Archive for category Alzheimer’s
Light Therapy For Alzheimer’s
Posted by admin in Alzheimer's on June 12, 2011
Can light therapy or sundowing as it is sometimes called help the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease?
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia. Thousands of people die every year from this degenerating disease. Although research is been carried out daily, scientists are still no closer to
finding a cure.
The light therapy is mainly used in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease. It is well known for anybody who has been involved with a Alzheimer’s patient that they are at their best early in the mornings. This is because as the disease progresses it affects the part of the brain that controls the circadian rhythms.What the circadian rhythm does is it controls our body clock and the sleep-wake cycle in our brain.
You will find that with an Alzheimer’s patient they start to become very agitated in the late afternoon and evening. This is because there eyes become affected, and as the daylight starts to disappear they find it harder to focus on things. They even find it hard too settle during the night often wandering around the house. This is called sundowning.
The Alzheimer’s light is a helmet which has infrared lights attached to it and it fits onto the head. Scientist first carried out research with this helmet on mice, results proved that it showed great improvement in their learning ability. The mice also showed signs or less agitation at night time.
The helmet was then tested on men and women aged between sixty and seventy years old. The trial was carried out for a period of twelve weeks. Half the people where given one hour of exposure to bright natural light each morning. The rest where exposed to low light each day. Tests proved that the patients who where given the bright natural light, showed signs of not being as agitated during the day and settling in bed on a night a lot longer than normal. Read the rest of this entry »
Alzheimer’s vs Dementia
Posted by admin in Alzheimer's on June 12, 2011
“What’s the difference between Alzheimer’s and dementia?” asks a sensible middle-aged woman in my Alzheimer’s Boot Camp class for start-up family caregivers.
I’m always still amazed to find that is the most common question I get asked. So, writing as a non-medical longterm dementia caregiver, here goes.
Alzheimer’s disease IS a dementia, one of many. Especially many dementias of old age. Some have specific names, many don’t. Among the dementias with names are Alzheimer’s disease, Korsakoff’s Syndrome connected with alcoholism, vascular dementia, Pick’s disease, AIDs dementia, Lewy Body disease and many more.
All Alzheimer’s disease is dementia but not all dementias are Alzheimer’s.
There are also dementias associated with other health conditions, but without their own special name. Such as lack of sufficient oxygen to the brain, Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus and dementia of the dying process.
There are temporary dementias, such as when an elder goes into hospital. It is quite common for someone to develop what looks like dementia but which tends to gradually clear up after returning home again.
The term dementia really only describes what we see. It is a syndrome of behaviors, brain function loss and memory issues that we see affecting a person. Dementia does not describe only memory issues. There are a lot of normal age-related memory issues which are not dementia — trouble remembering names, the title of a movie and so on.
When we see this collection of dysfunctions, that’s when we get that person to the doctor for a full Alzheimer’s investigation.
By the way, Dr Alzheimer’s Alzheimer’s disease is not really our Alzheimer’s. Back in the early years of last century, the good doctor Alzheimer researched what was then called “Pre-senile dementia” — what we now call early-onset dementia.
He did not investigate dementias in elders, the most common dementia we hear spoken about today. Now, whether Alzheimer’s is really the most common dementia in reality — well, that is quite another question.
That is actually a bit of a mystery. Well, a big mystery. There is so far no actual marker for Alzheimer’s. There is no genetic marker, no chemical marker, even the physical deterioration is not absolutely Alzheimer’s beyond all doubt. This will undoubtedly change as research continues into this most-researched of all medical conditions.
A lot of people don’t realize an official diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is actually a default diagnosis. It is what remains after other knowable things have been eliminated — medication issues, liver test, blood test, cancer and so on. To me, a very non-medical person, it seems like saying someone has a cold but not knowing which virus caused it. Read the rest of this entry »