Harry Johns, head of the National Alzheimer’s Association said it in January 2011:
Alzheimer's is a tragic epidemic that has no survivors. Not a single one.
The National Institute of Health said it before in July 2010:
There is no correlation between the best practices so called, that of taking your medication, eating right, exercising and stimulating your brain, and the slowing of the progression of damage with AD.
What are the Best Practices referred to by the NIH?
Eat Right, Exercise Daily, Become Involved in Stimulating Intellectual, Social and Creative Activity.
Too bad guy; it doesn’t work. Hang out at home, alone, just wait for the van to come to take you to the “Home.” You’ll go there when you can no longer be cared for outside of being institutionalized.
While sharing a podium making a presentation to leaders of religious congregations, where we were encouraging them to initiate programs of care for people with Early Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), the Geriatric Specialist said:
We can do a lot with caregivers, but not anything with the ones that have AD other than keep them safe. When we no longer can assure their safety we institutionalize them.
“Like, Hey, What can ya’ Say” They’re the experts, they should know. So, we can raise money to find a cure, it won’t happen for awhile, but the more we pump money into it the sooner the pharmaceutical industry will have something that works to sell us. Might as well be doing something and at least feel better about having this crap while we are doing it! That is what John’s of National Alz.Org was proposing; let’s concentrate on raising more money for research.
My friend Jay Smith said it in an essay carried by Alzheimer’s Reading Room:
Today, nearly seven years after disability retirement due to Alzheimer's and over five years since diagnosis, I'm still living with it, and have come to think of myself as a survivor. I've put together a program of healthy diet and supplements, mental and physical exercise, and socialization and creative self-expression, based on the continuous stream of studies that have shown their benefits in preventing or slowing the onset and progression of Alzheimer's. I don't expect my program to cure me, or ultimately change my fate, but I do believe it is giving me a substantially better quality of life, and extending my useful years.
I'll continue to try to shine a new light of awareness on the needs of millions of people either already diagnosed or rapidly approaching early Alzheimer's. Those baby boomers are just eight to ten years behind me, and they are going to be getting their diagnoses with early Alzheimer's in exponentially growing numbers over the next few years. For their sake, I pray that the Association will dramatically change its course and turn its attention and resources to providing the information and support that will help people with early Alzheimer's adopt the lifestyle prevention strategies that can significantly improve their lives and slow the progression of their disease.
I'll continue to try to shine a new light of awareness on the needs of millions of people either already diagnosed or rapidly approaching early Alzheimer's. Those baby boomers are just eight to ten years behind me, and they are going to be getting their diagnoses with early Alzheimer's in exponentially growing numbers over the next few years. For their sake, I pray that the Association will dramatically change its course and turn its attention and resources to providing the information and support that will help people with early Alzheimer's adopt the lifestyle prevention strategies that can significantly improve their lives and slow the progression of their disease.
Jay is of a group who call themselves The Survivors. This group formed out of members of the Board of Early Stage AD Advisors to the National Alzheimer’s Association. They still hang together and recently published a book of essays about living well with cognitive changes. It is entitled Pathways of Hope Christine Baum Van Ryzin, Mary Kay Baum, And Rosanna Baum Milius, editors, published by Elemental Basic Publishing of Appleton, Wisconsin, 2011. These are stories of people who have survived multiple years caring for themselves via the Best Practices and other modes of Health Practices, among them Vitamin Therapy the subject of another book Alzheimer's Averted: A Path to Survival accessible at http://elementalbasicpub.com written by Christine Baum Van Ryzin.
The point of them and of what they have to say is simply this: They are surviving insofar as they are continuing their lives after AD, showing there is life after AD, they are prolonging their functionality, their cognition, their activity and advocacy long after we are supposed to be going down the tube. They are my Mentors. Doing what they have done is my goal. They are ready examples that it can be done, should be done; we need help getting it done!
Maintaining this theme of reference as is evident in this essay, my last reference entries are these. They relate to Brain Plasticity, Neurogenesis and modes of Brain Health. The first is hot off the press as I write 3-23-11 entitled Elderly Subjects May Face Risk Of Developing Alzheimer's Based On Brain Plasticity Read it by clicking on the title, or by either clicking or pasting the following WebSite Address in the window at the top of your browser to go there: http://ic-mike.blogspot.com/2011/03/elderly-subjects-may-face-risk-of.html
"Brain plasticity refers to the brain's remarkable ability to change and reorganize itself. It was long thought that brain plasticity declined with age, however, our study demonstrates that this is not the case, even in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease", declares Sylvie Belleville.
These findings open countless new avenues of research including the possibility of improving the plasticity of affected areas of the brain, and slowing the decline in plasticity through pharmacological means or lifestyle changes, thereby allowing subjects with Alzheimer's disease to enjoy several more symptom-free years.
As expected, decreased activation was observed in subjects with MCI. After training, brain areas in elderly subjects with MCI showed increased activation in areas typically associated with memory, but also in new areas of the brain usually associated with language processing, spatial and object memory and skill learning.
Other Essays I have written in this Blog: My Alzheimer’s Afterthoughts Web Address http://survivl.blogspot.com/ and/or posted in my Archive: My Alzheimer's Archive of Articles and Memoranda Web Address http://ic-mike.blogspot.com/ All are on the subject of prolonging Early State AD, many specifically dealing with Plasticity of the Brain.
The foregoing is foundational for this section on the subject of my third recommendation> viz:
Creative Programs: To Stimulate the Minds and Prolong Early Stagers in Early Stage. These need to be structured in such a way that they are social, creative, intellectually stimulating and such to capture a person still functional and in need of more than the distraction afforded by most day care programs.
I will continue on this subject in the next post. Stay tuned.
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