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Pre-Dementia is on the Rise

A study from the Mayo Clinic looked at a mild type of memory loss that may precede Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers looked at approximately sixteen hundred adults between the ages of seventy and eighty-nine living near the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. All of the study participants had normal mental and memory function when they joined the study; within a year, more than five percent had developed some impairment. Men in the study were twice as likely as women to develop memory impairment. However, women often live longer and therefore have more time to develop memory issues. Researchers called this … Continue reading →

Hormone Replacement Therapy: Risks and Precautions

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Considering hormone replacement therapy? Here are some things to think about. The FDA recommends that certain women do not use hormone replacement therapy: Women who might be pregnant Women with a personal history of breast or ovarian cancer Women with a personal history of certain forms of endometrial cancer Women with a personal history of pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, heart attack, or stroke Women who have active liver disease. (Though women with liver disease may be able to use hormone replacement therapy in patch form.) If you fall into those categories, talk to your doctors about alternative, non-hormonal treatments … Continue reading →

High Blood Pressure Linked to Dementia

Did you really need ANOTHER reason to take care of your high blood pressure? Here’s one for you — high blood pressure has been linked to dementia by research from Columbia University Medical Center in New York. Researchers tracked more than nine hundred elderly people in New York starting in 1992. The average age of the study participants was seventy-six. None of the participants had any form of cognitive impairment (dementia) when the study began. Participants were examined every eighteen months for more than four years. Approximately one third of study participants developed mild cognitive impairment during the course of … Continue reading →

Lower Dementia Risk With the Right Diet

French researchers have been studying diet choices in people aged sixty-five and over. The result? Certain foods can help cut your risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers from the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research tracked the diets of more than eight thousand people over the age of sixty-five for four years. Out of that group, 183 developed Alzheimer’s disease and another 98 developed a different form of dementia. Here are some of the study results: People who ate a diet full of healthy omega-3 fatty acids were sixty percent less likely to develop dementia than people … Continue reading →

Health Benefits and Claims of Tea

The potential health benefits of tea have been circulating for quite some time. While there has been no conclusive evidence there is enough reason to take a second look at how drinking tea may benefit your health. Tea is the most consumed liquid aside from water in the world. So if even a small fraction of those people are experiencing health benefits that could affect a large number. Or, it could simply mean that tea is a coincidental factor in the diet of the masses. For real answers, we need to look to scientific research. While the research is not … Continue reading →

Stages of Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease is divided into stages in order to help people understand how the disease might unfold in a loved one. However, not everyone experiences the same symptoms at the same rate! On average, a person with Alzheimer’s disease passes away within four to six years of diagnosis. Some people live on for as long as twenty more years after a diagnosis. In general, Alzheimer’s disease is divided into mild, moderate, and severe stages. Experts have developed a more detailed list, even including pre-Alzheimer’s mental states: Stage 1: No impairment. A person experiences no memory problems that are evident to … Continue reading →

When it’s Time to Stop Being a Caretaker

Everyone has their own personal limits. Their own measuring stick, with a point where they just can’t take any more. My mother — who is now the primary caretaker for my grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s disease (and a host of other health issues) — chose her stopping point a long time ago. She decided that it would be time for my grandmother to go into a nursing home if my grandmother couldn’t recognize members of the family anymore. As long as my grandmother can recognize her children and grandchildren, mom is willing to jump through hoops to keep my grandmother … Continue reading →

The Imaginary Visitor

I did a little research on people with Alzheimer’s disease experiencing hallucinations because of my grandmother. She is progressing from mild into moderate Alzheimer’s disease and has been experiencing hallucinations from time to time. I remember her calling through the house, looking for her mother (who passed away in 1998). She told stories of a little white dog she saw running through our backyard (that no one else ever saw). Lately, the hallucinations have been becoming more frequent. Last week, she told my mother a story about a stranger coming to the door. According to my grandmother, the doorbell rang … Continue reading →

Angry and Helpless as My Mom Loses It

As I wrote in a recent article, my mom is beginning to battle Old Timer’s (a.k.a. Dementia or Alzheimer’s) like her mother did, which makes me angry. But I’m not angry at the disease. I’m angry about a lot of other things. Angry at Losing Her Now As I commented on one of Aimee’s articles about this issue I had to stand by and lose my grandma to this disease before she actually passed. Now it’s happening with my mom. I’m angry about that. Angry at My Mom I’m angry at my mom because she refuses to take steps to … Continue reading →

Here We Go Again…Another Woman in My Family Battles Old-Timer’s

Aimee’s Watching a Loved One Lose Time article really struck a chord with me. In addition to leaving a comment on her article, I also PM’d her to tell her how much it hit home and why. She encouraged me to share my story here, so…I took her up on it. My Grandma My grandma started showing signs of Old Timer’s (a.k.a. Dementia or Alzheimer’s) in 1992. Unlike Aimee did with her grandma, I never lived with mine but I did help with her care as best as I could. You see, at that time I was still going to … Continue reading →