The Alzheimer's Project

This was on HBO today, the last segment is about the research and medications that are being done now. It sounded promising. There are something like 90 drugs going through clinical studies and the one they showed was pretty much a vaccine. They had 400 or so people with Alzheimers take it and it showed great results in severely slowing the disease but some of the patience got ill from it (I think it went from 2001-2005). The hope now is to make antibodies in the lab based on this vaccine, the shot you would take would work much faster and is much easier to administer as needed from person to person.

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

I think the rise of television, and the alienation of the elderly from technology contribute a great deal to alzheimers beyond genetic factors. It's an odd condition that really is heavily influenced by how you use your brain. People that continue to play chess, videogames, and of course more social interaction have a much lower rate of alzheimer's. Those that are left alone, watch a lot of TV/listen to the radio, and are generally passive during the day are more vulnerable. Unfortunately with more and more of our daily lives moving to computers, cell phones, and other things that the elderly often don't understand I think more of them are cut off. I wonder how it will be for our generation.

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Looking at it that way gives me mixed feelings... on the one hand, it probably wouldn't happen to me if you're right, but my mom would practically be on the fast-track. :(

This was not too hard for me to watch until it came to the driving test.

Watching her struggle to get the car in reverse finally hit a cord.

I have decided I will watch this after work. Saw it was on demand, my grandma was not all there when she left so I am sure that I will be a sobbing puddle on the ground by the time Steph gets home from work tonight!

Excellent.

My grandmother, my mom, and I had to live this shit. The three of us lived together for pretty much my entire life. It isn't pretty, it isn't nice, and I would not wish the experience of it on ANYONE.

I can't even begin to imagine the horror of the person whose sick existence, but I can convey how awful it is to watch it happen to someone you love. To always be reminded by the familiar face of your loved one that the drooling, sick, thing in front of you used to walk you to school, or come and see your baseball games, or cook treats for you when you were young.

To see them get to the point where they forget you, that maybe the worst moment. It's well before they are practically catatonic, so there is no relief in the sense that they no longer trust you, and are frightened by the sight of you, but still have the physical capability of storming and raging around the house at you.

I can't watch this. I lived it on the outside looking in all the way to end stage and that was enough for me.

My girlfriend recently lost her grandmother to Alzheimers right around the time this started to be advertised a month or so ago. Those last few trips to the nursing home were profoundly core-rattling in a way that I had never known.

I'm not sure if I'm quite ready for this, but I'll surely check it out at some point. Honestly, I wouldn't care or even notice if HBO/HBO On Demand was the only channel I got.

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

I don't think it's the sort of thing you can cure. I really think it's a kind of atrophy. It can be prevented with the right excercise, but not a medication.

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I thought of this while I was eating lunch today, and it strikes me as strange. Is there any research that backs this up? Because it seems to accuse Alzheimer's sufferers of being mentally weak. I mean Ronald Reagan had it, Terry Pratchett has it. I doubt you can consider them mentally weak (regardless of what you think about Reagan, Mr. Cuda.)

Then again, maybe Reagan spent his retirement years watching television.

aw... i forgot about Terry Pratchett.

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Originally Posted by epmode

Both of my grandparents on my mother's side had this. Shit is out of control.

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Me too.
My mother, who's an RN, quit her job so that she could take care of them as they slipped further and further into dementia. I don't know how she did it. I had to stop visiting them because it hurt to much to see them in such a horrible condition, yet their own daughter was able to handle both the emotional and physical wear and tear to see that they were taken care of in a loving fashion.

I went to see my grandmother yesterday.

She can barely even speak. :(