"stand your ground" follow-up

Back in December, I wrote about the sad case where an elderly Alzheimer's patient was shot to death under the "stand your ground" law, which allows you to shoot basically anyone you feel like shooting if you can claim you are threatened.
To quickly recap, Mr Ronald Westbrook was wandering at night with his dog, lost, and went to the wrong house.  The people called the police, but then also went outside and shot the old man, killing him.
Now the DA has decided that this sort of behavior is perfectly acceptable and no charges are to be filed against the cowardly young man who was afraid of an old man.
I know all too well that all Alzheimer's patients are not innocently befuddled forgetful angels.  But in no article I've read has anyone suggested that Mr Westbrook was angry or threatening or in any way attacked his killer.  In fact it seems that his only menace was lack of response.
The District Attorney's office says they will not pursue charges against Joe Hendrix in the 2013 shooting of Ronald Westbrook. D.A. Herbert "Buzz" Franklin sent a news release Friday, explaining the details surrounding the case that touched on the "stand your ground" laws.
This sets a terrible precedent.  I am deeply saddened for Mr. Westbrook's family.
original article | screencap

“Stand your ground” against dementia patients!

Mr Ronald Westbrook

This should never have happened, and it makes me indescribably sad. Ronald Westbrook, age 72, a man with advanced Alzheimer’s, was shot in the chest 4 times as an intruder under the “stand your ground” line of thinking where you can shoot anyone you feel is threatening you. No charges were filed against the shooter.
Mr. Westbrook wandered from his home in the middle of a cold night, dressed inappropriately for the weather, with his two dogs. At 2:30 a.m. a police officer questioned him but apparently was satisfied that the man lived in the area and was walking his dogs.
About 90 minutes later, 34-year-old Joe Hendrix heard a knock on his door. Perceiving a threat, he called the police and then went outside to confront the intruder—an elderly man wearing thin clothing, carrying some mail, with two dogs. Hendrix decided the confused senior citizen was “coming right for him” (as they say on South Park as a defense against shooting anything) and shot him four times in the chest with a .40 caliber handgun.
“Under Georgia law, people are not required to try retreating from a potential conflict before opening fire to defend themselves from serious imminent harm," said Russell Gabriel, director of the Criminal Defense Clinic at the University of Georgia. State law allows people to use lethal force to stop someone from forcibly entering a home if those inside reasonably fear they are going to be attacked. Deadly force can even be used to stop someone from trying to forcibly enter a home to commit a felony.”
My best friend grew up in the boondocks of Pennsylvania, a place full of gun-toting rednecks from which she escaped as soon as she graduated from high school. She was taught how to use a gun when she was seven years old, and to respect a gun, and when not to shoot a gun. When I told her about this story she was appalled on many levels. I’m not a “no one should have guns” person, but there should be rules…and one of the rules shouldn’t be “it’s coming right for us” so let’s shoot it, straight out of South Park. She said if everyone was properly taught to use and respect firearms as children, this sort of thing wouldn’t happen.

The shooter, even though he killed an unarmed, sick, elderly man, was not charged with a crime.  I know I said that before, but I'm still in disbelief.
Long-time readers know that my dad "escaped" twice from my mom.  Once he was angry, once he thought he knew where he was going but got confused and lost.  Both times he was returned to us unharmed; we were probably more frightened than he was.  I can't imagine the phone call to his poor wife, who hadn't realized he was missing.  "Ma'am, your husband left your house and was shot to death.  Sorry about that."
Would Mr. Westbrook have died a horrible death like my dad?  Perhaps.  Or perhaps not.  Even if that was the case, he shouldn't have been shot.  He was probably scared and or confused.  One article said he used to live there at the Hendrix residence, or thought he did.  Maybe he thought he was home.  Then a strange man came outside, shouting things at him that his poor old brain couldn't process, and instead of helping him or welcoming him, the man from inside the house shot the old man to death.
His wife was a nurse, well-qualified to be caring for him at home.  She had the doors alarmed.   There's no mention I can find of how he defeated the door alarms and got out of the house.  But there didn't seem to be a reason for him to be in a nursing home, or that his wife could no longer handle his care.
This is just heartbreaking, and yet the news cycle was all about some guy from a movie about driving fast dying in a car accident while driving fast. 
(I read several articles about this, some with varying details.  I picked the best one to showcase here.)
enlarge article here
Original URL and photo source

