seem counter-intuitive, but anti-intellectualism turns out to be the enemy, not the ally, of common sense.
The rest is here:
Let Them Eat Chocolate
Preliminary research suggests that blood tests could be used to test for Alzheimer’s disease.
Continued here:
Blood test hope for Alzheimer’s
UK experts believe they may have found a way to check for Alzheimer’s years before symptoms appear.
Read this article:
Early Alzheimer’s test ‘possible’
Scientists have found that people with Alzheimer’s disease clear a damaging protein from their brains more slowly than healthy people.
See original here:
Protein removal Alzheimer’s clue
A gene therapy technique which aims to ease memory problems linked to Alzheimer’s Disease has been tested in mice.
Read the original:
Gene therapy ‘memory boost hope’
A common diabetes drug could be redeveloped as a new treatment for Alzheimer’s, research suggests.
Read more:
Diabetes drug ‘Alzheimer’s hope’
An essential nutrient found in fish oil does not appear to slow the mental decline associated with Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
See the article here:
Fish oil doesn’t slow Alzheimer’s
Evidence is mounting that levels of vitamin B12 may be connected to the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Read more from the original source:
Study backs Alzheimer’s-B12 link
Hundreds of thousands more patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease could get drugs under proposed changes to guidelines for England and Wales.
See the article here:
Groups hail dementia drug U-turn
High doses of B vitamins may slow the rate of brain shrinkage in older people experiencing warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease, a new study says.
See the original post:
Vitamin B ‘puts off Alzheimer’s’
A protein produced in rheumatoid arthritis appears to protect against the development of Alzheimer’s disease, US scientists say.
The rest is here:
Arthritis ‘cuts Alzheimer’s risk’
MoMA breaks new art therapy ground with their Alzheimer’s project Since its inception four years ago, MoMA’s ” Meet Me ” program for dementia and Alzheimer’s patients has not only grown increasingly successful, but it has inspired museums around the U.S. to take part. The program provides an opportunity for the patients—most of whom were artists or frequenters of the museum previously—to view current exhibitions during off hours on a carefully guided tour. While art therapy isn’t a new concept, the program is unique in that it allows the patients to reconnect and discuss the work right before them, rather than attempting to recall memories. Aside from its obvious merits, the program also speaks to me personally. My mother is a docent at the Cleveland Museum of Art (where a pilot program for dementia patients is underway) and my grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s when I was young. As my grandfather struggled to recall the names of people and places, it would have been an amazing experience to visit his favorite work of art—the Franklin Institute ‘s iconic Giant Heart—with him and watch him interact. MoMA has created a website that acts as a resource for how to create a program for dementia patients. In addition to themselves and the CMA, the Minneapolis Institute of Art , the American Museum of Folk Art and the Bruce Museum of Arts and Science have all adopted programs, with schools such as NYU and corporations such as the MetLife Foundation joining the efforts by donating resources to anyone running similar projects as Meet Me. One partner organization is StoryCorps , which interviewed some of the patients that attended the MoMA program. Above are excerpts from an interview with an Alzheimer’s patient and designer of the popular Swingline Stapler, who had been exhibited at MoMA and was given the opportunity to go back. See more images in their photo essay .
Read more:
Meet Me
