Alzheimer’s Patients Turn To Stories Instead Of Memories

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Ask family members of someone with Alzheimer’s or another dementia: Trying to talk with a loved one who doesn’t even remember exactly who they are can be very frustrating.

But here at a senior center in Seattle, things are different.

On one recent day, 15 elderly people were forming a circle. The room is typical — linoleum floors, cellophane flowers on the windows, canes and wheelchairs, and walkers lined up against the wall.

Linda White is leading a session based on a program called TimeSlips. The idea is to show photos to people with memory loss, and get them to imagine what’s going on — not to try to remember anything, but to make up a story.

Storytelling is one of the most ancient forms of communication — it’s how we learn about the world. It turns out that for people with dementia, storytelling can be therapeutic. It gives people who don’t communicate well a chance to communicate. And you don’t need any training to run a session.

Read all about it HERE

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Cops shoot Alzheimer’s man with Tasers

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AN unarmed Alzheimer’s sufferer was repeatedly blasted with Tasers by police when he refused to go into care.

Peter Russell, 59, was shot with the 50,000-volt stun guns during a struggle with SIX cops in front of his distressed wife.

The former farm worker tried to rip out the Taser darts before officers reportedly tied up his arms and legs.

Humberside Police said the controversial electronic weapon was used because Mr Russell refused to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

His wife Diane, 50, slammed cops for using Tasers on her husband and is threatening to launch a formal complaint.

She said her husband was left traumatised by the incident in Epworth, Lincs.

The mum of two added: “There was no need to use the Taser.

“If he was a wife beater or an armed robber then I could understand it but this is someone who will stop his tractor when ploughing a field and move a nest of mice to the side.”

Mrs Russell, who spoke out to prevent other families from going through the same ordeal, said her husband became agitated when police came to assist doctors with his transfer to hospital.

She told The Daily Mail: “He was fighting them off because he didn’t want to go. He was petrified and scared. I remember saying, ‘It’s the Alzheimer’s.’

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Can a Sense of Purpose Slow Alzheimer’s?

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Few people would argue that having a sense of purpose in life is anything but a good thing. The Egyptian Book of the Dead even contains a prayer for it: “May I be given a god’s duty; a burden that matters.” In the modern world, exhorting young people to seek a sense of purpose in life is a mainstay of college commencement speeches, and a collective longing for a feeling of purpose and fulfillment drove evangelical minister Rick Warren’s book The Purpose-Driven Life into the best-selling stratosphere.

Medical professionals have also found correlations between a person’s sense of purpose and their physical health and survival. As far back as 1946, the Austrian psychiatrist Victor Frankl, who spent several years in concentration camps during WWII and lost his entire family in the Holocaust, found that the people who survived the concentration camps best were those who believed they had a reason, mission, or purpose that required their survival. Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl’s classic book on the subject (which he wrote in nine days following his release from the camps) also notes that people who could find a reason or worthwhile purpose for their suffering were far less debilitated by it.

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Device to slow down Alzheimer’s disease

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New research suggests a ‘brain pacemaker’ may slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.  In a small study, John Hopkins University scientists found a device that sends electrical impulses to the brain’s memory regions appeared to increase neuron activity in patients who were suspected to have the disease.

The researchers implanted the device in six people with mild or early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.  The device includes electrodes, which are implanted in the brain, and a pacemaker, which is implanted in the chest, connected to the electrodes by wires.  The pacemaker orders the electrodes to continuously stimulate the brain.  This technique is known as deep brain stimulation, or DBS.

A year after implanting the device, the researchers conducted PET scans on the patients and found they actually showed an increase of glucose metabolism, which the brain uses as fuel to function.  Greater amounts of glucose metabolism also indicate greater amounts of brain cell activity, according to the researchers.

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Omega-3s may help lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease

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Eating foods such as chicken, fish and nuts may help lower blood levels of a protein strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease and memory problems, according to new research.

In the Columbia University study, people who consumed diets rich in omega-3 fatty acids had significantly lower levels of a protein called beta-amyloid in their blood than those who did not consume as much of the nutrient.

According to the research, eating one more gram of omega-3s than average per week was associated with 20 to 30 percent lower levels of beta-amyloid.  One gram is approximately equal to half a fillet of salmon.

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Anders Loenneborg, Ph.D., receives 2012 Alzheimer Award

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Anders Lönneborg, PhD, has been chosen as the recipient of the 2012 Alzheimer Award presented by the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease in recognition of his outstanding work on the detection of early Alzheimer’s disease.

“My co-authors and I are extremely pleased to have been chosen by a distinguished group of peers as the recipients of this year’s Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease award for our work on the development of ADtect®, the 96-gene expression test for detection of early Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Lönneborg, Research Director, DiaGenic, Oslo, Norway.

Each year the more than 500 Associate Editors of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Diseasevote to select an outstanding article published the previous year to receive this prestigious award, which is made possible by support from IOS Press and Elan Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Lönneborg will be presented with the bronze Alzheimer Medal featuring the likeness of Alois Alzheimer. The winning paper is entitled, “A Novel Blood Test for the Early Detection of Alzheimer’s Disease” (J Alzheimers Dis 23, 121-129, 2011), by A. Lönneborg et al.

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