Battling Alzheimer

No one likes to think that they will put their loved one in a nursing home one day. Unfortunately, most Alzheimers patients eventually will need to be placed in an Alzheimers care facility. Because Alzheimer’s disease robs a person of his or her ability to handle everyday activities, often families will find they cannot care for their loved one at home. It is usually during the later stages of the disease when patients lose their ability to dress themselves, feed themselves and need help going to the bathroom that an Alzheimer’s care facility is considered by families.

Once your loved one is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, you should begin considering your options for the future. Include long term care in your planning even if you don’t feel as if you want to go in that direction. It is better to have planned and not need than to need and not plan.

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With millions of people around the world caught in its grasp, Alzheimers is a disease whose implications are still being felt. Sneaking in and slowing removing a person’s ability to recall, function and even remember their own family and friends, this condition is a nasty one that can impact not only the affected patients, but also everyone around them. With this in mind, it is very important for people faced with this condition to arm themselves with solid Alzheimers disease information.

Despite or in spite of its widespread reach, there are a lot of myths that surround Alzheimers. While having correct Alzheimers disease information won’t likely provide a family with the solace it might need following a diagnosis, it can help them better understand the condition and what to expect. Separating the fact from the fiction is very important for those who need to make decisions about future care and potential treatments.

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A disturbing phenomenon sometimes occurs in a person in mid-stage Alzheimer’s. It is totally frustrating to the caregiver who doesn’t understand what’s happening, and it is terrifying to the person with Alzheimer’s. Often, the patient or loved one will seem to get upset or even hysterical for no reason at all, but there is always a reason, and in many cases, the culprit is the mirror. Yes, the mirror.

To fully explain how a mirror can alarm your loved one, let’s go back to the basics. By now, you already know that Alzheimer’s disease attacks the short-term memory and gradually erodes every memory, one memory at a time. So what happens when an 85 year old woman (who doesn’t remember ever being 85) looks into the mirror and sees an image of a woman who is not the 25 year old she thinks she is? She is virtually looking at a stranger, and she is terrified. She may even think there is a stranger in the house. Could this be happening in your house?

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I suppose it’s a little backwards, but I want to take a moment to explain WHY I take a day each week to give recipes. It might seem a little out of place, given that this is a site dedicated to battling Alzheimer’s disease and not diabetes or weight loss.

However, it really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that caregivers are stressed out, run down and in need of help. They are grieving on one hand and trying to balance their many responsibilities on the other. In general, caregivers tend NOT to take care of themselves. They often let their own health needs go unattended as they attempt to care for their loved ones.

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Monday, June 30, 2008

Flurizan, an experimental drug that had been undergoing late-stage testing, failed to show benefits for easing the memory loss and thinking problems of Alzheimer’s disease.

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Carol O’Dell, Caring.com’s Family Advisor and author of the memoir Mothering Mother, wrote a fantastic piece about one of those frightening topics we’d all rather not think about: elder suicide. But the fact that seniors have the highest suicide rates of any age group is one that we simply can’t afford to ignore.

Why are older people at such high risk for suicide? Depression is the biggest culprit, and it’s a condition that often goes undiagnosed in seniors. Some other factors that lead to suicide include debilitating illness, chronic pain, financial difficulties, isolation, and loss of a loved one or pet.

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New studies reveal that obesity increases risk for Alzheimers disease. You probably already know that being obese increases your body’s resistance to insulin. Your body produces insulin to lower blood sugar levels. This increase in resistance then makes your body produce more insulin and this cycle results in type 2 diabetes which seems to be a precursor to Alzheimers disease.

University of Washington researcher, Suzanne Craft PhD., and her colleagues have found that insulin doesn’t only cause inflammation in the body, but also in the brain. This inflammation of the brain increases level of beta-amyloid in the brain. Beta-amyloid is a protein that happens to be the main substance in the plaques that bind the brain of people with Alzheimers disease. Craft and her team performed a test on volunteers, in which they created an insulin resistant state in their bodies and then took a spinal tap. The results were very revealing. Along with inflammation, there was an increase in the compound F2-isoprostane. Alzheimers patients have an unusually high level of F2-isoprostane. This confirms that obesity increases risk for Alzheimers disease which is another great reason to lose weight.

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My goal for this weeks Recipe for Life, in addition to the standard goal of providing you with meal ideas that are simple, inexpensive and healthy, is to avoid the heat of the stove as much as possible. I promise you that this salad not only meets the criteria, but is also delicious. The only catch is that you should only make as much as you plan to eat because it’s not that great the next day.

This salad packs a nutritional punch that is unrivaled by the typical tossed salad. In addition, the addition of a grain like brown rice or a protein, such as chicken breasts or the falafel recipe would take this from a salad to a full fledged meal. Trader Joe’s Soy and Flax tortilla chips (I promise they don’t taste like cardboard) would also be a great and healthful addition.

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Yesterday, I started talking about the need for a disaster/emergency plan. It’s important for everyone, but especially for caregivers. Whether your loved one lives with you or not a plan is important.

To recap, the first three steps a solid emergency plan are: More →

I want to take a moment to talk about your emergency plan as a caregiver. Everyone should have an emergency plan. It’s especially important for families with young children, families with older children who may be away at college and caregiving families with loved ones living independently, in a facility or in the caregiver’s home. Hopefully, you are saying, “well, that’s just about everyone.” Because that is my point. EVERYONE should have an emergency plan. However, for this post, I’ll specifically address emergency plans as related to caregivers of the elderly and infirmed.

Emergency plan

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