Minding Our Elders®

New studies reveal knowledge about the path Alzheimer’s disease may follow

Recent news that the path Alzheimer’s disease travels in the brain may finally have been nailed down has created a lot of excitement. Researchers believe this discovery may lead to a new direction in developing a way to prevent or cure the disease. A New York Times article reports on two independent studies, both of which concluded that Alzheimer’s disease seems to spread like a viral or bacterial infection by a “distorted protein known as Tau.” These studies were done on mice.

Read more about the new discovery on how Alzheimer's spreads in the brain:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved ones:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol: 

 

 

 

Study shows nicotine patch could help some with mild cognitive impairment (MCI)

Smoking is bad for our health. Nothing has changed that often proven fact. Also, nicotine is part of the addictive element in smoking. However, nicotine as administered through a medical patch, rather than a tobacco product, was shown in a recent study to have some benefit for nonsmokers with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Not everyone with MCI goes on to develop Alzheimer’s disease, but many people do. Therefore, the interest in studying MCI is intense.

Read more about the nicotine patch for MCI:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved ones:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

Studies indicate lack of oxygen to the brain could be behind many cases of Alzheimer’s

Why some elders develop Alzheimer’s disease and others do not remains a medical puzzle, but researchers are coming closer to understanding the process. An article on The Alzheimer’s Forum website reports on the results of two new human studies connecting loss of oxygen to the brain with Alzheimer’s.

Read more about hypoxia  - lack of oxygen - and Alzheimer's:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved ones:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

 

New ways to slow Alzheimer’s progression?

There are, as yet, no medications that can prevent or cure Alzheimer’s disease. Some people do quite well with current drugs that may help slow cognitive decline, but others do not respond well, or they have negative side effects. However, there’s some good news. A recent article on Science Daily reports on a study that shows that mental and “spiritual” exercises can significantly slow cognitive decline in people with Alzheimer’s disease, without any negative side effects.

Read more about mental and spiritual elements needed in Alzheimer's treatment:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved ones:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

B12 should always be checked when Alzheimer’s symptoms are suspected

Decades ago, my grandmother received monthly vitamin B12 shots from the home health nurse. It was common knowledge, even then, that as people age they don't absorb vitamin B12 well. Low B12 levels can cause pernicious anemia, which was my grandmother's problem. However, low B12 levels can cause many other illnesses, as well.

Read more about Alzheimer's symptoms and vitamin B12 deficiency:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved ones:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

Study shows “humor therapy” more effective than drugs for some people with Alzheimer’s

While decades ago Norman Cousins made a case for laughter being the best medicine, there hasn't been a lot of research published on how humor can affect a person with Alzheimer's disease. A recent article on the National Institutes of Health site Medlineplus brings us the welcome news that using humor to interact with our elders may improve their health.

Read more about how humor can help people with Alzheimer's and also other aging parents:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved one:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

Mood, cognitive ability improve in people with dementia after cataract surgery

After reading a report – the first of its kind – on how cataract surgery can benefit people with Alzheimer's disease, I wrestled with some personal guilt. My dad didn’t have AD, but he did have dementia induced by a failed brain surgery. Before his surgery, Dad’s sight was poor at best. The fact that he also had cataracts was known, but after the brain surgery threw him into severe dementia, his cataracts became a minor problem. Or so the doctors thought.

Read more about cataract surgery and dementia:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved one:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

Would you want to know if your children or grandchildren carry the AD gene?

There are many diseases where early knowledge can be a life saver, cancer being one that comes to mind. Other disease - those which have no potential cure - can leave us with a murkier understanding of the value of early diagnosis.

Alzheimer's is one such disease. Recently, CBS News ran a segment about the DIAN study (Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network). DIAN is an international research partnership of scientists devoted to understanding a rare form of Alzheimer's disease that is caused by a gene mutation. It generally strikes people at a relatively young age. Called early on-set Alzheimer's disease, this form strikes before the age of 65, but has been known to show symptoms in people as young as their mid-30s.

Read more about early on-set Alzheimer's and knowing if you have the gene:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved one:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

Can aggressive blood sugar control prevent dementia in diabetics?

A recent study focusing on diabetes and dementia has stirred exceptional interest. According to the study, pursuing an intensive treatment plan to reduce blood glucose in older diabetics does not reduce memory loss in those patients, although it does preserve brain volume.

The published result of this study comes on the heels of a different study stating that that having diabetes doubles the risk of a person getting Alzheimer’s disease. Yet another recently publicized study reported the findings that intra-nasal insulin, used by many for type 2 diabetes, could one day prove to be a preventative or cure for AD.

Read more about lowering blood glucose levels to prevent Alzheimer's:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved one:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

Pilot study shows that nasal insulin may slow or even stop the progression of AD

Previously, I wrote a post about a researcher in Scotland who was studying the link between diabetes and Alzheimer’s and realized anti-diabetes drugs could play a vital role in treating Alzheimer’s. The professor, Susan Schweiger is now studying Metformin–a popular diabetes-treating drug–to see if it has any success in slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s.

