
Alzheimer's Disease Support Group
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia and characterized by progressive cognitive deterioration with declining activities of daily living and neuropsychiatric symptoms or behavioral changes. An early symptom is memory loss (amnesia), usually manifesting as minor forgetfulness that becomes pronounced with illness progression, with relative...
Alzh is a 'disease' that causes the 'disorder' of Dementia. It is the Dementia that shows all the symptoms--ex: poor reasoning, deteriorating language skills, poor comprehension of language...eventually problems with walking, swallowing, etc. It's like watching someone go backward in time instead of forward. That's why the real advanced stage Alzh folks like stuffed animals, etc.-- that's now where they are developmentally.
"like watching someone go backward in time instead of forward"
This is such a good description. I take care of my husband and I also watch my 3 1/2 year old grandson while his mother is in college. It fascinates me to see how they are similar, my grandson is learning new skills everyday and can actually do things my husband can't and my husband is losing skills. It's kind of like that Benjamin Button movie.
Something that is just as easy and very available is to have your doctor test for cholesterol, those with extremely high levels that are resistant to meds have a 60% larger chance of developing AD then those wiht normal cholesterol levels.
That is because the same genes which carry cholesterol are supposed to remove the amyloids that cause the disease and when you have the APOE 4 gene have gotten one from each parent you are at much greater risk.
The upside of this is if you start looking at things like blood pressure, diet, and cholesterol levels while in your twenties and thirties and take aggressive action to get them under control you have a very good chance of avoiding the AD you'd otherwise have developed.
From what I remember early onset AD is ALWAYS inherited, most often from the mother if memory serves where as later onset can be from other things like diet and life style along with head injuries.
When the gene I spoke of is involved both types of cholestoral are way above normal which is not good. I reemmber seeing blood tests where the levels of LDL were over 300 and even the HDL was over 100, there can be to much of a good thing I guess.
Plus he said i had Parkisons. Im only 56. What did i do to deserve this?
I could be wrong but I've heard that Picks is related to Parkinsons and is much more likely to happen to people who have that to begin with.
I don't think anyone can say for sure right now "what you did to deserve" this. We still know so little but having the wrong parents is still at the top of the list (that is you inherited the tendency) and then life style and exposure to toxins did the rest, or maybe just plain stress caused those genes to kick on.
Once these disease are in progress we can't do a whole hell of a lot to stop them, slow them maybe and make them easier to live with for awhile but not stop them.
This is why I'm such a pain in the butt with family members of those developing AD and other dementias. There is quiet a bit you can do to prevent the disease if you start young, like in your 20's or even earlier so children and grandchildren could cut the incidence remarkably if they tried.
I hope that besides the medications you are doing everything you can, like eating properly and using supplements which are shown to promote brain health.
The last lecture I went to about a year ago the expert (Dr. Wolf from UCLA medical) was optimistic that within a year or two there would be better meds for control and even possible cures for those still in the early to mid stages of this disease.
Your job, and that of us caregivers, is to try to keep your brain as healthy and functioning while we wait and pray for those cures.