FOLLOW-UP

Encouraging new treatment for dementia is emerging

Some of my friends email me or post to me on Facebook when they see a science article talking about Alzheimer's or dementia, as everyone knows this is the cause nearest to my heart.  I do read them all.  Some I just shrug and say "yeah maybe" or "you wish" but this one...well, this one seems promising.
I'll let the first paragraph of the article speak for itself:

The first experimental drug to boost brain synapses lost in Alzheimer’s disease has been developed by researchers at Sanford-Burnham. The drug, called NitroMemantine, combines two FDA-approved medicines to stop the destructive cascade of changes in the brain that destroys the connections between neurons, leading to memory loss and cognitive decline.

To me, that means that they shouldn't have to get FDA approval, right?  This could be an off-label usage?  I'm trying to understand how the drugs are being combined.  I'm thinking of PhenFen, that diet drug that was two other drugs combined. (And it ended up killing people, didn't it? Maybe that's a bad example...)

The decade-long study...shows that NitroMemantine can restore synapses, representing the connections between nerve cells (neurons) that have been lost during the progression of Alzheimer’s in the brain.

That's A LOT to promise.   And they aren't done promising yet.  They are abandoing the old method of looking at the "amyloid beta plaques and neurofibrillary tangles" (what the drug my dad tested was looking at) in favor of something different.

To try to dumb down the science in the article a bit, the researchers found that the plaques didn't harm the neurons directly, but they did cause an overabundance of a chemical (glutamate) to be released, and that overabundance is what harmed the neurons.  If I understand it correctly, it seems to burn out the "locks" (receptors) on the neurons that glutamate is the "key" to.  A drug called Metamine can target those receptors, but it turns out that an overdose of glutamate also causes the receptors to repel the Metamine, meaning it's not as effective as it should be.  The researchers also discovered that part of the nitroglycerine molecule (the heart drug) can also attach to that receptor.  Working together, the piece of nitro can allow the metamine to bond to the receptor and keep it from burning out.

That would be good enough, to say that it would stop dementia in its tracks.  Have your loved one with a bit of impairment, maybe you have to drive him around or make a picture menu for the remote controls of the house, but better than the slow slide into oblivion that dementia offers now, right?

But wait, there's more.

By shutting down hyperactive eNMDA receptors on diseased neurons, NitroMemantine restores synapses between those neurons. “We show in this paper that memantine’s ability to protect synapses is limited,” (Stuart A) Lipton (MD, PhD) said, “but NitroMemantine brings the number of synapses all the way back to normal within a few months of treatment in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, the new drug really starts to work within hours.” 

Yes, it RESTORE NEURONS TO NORMAL.  In mice for now.  

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Screenprint of original article

Silver alert for missing man brings back memories

Friday everyone around here was posting on FB that an elderly man, age 67, was missing from Southington, CT, a town about 20 miles away.


(Harold) Smith's family members are not sure what he was wearing when he left home, but he almost always wears black sneakers and white socks, according to police.
....
Smith cannot read or write, but he does recognize his name, according to police, and frequents the downtown Southington area and Plantsville Center section of Southington.

Although no where does the article say he has dementia, from living with a dad and aunt, I can read between the lines. Earlier versions of the article described him as very "approachable" but for some reason that's left out of this one.
I was ready to drive to Southington myself and start looking for him.  He's the same age as my dad was when he died and in the picture he's wearing a green shirt.  Brought back so many memories of the two times my dad wandered off and how both times it wasn't the cops who found him but ordinary people who were looking like my mom's neighbors.
It made me sad that he had been missing since Wednesday and people only started posting his picture on Friday night.  Maybe they were hoping he'd turn up.  Maybe his family was ashamed.  I don't know.
Yesterday I was checking on and off all day to see if he'd been found and finally the news came that he was okay.  It's been so warm, which is just as worrisome as the freezing cold day my dad took off.  I was thinking they'd find him in a ditch or something awful.

