A couple days ago a friend of mine called almost in tears: “I did such-and-such, and I’ve never done such-and-such before. Do I have early-onset Alzheimer’s?”
I laughed. “The thing about Alzheimer’s,” I said, “is that they say not to confuse normal aging with Alzheimer’s, and then they say Alzheimer’s hits long before any recognizable symptoms become evident, so you have to look for signs early on.”
So I want to know: are we to be concerned about Alzheimer’s as soon as we lose our keys for the first time, or should we just laugh it off and look at the bright side of life all through the aging process?
Recently, a new mini-test was developed for the easy detection of Alzheimer’s. It’s called the AD8. This 8-question test is supposed to bring a diagnostic tool into the hands of primary care doctors so that Alzheimer’s can be detected earlier and therefore treated more effectively.
The problem is, there is no effective treatment for Alzheimer’s yet. So what, pray tell, are we doing finding new ways to diagnose this disease when there is no treatment and when the disease itself is not even clearly defined?
When we first brought Dad to live with us, we set him up with a primary care doctor who ran him through the standard Alzheimer’s test: remember these three things; tell me the date; where do you live; what floor are you on; draw a clock that says three thirty; etc. Dad got every single question wrong, and the doctor proclaimed, “You don’t have Alzheimer’s.”
I wanted to laugh. I think it was relief that a doctor would buck the system and refrain from offering perhaps a true but useless diagnosis given the lack of any effective treatment.
Later, we took Dad to a neurologist who got through three of the standard questions and suggested he try Aricept.
We gave Dad the five-week trial supply. It profited him nothing.
I’m not saying that we should refrain from diagnosing diseases. From his neurologist Dad also got a diagnosis of Parkinson’s, and as I’ve pointed out in an earlier post, this diagnosis (though it came late in the progression of the disease) was tremendously helpful in understanding Dad’s behavior and in relieving his sense of guilt. The medication he took for Parkinson’s did him no good either, but the diagnosis itself was helpful—perhaps as much for us, his caregivers, as for him.
But Alzheimer’s is a tricky beast. There are some well-known Alzheimer’s victims like Richard Taylor and Dottie (of the Alzheimer’s Reading Room fame) who are now under fire as possible Alzheimer’s mis-diagnoses. How can anyone have Alzheimer’s for six or ten years and show no decline, or even show improvement over time? It is not the subject’s truthfulness that is questioned but the accuracy of the initial diagnosis (heaven forbid we should think Alzheimer’s can be stayed by sheer willpower—of the sufferer and/or caregiver. That would mean we don’t really need expensive meds).
Is diagnosis of value when there are so many causes of dementia that could result in a false positive? And are the statistics of any value when they are repeatedly misquoted? We keep using the phrase “there are 5.3 million Americans with Alzheimer’s” when the correct statistic is “5.3 million Americans with Alzheimer’s and other dementias“.
One last bit of datum against the usefulness of Alzheimer’s diagnoses: in the U.S., whites tend to get diagnosed and treated more frequently than Hispanics, African Americans, and Asians. Whites seek out professional medical care, while Latinos, African Americans and Asians with Alzheimer’s tend to stay home and be cared for by family. Yet whites with Alzheimer’s die sooner than their non-white counterparts.
If earlier diagnosis is helpful, where is the evidence?

In continuation of Alzheimer’s and Glucose Metabolism: The Niacinamide Experiment Part 1

This post is simply me mulling over things I’ve read in light of Mom’s dementia and my own experience with stress and mental short-circuiting, with the conclusion that in some cases of Alzheimer’s, intestinal flora could be greatly to blame. My conclusion also points to the possible way niacinamide could function in correcting one of the malfunctions in the gut-brain axis.

The Gut-Brain Axis

In-depth studies of human intestinal microbes are just now coming into maturity. The Human Microbiome Project is fueled by the increasing belief that the population of bacteria and yeasts that inhabit the human digestive tract is greatly responsible for how the body and mind develop and how they continue to function or malfunction as we tinker with the balance of flora in our gut:

Visionaries are hoping for cures for some forms of obesity and anorexia along with various forms of cancer, asthma, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, lupus, and most of the major psychiatric diseases. In the future, Blaser [of the infectious-disease research lab at New York University] says, pediatricians could help prevent these diseases by infecting babies with a starter kit of friendly bacteria. “Bottom line, humans and our fellow animals have been colonized by microbes for a very long time, going back a billion years. The microbes that we carry have been selected because they are helpful to us. They participate in human physiology. They are a compartment of the body, like the liver or the heart.” (1)

When the BP oil spill happened in the Gulf of Mexico, we were all
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Yesterday I came across Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” poem in Alice in Wonderland (you can download the whole book for free at Gutenberg).

I’ve always loved how Carroll made nonsense words sound like language. But what got me this time around was Alice’s response, and the parallel of that with how I feel about “talking” to Mom.

