Battling Alzheimer

“It’s terribly lonely here,” said Mrs. Watson the other day. “There’s lots going on, but it’s very lonely.”

Actually, I haven’t yet seen much going on in her nursing home, but we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Their schedule shows activities every day, which theoretically means that its residents have a more active social life than I do.

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One reason why Alzheimer’s disease is so difficult to treat, and sometimes even to identify, is that its symptoms can be caused by other diseases. Earlier I mentioned that, besides Alzheimer’s, my grandmother also had macular degeneration - she was losing her vision in her 60s, and was legally blind for thirty years. Sensory deprivation can cause delusions in itself. People with macular degeneration can hallucinate. Perhaps the mind, struggling to make sense of the fog it sees, gets a little too creative.

Alzheimer’s is primarily a disease of the old, and the older you are, the more likely you are to have it. There are hundreds of thousands of exceptions, in both directions. Kris, who writes Dealing with Alzheimer’s, is one of hundreds of thousands of people under 65 who have early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. 82-year-old blogger Millie Garfield, who writes My Mom’s Blog, has a better memory than I do. The ageless project lists ten bloggers over 75.

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By Ed Bagley

Imagine my recoil when I read the above Associated Press headline recently.

The story went on to detail the first study that linked loss of smell to Alzheimer’s. Difficulty identifying odors was associated with a higher risk of progressing from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer’s. As someone with very little sense of smell and taste, perhaps I should be worried.

These kinds of medical studies rarely offer a cheery report.

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