Harold Smith, 65, [sic] was found in the area of Blacks Road in Cheshire, after he approached a farm worker on Sunny Acres Farm. He told the worker that he had run away from home.... Smith told police that he left home and walked down the linear trail to Cheshire. He left the trail and then walked down Route 10 until he reached Blacks Road and entered a field on the Sunny Acre Farm. Smith found an unsecured abandoned vehicle and sought shelter inside it for three days. He then approached the farm worker after seeing him in the field. 

Looking at a map, it seems like he wandered at least 5 miles (by normal roads) into the next town.  I can only imagine his confusion as he sat in some junky old car for three days.  Was he angry at his family, hence the running away? 
I hope the Smith family hugged him and loved him when he was returned to them and they didn't yell at him.  I also hope they investigate some kind of GPS system for tracking him and continue to let him take walks, as it seems like he likes to do.

full copy of missing article
full copy of found article

successful vaccine/treatment for Alzheimer's

I was going to write about suicide today (a guy I know killed himself last week), but then I found an article that made me cry in a different way.  Scientists in Sweden have a vaccine that works for Alzheimer's disease that is also a treatment for mild to moderate AD.
I'm going to say it again, a little louder.


Scientists in Sweden have a vaccine that works for Alzheimer's disease that is also a treatment for mild to moderate AD.

The prevailing hypothesis about its cause involves APP (amyloid precursor protein), a protein that resides in the outer membrane of nerve cells and that, instead of being broken down, form a harmful substance called beta-amyloid, which accumulates as plaques and kills brain cells.....The new treatment, which is presented in Lancet Neurology, involves active immunisation, using a type of vaccine designed to trigger the body's immune defence against beta-amyloid...modified to affect only the harmful beta-amyloid. The researchers found that 80 per cent of the patients...developed their own protective antibodies against beta-amyloid without suffering any side-effects over the three years of the study. The researchers believe that this suggests that the CAD106 vaccine is a tolerable treatment for patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's. 


please, please, please let this be true. let this scourge end.

In the paper again, for this weekend's Walk to End Alzheimer's

I was interviewed yesterday about the Alzheimer's walk this weekend. Last weekend, I had another tag sale (mostly books and jewelry supplies) and raised another $120 (miserable rainy weather) for my team, adding to the $200 or so donated through Facebook friends.

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OCR article text
Daughter raises funds for Alzheimer’s work
By Russell Blair, Record-Journal staff
WALLINGFORD
Roberta Piedmont managed to raise more than $1,000 on her own this year for Alzheimer’s research.
What if more people pitched in to help eradicate the disease, she wonders.
“I had a friend tell me ‘with enough shovels, you can move a mountain,” she said.
A year of fundraising for the Alzheimer’s Association will culminate for Piedmont this weekend when she takes part in the Walk to End Alzheimer's in New Haven on Sunday.
“I’m looking forward to it. It's a chance to meet other people and talk and share stories,” she said. Piedmont’s team includes her mother, her husband and some friends. Piedmont said that while many people know of Alzheimer’s, only those who have seen its effects understand the severity of the disease.
“When I tell somebody, they either look at me with a blank look on [their] face, or their own story comes out,” she said.
Piedmont’s father, Bob Rizza, worked for more than 30 years in the car business in Meriden and Wallingford before he had to retire at age 62 due to the beginning stages of the disease. He was diagnosed a year later, on June 21, 2004, and died on Nov. 26, 2007.
Piedmont has also advertised the walk on her popular Alzheimer’s blog, “Had a Dad.” Piedmont’s blog is the No. 1 result on Google for the search of “Alzheimer's blog,” above the Mayo Clinic's blog and a blog maintained by the Alzheimer’s Association. Piedmont's team name for the walk is the web address to her blog: Alzheimersdad.blogspot.com. Piedmont said her own fundraising is an example that every individual can do something to help.
Christy Kovel, senior director of communications for the Connecticut chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, said the walk is the biggest annual fundraiser for the chapter.
“It’s our signature event,” she said. “We’re expecting a very large turnout.”
Last year, the organization had more than 3,500 walkers in events across the state.
“All kinds of people come,” Kovel said. “We get people who lost family members to the disease, people who are suffering from the disease, those who bring their loved ones who have the disease and people who work at facilities that provide care for Alzheimer’s. There are children’s activities; it’s really a family-friendly atmosphere.”
According to data from the Alzheimer’s Association, 5.4 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and someone develops the disease every 69 seconds. The organization estimates that by 2050, as many as 16 million people will have Alzheimer’s. In Connecticut, 764 people died from the disease in 2007.
Piedmont said that it’s important to raise awareness about the disease, and the effects it can have. The recent diagnosis of Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summit with early onset dementia, Alzheimer's type, has helped bring new attention to the disease, she said.
“Lately more people have been telling me their own stories. This is a disease that touches almost everybody,” Piedmont said.
The Sunday walk will take place at Lighthouse Point Park, 2 Lighthouse Point Road, New Haven. Walkers can register online at www.alz.org or in-person Sunday at 9 a.m.
rblair@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2225

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if you would like to donate to my team please click below or in the sidebar.

Slow news day

You know it is a slow news day when they put ME on the front page of the paper, above the fold.
The electronic link contains basically the same text as the print article, with a different title:

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Blog chronicled woman's dad's experience with Alzheimer's
Posted: Thursday, June 2, 2011 10:17 pm
Russell Blair
WALLINGFORD - Search "Alzheimer's blog" on Google and the No. 1 result, above the Mayo Clinic, belongs to a local woman who chronicled the experience from when her father was diagnosed until his death 1,253 days later.
Roberta Piedmont's blog "Had a dad," began as a way to express what she was going through, dealing with her father's disease, but it quickly grew in popularity and became a source of support for others.
"I started it the day my dad was diagnosed," Piedmont said. "I wanted it to be a record of what happened - a journal."
Eventually more and more people started reading it and reaching out to her. Piedmont said she began to see the blog as an important tool for helping others going through the same thing realize they are not alone
"I wrote about the suckiest things," Piedmont said. "I wrote about embarrassing, terrible and awful things. Other people think they're alone, but they're not."
Piedmont's father, Bob Rizza, worked for more than 30 years in the car business in Meriden and Wallingford before he had to retire at age 62 due to the beginning stages of the disease. He was diagnosed a year later, on June 21, 2004, and died on Nov. 26, 2007.
Christina Bowers, a friend of Piedmont's whose mother suffered from dementia, said that Piedmont always talked about the blog. "She's a writer at heart, this is who she is," Bowers said.
Bowers said she felt that she and Piedmont were on a journey together, and they often swapped stories. It made her feel better, Bowers said, to be able to confide in someone who was dealing with a similar situation.
"There are some resources out there, but a lot of them require you to make a phone call or meet with strangers," Bowers said. "On the Internet, you're anonymous. Roberta found it soothing."
Joyce Kent, another friend of Piedmont's, said the blog was an important tool to chronicle what her father was going through so other people in the same situation could relate and compare. Kent said the blog helps from "the research end of things." With blogs such as Piedmont's people can compare symptoms, timelines and get a better understanding of how the disease affects different individuals, Kent said. Kent had a close friend who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and could sympathize with what Piedmont was going through, she said.
Piedmont has kept up with the blog since her father's death, though she admits she doesn't post as often as she used to. On Wednesday, going back to posts from 2004, Piedmont said she likes the blog because it gives her the ability to relive a memory if she wants to, but that "these memories aren't stuck in my head, I've written them down on paper."
She also hopes the blog will shed light on some of the effects of Alzheimer's that people don't like to admit. Alzheimer's is often portrayed in movies and television as a disease that one can "snap in and out of," like in the movie "The Notebook," Piedmont said." But "once they're gone, they're gone," she said.
Piedmont has donated money to the Alzheimer's Association in the past, but has a big fundraiser in the works for this weekend. She is hosting a tag sale on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at her home, with the help of Kent, Bowers and several other friends. She said she had been planning a tag sale for a while, but when she learned the Alzheimer's Association was temporarily matching donations, she got friends together for a sale. All the proceeds will go to the association.
Piedmont said she hopes the money will help the association in its efforts to find a cure for Alzheimer's. Of the terminal disease, Piedmont said, "I know cancer survivors, but there are no Alzheimer's survivors."
"I lost my dad," she said. "If I can help save somebody else's dad, it's worth it."
Visit Piedmont's blog at alzheimersdad.blogspot.com.