Read more about nasal insulin treatment for Alzheimer's:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved one:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

Art therapy: improv for Alzheimer’s

Imagine this: you have been diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer's disease. Your short-term memory is slipping away at an alarming rate. You still have a great deal to offer as a human being, but how do you express this?

Read more about Improv and Alzheimer's:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved one:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

Caregiver alert: today’s middle-aged women first generation not expected to outlive male counterparts

We've read the statistics repeatedly. Stress shortens life. Caregivers are generally stressed by the many demands, emotional and physical, on their time and energy. Many are of the sandwich generation, those who are defined as caregivers for both the young and the aged. Several studies show that 30 percent of caregivers will die before the people they care for. This is not just true of older caregivers. All ages are at risk since stress levels, combined with self-neglect because of time constraints and exhaustion, can lead to undetected cancers, depression, auto-immune diseases, high blood pressure and other health risks.

Read more about middle-aged women dying younger:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved one:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

The “hidden” financial costs when we quit our jobs to care for our loved ones

I don’t need a study to tell me that leaving the workforce to become a family caregiver has cost me, financially, big time. All I have to do is look my puny projected Social Security. Over two decades of my adult “productive” years have been spent caring for elders and children while not working at paid employment.

Read more about the hidden financial costs of quitting employment to become a family caregiver:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved one:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

Micro-bleeds in the brain may be linked to Alzheimer’s disease, according to study

Lately, I’ve been reading about doctors finding “mixed dementias,” as they attempt the tricky diagnosis of people with dementia symptoms. This makes sense to me. Several people have told me about an aging parent who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, only to find out later that the diagnosis should have been vascular dementia with some additional symptoms that could point to possible Alzheimer’s disease.

Read more about micro-bleeds and Alzheimer's:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved one:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

 

 

Study shows vitamin E could limit or prevent stroke damage

As is the case with so many vitamins, minerals, and prescription drugs, vitamin E supplementation has gone through times where it’s been heralded as a miracle later to be berated as a risk. A new study has once again brought vitamin E to the forefront as a possible preventative step for people at risk for strokes. This study authors put vitamin E right up there with the daily low-dose aspirin that many, if not most, doctors prescribe for middle aged men and post-menopausal women.

Read more about vitamin E and stroke damage:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved one:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

Study shows sundowning with Alzheimer’s likely has a biological basis

Sundowning, the syndrome in which elders, particularly those with Alzheimer’s, tend to show high levels of activity, anxiety and agitation, sometimes accompanied by delirium, toward the end of the day has confused and frustrated and even frightened caregivers over the years.

Sundowning has long been thought to be brought on by the build-up of frustration felt by the Alzheimer’s patient over not being able to communicate his or her emotions, or the need to “do something” because the person used to wrap up their day with a frenzy of activity, but now doesn’t have an outlet for the energy.

Read more about sundowning:

Find care agencies to help you care for your loved one:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

Hospitalization of elders can lead to delirium or worse

We’ll never really know what happened to my dad. He went into the hospital to have a fairly simple operation. Doctors were going to insert a shunt into his brain to drain fluid building up behind scar tissue left from a World War II brain injury. Shunt insertions are considered quite safe and effective.

Whether the failure was caused by Dad’s age, excessive scar tissue, a surgeon who had a bad day, the anesthetic or the trauma of hospitalization will ever be a mystery, but Dad as we knew him disappeared and we brought home a man with severe dementia. He was to live in that world of dementia for a decade, before he died.

Read more about the effects of hospitalization on elders:

Find care agencies to help you help your loved one:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

Transportation options for elders can ease driving transition

Most of us with aging relatives will eventually face the “how do we stop them from driving” problem. To many people, driving a car equals independence. One reason for that is the lack of convenient public transportation in much of our country. Very large American cities such as New York, plus most of Europe’s large cities, generally have good public transportation, so people who don’t drive aren’t stranded. But across the country, accessible public transportation for elders is hard to come by.

Read more about elders and available transportation:

Find care agencies in your elders' community:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

Study shows stress hormones likely increase Alzheimer’s risk

If we’re alive, we are coping with a significant amount of stress. Yet stress hormones have been shown to have a negative effect on our health. Now, the recent article, “Stress may increase risk for Alzheimer’s disease: Stress hormones lead to Alzheimer-like protein modifications,” brings to light epidemiological studies by scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in which the scientists hypothesized that adverse life events, which generally causes stress, may be one trigger for Alzheimer’s disease.

Read more about stress hormones and Alzheimer's:

Find care agencies in your parents' community:

Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:

 

Every month should be Elder Abuse Awareness Month, but June is designated

June is Elder Abuse Awareness Month. Elder abuse, as with the abuse of any vulnerable person, is repulsive. We shouldn't need a month set aside to draw attention to the issue, but we do. Yes, cases that reach the newspapers are important, but many, many cases of abuse do not reach the news. Elder abuse often goes unreported because the abused person can't fight back, or may not even recognize that he or she is being abused.

Read more about the kinds of elder abuse to watch for:

Find care agencies to help your loved one:

Jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol: