New research

Some new research on our News tonight deals with Alzheimer's disease.

An antibody that can almost completely clear the visible signs of Alzheimer’s disease from the brain has been discovered in a breakthrough that left one scientist “trying not to get too excited”.

Researchers scanned the brains of people with the degenerative condition as they were given doses of the drug, which is based on an immune cell taken from the blood of elderly people aged up to 100 who showed no signs of the disease.

After a year, virtually all the toxic “amyloid plaques” that build up in Alzheimer’s patients appeared to have gone from the brains of those given the highest doses of the antibody.

The scientists, who described their results in a paper in the journal Nature, also said the patients showed signs that the rate of their cognitive decline had slowed.

Be great if this does follow through on its promise. 

The article points to 7 risk factors 

Depression

Smoking

Low education

Hypertension

Diabetes

Too little exercise

Obesity

I was extremely surprised to see no mention of contact sport or alcohol....

Summit

An interesting Summit starts today

http://alzheimersdementiasummit.com/schedule/?inf_contact_key=a901b08af2a831f82cb8c00c0463ee2dc5192a90b8a7d0425313ac91af3664ec

It is online and free!

There's a series of videos by various speakers on different aspects of things to do with Alzheimer's. I have registered and looking at the topics it looks worthwhile taking the time to register and view.

Seeing the dementia person as a 'real' person

Today George and I read one of his books and talked about all the memories this brought back.

I scanned many photos which I have used to publish books for both Mum and George. The first book I published was for Mum. I didn't put in that book who all the different people were so really I was the only person who could use that book with her. One of my nieces wanted that book. I made both Mum and George large 100 page books. Before putting the pictures into the book I put the photo into PowerPoint then used text boxes to put on each name, I then grouped everything and saved it as one picture to put in the book. This meant that they could read the names themselves or others could point out who the people were. When I put the pictures into the book I would often also add a caption. These published books are high quality and there are many companies on the web where you can go to make these books.

This photo shows Mum's grandparents, her mother (Rose) and her uncles and aunts. 

I have found too that staff in the homes love these books. Seeing these makes staff (according to the research) view the residents differently. Another thing that helps this process is telling staff small anecdotes about your loved one's life. The research points to these residents being treated better.

Research

It is great to know that people are researching Alzheimer's disease all the time (so far without a lot of success).

Here in New Zealand a blood test is being developed that will allow people to find out whether they are likely to get Alzheimer's in the future. This is from The Press (in Christchurch) on April 7 2016.

 

They point out the pros and cons that will arise with this knowledge. An interesting dilemma.

 

Frankly I am not sure how I would react but I know I don't want to go through what George is going through and what my mother went through. However during this time there may also be breakthroughs in slowing down the disease.