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I've already gotten one call, from a lady whose husband died of Alzheimer's, who is bringing by a bunch of stuff to donate. That brings it to 7 families and 1 business. I am humbled.

30 days in jail for stealing Alzhiemer's Patient's home....

This is the most disgusting thing I have ever read.  Two women preyed on a 93-year old Alzheimer's patient in New York. They stole his house and left him homeless.  They received a whopping 30 DAYS in jail.
What?
Basically they forged his name, saying he had sold them the house.  Then THEY sold the house and kept the money.  They also forged his name and refinanced other properties he owned, keeping the mortgage money.  
Words cannot convey my sense of outrage.  Nor can I understand how anyone could be such a scumbag.
Happy Thanksgiving, right?

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rate of Alzheimer's is doubling every 20 years

Just came across this article on CBS, saying that the number of Alzheimer's sufferers is doubling every 20 years. Currently 35 million people world wide are afflicted, which is 10% more than had been estimated.

Barring a medical breakthrough, the World Alzheimer Report projects dementia will nearly double every 20 years. By 2050, it will affect a staggering 115.4 million people, the report concludes. ....

The report urges the World Health Organization to declare dementia a health priority and for national governments to follow suit. It recommends major new investments in research to uncover what causes dementia and how to slow, if not stop, the creeping brain disease that gradually robs sufferers of their memories and ability to care for themselves, eventually killing them.
There is no known cure; today's drugs only temporarily alleviate symptoms. Scientists aren't even sure what causes Alzheimer's. 
I have no affiliation with any of the studies I suggest people enroll in..but only by being human guinea pigs can new drugs be tested that can save other people.


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Stem Cells from Fat?!

I'm sure I don't have to explain to anyone browsing a blog about Alzheimer's what stem cells are and how they might help those suffering from AD.
CNN.com reports today that multipurpose stem cells can be created easily from liposuctioned adipose tissue.

(T)he Stanford study has shown fat cells can be a player in the quickly evolving area of iPS stem cell research, not because they have their own stem cells but because the fat cells can be turned into iPS cells....The method that uses fat cells can be as much as six weeks faster (than using skin cells)... because the cells retrieved through liposuction are so plentiful, they can start reprogramming right away and have iPS cells in about two weeks.

I know it will be years before anything comes of this.  But it is encouraging that stem cell research won't be stopped anymore and mixed up with the question of abortion.  Unless right-wing people suddenly decide liposuction is a religious issue!

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Trepanation as an Alzheimer's treatment?!

I found this rather baffling New Scientist article about how trepanation (drilling a hole in the skull to relieve pressure) may be a valid treatment for Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia.
Maybe it's because I'm not a scientist (new or otherwise) but I know my dad's brain was atrophied.  Tiny.  Did not fill his skull anymore.  And in fact, that is why he did not die sooner from his two bad falls-with-brain-injury because there was plenty of room for his injured brain to swell.  So I'm confused as to why venting someone's skull when their brain is already tiny is going to help.

(Yuri Moskalenko) is exploring the idea that people with Alzheimer's disease could be treated by drilling a hole in their skull. In fact, he is so convinced of the benefits of trepanation that he claims it may help anyone from their mid-40s onwards to slow or even reverse the process of age-related cognitive decline.

....

As we age, cerebral blood flow decreases, and the earlier this happens the more likely someone is to develop early onset dementia. It remains unclear, however, whether declining cerebral blood flow is the cause, or an incidental effect of a more fundamental change.

....

As we age, the proteins in the brain harden, preventing this system from working as it should. As a result, the flow of both blood and cerebrospinal fluid is reduced, impairing the delivery of oxygen and nutrients as well as the removal of waste. Moskalenko's research suggests that this normally begins between the ages of 40 and 50. Moreover, in a study of 42 elderly people with dementia, he found that the severity of their cognitive disorder was strongly correlated with cranial compliance: those with the severest dementia had the lowest compliance.

Ack.  I'm going to be 41 in a couple of weeks.  Do I need my skull ventilated?!
I guess I am too fixated on the brain atrophy part of Alzheimer's (not mentioned at all in the article) to understand how opening the skull would help fluid circulate.

image source=article source
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New dementia index prediction tool

A new dementia index tool can apparently classify 88% of patients who will develop dementia in the next 6 years.
Of course, there is still nothing you can do to prevent or truly treat dementia, but at least you can enjoy your remaining dementia-free years and hope for a cure, right?
However, it only works if you are over 65; wouldn't have helped my dad (diagnosed at age 62). A 15-point index including both conventional and newly identified risk factors for the conditions correctly classified 88 percent of patients according to their risk of developing dementia within six years.
Every 70 seconds, someone gets dementia.  That's depressing.
My dad was such an unusual case.  He never fits the stereotypes I read about.  Here is what this test looks at:

older age, lower scores on two tests of cognitive function, presence of at least one of the known genetic variations linked to Alzheimer's, below-normal weight, abstinence from alcohol, a history of coronary artery bypass surgery, and a slow time putting on and buttoning a shirt

He was not of older age or underweight and he drank beer daily.  He did not have heart problems until a year before he died and he put on a button shirt every day until he retired.
The test is not perfected and not available for general use yet.

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Exercise your body, save your brain

Can walking three times a week save your memory?   According to the wellness blog Healthy Fellow, yes.
A study published in Journal of the American Medical Association (PMID: 18768421) found that 3 50-minute sessions per week of moderate exercise helped people with memory problems (not diagnosed with Alzheimer's or dementia).  After six months, the exercise group did better on memory tests, had better memory retention, and their Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) was lower (lower is better).
Another study showed that the more you exercise, the bigger your brain is.  (Mine must be huge, some weeks I get in 9 hours in the pool!)  Studying actual AD patients, the researchers found that those who "weren't physically fit" had four times more brain shrinkage than those who were. 
My dad walked every day and his brain was the size of a walnut.  I guess if he hadn't walked he would have died a lot sooner. 

when should Alzheimer's patients stop driving?

Researchers are working on some sort of test to definitively say when a given AD patient should stop driving.  "Typically, specialists say, patients gradually scale back their driving, avoiding busy freeways or night trips or left-turn intersections."  My dad did that.  He stopped leaving town and driving on the highway. Then he wouldn't drive on Route 5 (not a highway, but a busy major street in our town).  He would actually drive up the hill from his house, across town, then down the same hill on a different street just so he could cross Route 5 quickly to get to my house rather than drive a few blocks on it! 

Working on ways to help similar patients, Dawson's team (of the University of Iowa.)... developed an intricate behind-the-wheel exam: A 35-mile drive through rural, residential and urban streets in a tricked-out Ford Taurus able to record just about every action the driver takes, much like an airplane "black box" does. Lipstick-size video cameras were positioned to show oncoming traffic, too.

I've seen things like that--Mythbusters had a similar rig when they tested how distracting talking on the phone is while driving.

The results, reported in the journal Neurology (PMID: 19204261), are striking. On average, the Alzheimer's drivers committed 42 safety mistakes, compared with 33 for the other drivers. Lane violations, such as swerving or hugging the center line as another car approaches, were the biggest problem for the Alzheimer's drivers. They performed 50 percent worse.

I see elderly people all the time driving like this. They get on the highway going about 20 miles an hour and hug the line. Where are these people's families?
As part of the study, they also did various memory and neurological testing on the people to see if any test could predict the outcome of the driving test.  

Standard neurologic tests of multitasking abilities did (make a difference), ones that assess if people's cognitive, visual and motor skills work together in a way to make quick decisions. ...Alzheimer's patients ... who scored worse than average tended to commit about 50 percent more errors on the road, Dawson says.

But they weren't able to come up with a simple test any doctor could administer, yet.
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Alzheimer's-Diabetes link?

A few days ago I wrote about a food designed to help with the diabetes-like aspects of Alzheimer's.  I wondered how diabetes was related to Alzheimer's.  Well, here's the answer.

Doctors long suspected diabetes damaged blood vessels that supply the brain. It now seems even more insidious, that the damage may start before someone is diagnosed with full-blown diabetes, back when the body is gradually losing its ability to regulate blood sugar.....But the latest research strengthens the link, and has scientists asking if diabetes and its related "metabolic syndrome" increase risk solely by spurring brain changes that underlie Alzheimer's _ or if they add an extra layer of injury to an already struggling brain, what (Dr. Ralph) Nixon (of New York University) calls "essentially a two-hit situation."

My dad did not have diabetes. Well, maybe he did once. When he was in the Air Force, after basic training, he had to leave because they diagnosed him with diabetes. He admits that in the Air Force he hated the food and only ate dessert. When he returned home to live with his aunt and uncle, he ate their home cooked food and --tadaa-- no diabetes anymore.
Of course, this link between the two scares me, because I was recently diagnosed with PCOS and part of that syndrome is the possibility of messed-up blood sugar.  Mine is okay but it's being watched.  So now I'm overweight (part of PCOS as well), with a possiblity of my blood sugar going haywire, and I have a first-degree relative with AD--3 risk factors (plus being female).  I might as well put my name on the nursing home list now. 

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Alzheimer's disease passed down to children

According to a new study, Alzheimer's disease may be passed from parents to children in some people scientists said after finding carriers of a faulty gene are two to three times more likely to have memory problems. Researchers found people who had the faulty gene and whose parents had either dementia or Alzheimer’s disease were more likely to have problems with memory even though their average age was only 59. The effect was the equivalent of having a brain that was 15 years older, the researchers said. 
I find this extremely interesting, not just because my dad had AD (and I'm terrified of getting it), but because of how young he was when he was diagnosed.  His father died very young so I have no idea if he would have gotten AD, and his mother had all sorts of mental problems, dying when she was in her early 60's (I think; I never met her even though she lived only 1 town over my whole life).   My dad's diagnosis came when he was 62 and in hindsight he had symptoms in his late 50's if not earlier.

The findings showed that people whose parents suffered from the condition were significantly more likely to do badly on visual and verbal memory tests than those with healthy parents but only if they carried the faulty gene, called ApoE4. ...It is thought around one in seven people carry the ApoE4 gene and this causes their bodies to produce a lipoprotein, which is a combination of fat and protein, which sticks on to parts of brain cells. Once that lipoprotein is stuck on the cell it allows other chemicals to stick on and the whole lot can be absorbed by the brain cell where a process begins that can cause damage in the long-term.

There's a test for it, but having the gene doesn't guarantee that you'll get AD, and not having the gene doesn't guarantee you won't. So I guess that right now it's interesting information, but not particularly useful.
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Peter Falk (Columbo) has Alzheimer's

Sad news: Peter Falk, best known for the character Columbo, has Alzheimer's.  According to his daughter, Emmy-awarding winner Falk, 81, "not competent enough to run his own life and needs full-time custodial care....(He)does not always recognise (sic) familiar people, places and things and is unable to bathe himself or care for his clothing." But supposedly he was still driving 6 months ago when he crashed into a building.
More and more famous people are going to be diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimer's.  Maybe that's what it will take for it to get some more attention in the media and from the government.
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185 drug to HALT Alzheimer's may be available by 2012

Way too late to help my dad, and the parents and loved ones of those currently suffering. But it will help the next generation. (Emphasis mine.)
Daily pill that halts Alzheimer's is hailed as 'biggest breakthrough against disease for 100 years'
A daily capsule of rember, as the drug is known, stops Alzheimer’s disease progressing by as much as 81 per cent, according to trial results. Patients with the brain disorder had no significant decline in their mental function over a 19-month period....
It is the first time medication has been developed to target the ‘tangles’ in the brain that destroy nerve cells, leading to deteriorating memory.
The drug helps to disrupt this process, preventing the formation of new tangles and loosening those already created.
...Eventually the drug could be used to stop the disease in its early stages before symptoms have even appeared, it is hoped....The drug works by dissolving the tangle of tau fibres which releases waste products that kill nerve cells, and by preventing the fibres from becoming tangled.....The trial was a Phase 2 study, which checks the safety and efficacy of the drug, but if a large-scale Phase 3 trial due next year repeats the findings, the drug could be available for prescribing by 2012. At the same time, the research team is investigating a way of diagnosing Alzheimer’s at its earliest stages when tau tangles are first being formed in the brain.
People may have these tangles in their 50s, long before symptoms develop, and the researchers hope the drug could be used as a preventive treatment.
I'm not even sure what I could say to comment on this. I hope it's true. By 2012 I'll be well on my way to being 50 and my dad was diagnosed at 62--meaning he probably had his tangles way before that. I honestly believe he had the beginning stages of AD when he was around 55--would that be tangles in his 40's?
I hate living in fear.
And of course, the article was about Great Britain's availability. Are they even looking at approval for the US yet? I'll have to look into it more.
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183 Alzheimer's screening questionaire

Worried that you or a loved one has dementia? here are a few questions to ask, from a WSJ article:
1. Problems with judgment (such as trouble making decisions, bad financial moves)

2. Less interest in hobbies or activities

3. Repeating the same things over and over (questions, stories or statements)

4. Trouble learning how to use a tool, appliance or gadget

5. Forgets correct month or year

6. Trouble handling complicated financial affairs (such as income taxes, balancing checkbook)

7. Trouble remembering appointments

8. Daily problems with thinking and/or memory

If you answer yes to two or more questions, seek help from a qualified doctor.

My father had 3 & 4 for a long time, and he also had major speech problems, which isn't on the list, and that's when my mom took him to the doctor. Not after we heard about his raspberry bushes for the 150th time, or his complaints that he couldn't use the computer.
But of course who thinks of dementia until it's too late? We need this information to go out to EVERYONE.
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(You may have noticed that I have started including the PubMed references for the original studies, when I can find them. I use this tool at work now to verify references, and it's also great for finding medical articles.)

182 Antipsychotic drugs kill AD patients

My dad was on an anti-psychotic drug. The doctors at Yale put him on it when he first started getting violent. The drug is mentioned in this article, which says dementia patients on such drugs are more likely to die.
Elderly people with dementia who are given antipsychotics, even for a very short period of time, are more likely to end up in the hospital or even die....However, the problems underlying the need for such medications, behavioral problems such as aggression and agitation, are very real, and the alternatives to antipsychotics are limited...
Yeah--treat the aggression and maybe kill the patient, or allow the patient to harm or even kill someone else? That's a conundrum. And yes, I'm being sarcastic.
According to information gleaned from medical records, community-dwelling adults who had recently received a prescription for a newer antipsychotic medication were 3.2 times more likely than individuals who had received no antipsychotic therapy to be hospitalized or to die during 30 days of follow-up.
Of course, my dad was on them for at least 6 months before he died, and he wasn't given them only when he went into the nursing home. Honestly I don't believe they contributed to his death.
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