Yesterday a social worker came to the house to evaluate Dad for possible in-home care assistance. It was a thoroughly humiliating experience for Dad.
The list of questions issued were designed to find out exactly what Dad can and cannot do for himself. The fact that Dad can’t do much at all for himself is something we try not to throw in his face even as it happens. Every time Dad can’t sit in the chair correctly and a struggle ensues to find the right verbal or physical cue to help him do so, Dad’s self-esteem takes a dive. Every time he can’t find a certain room in the house… can’t tell time… etc. So when a list of questions comes along and lays out each and every one of his deficiencies in one sitting, piling them up in front of him like so much garbage to be hauled around, well, it would be an understatement to say it was humiliating.
The further we got into the questionnaire, the more Dad’s countenance fell. It got to the point that I let Dad tell the social worker that he had no problem doing x or y or z, even though I knew the truth.
We ended up somewhere between the truth and Dad’s dignity, honoring neither.
At the very end, this wise social worker asked a question that was clearly not on the list. She asked, “Do you like to fish?”
You could see the dark cloud lift from over Dad’s beaten-down self! A tiny bit of affirmation in the midst of all that pummeling! Never mind that Dad can’t do it anymore; the question at least allowed him the pleasure of showing a positive side of himself. For once, he got to answer a very truthful “yes!”

And that made me wonder: why can’t we-in the pursuit of scientific correctness-remember the spirit of a man? Why can’t we sprinkle questionnaires with bits of affirmation for the sake of dignity alone? Would it hurt science or government to ask “what’s one of your favorite books?” to a woman applying for food stamps? Or “what superpowers would you most like to have?” to a veteran seeking disability assistance? Shoot, while I’m at it, can we change the the category from “seniors and people with disabilties” to “seniors and people with abilities”? There are always things we can still do; things we still like; things we still dream about.

Just stuff I wonder.
And you? Do you have any beef with questionnaires?

The first thing you have to know about Mom is that she is the biggest sweetheart on the planet. She has always said “yes” to anyone who asked her for a favor or a meal or a ride or even cash. We used to berate her over some of these decisions. “Mom, you’re just enabling them to go get drunk,” or whatever. We’d rather keep our boundaries intact. Keep safe. Not Mom. She’d rather “do onto others” as Jesus wanted her to do-and let Jesus take care of punishment if the recipient abused the gift.
With that in mind, it puzzles me that these days, the word most frequently pulled out of her tiny residual vocabulary (5-10 words at present) is the word “no.”

“Mom, shall we get up?”
“No.”
“Mom, isn’t this music pretty?”
“No.”
“Do you want to go for a walk?”
“No.”

Here’s the curious part. Her body language still says “yes.” So why the verbal “no”?
I’m thinking that this knee-jerk negation is her last recourse to individuality. Having lost most of what makes her a person, she is resorting to negation as a way to distinguish herself from others.
Think about it. “Yes” blends us into other people. It’s a unifying word. It accepts. It serves. It hugs and becomes one with the other.
“No” on the other hand, puts up a wall between the self and the other. It says, I am me and you are you and it’s going to stop there.
It’s Mom’s only way, I believe, to retain a feeling of self.
And that revelation changes how I look at the world. You wonder why some people just can’t play nice in the world arena; why they have to say “no” to constructive engagement; why they have to strap bombs around themselves and “no” themselves and other people into oblivion.
Perhaps it’s because those people feel that a “yes” will blend them into the will of the other-a will that is unacceptable to their idea of a healthy self. A “no,” they feel, is the only way they’ll be seen.
Do you see what I’m saying? The ego’s boundaries collapse under yes. “No” is the last bastion of the tormented ego.

The other day my sister saw a note I had written on a sticky pad. It was a list of things I needed to do, one of them being to order a refill of Mom’s Seroquel. Except my sister read “Mom’s sequel” and thought I had written a book about Mom and was now working on a sequel. Not a far-fetched idea, as I’m always writing some book or other under the covers with a flashlight (so to speak).
Turns out I’m not writing a sequel about Mom.
Unless I’m writing it with my life.
In my last post I expressed fear that I might be following in my mother’s footsteps. Who wants to inherit Alzheimer’s? But the more I think about it, the more I would be proud to be called my mother’s sequel. I’m certain that anyone who knew Mom would give their right arm to be compared positively to her. She was the most selfless person I’ve ever known. The prayingest person I’ve ever known. The best cook, the best artist, the most humble…
I can remember a couple tizzy fits Mom threw right in the middle of menopause. But dang, other than that it’s hard to think of anything bad coming from Mom.
So I have to say that it is with great pride that I would love to be able to say “I am my mother’s sequel.”

We already know that a Mediterranean diet helps stave off signs of dementia, but who wants to eat flavorless vegetables all the time?
If you think you have to sacrifice that deeply satisfying taste of butter and meat that you don’t typically get in a vegetable-rich diet, you don’t know Yum Sauce! This sauce is of Japanese origin and is full of protein, B-complex vitamins (B1, B3, B6, B12), and antioxidants—and best of all, it rounds out the flavor of anything you put it on with a “meatiness” that will satisfy the carnivore in you.
The dish pictured here is a prime example of a Mediterranean diet with a Japanese twist: a bed of baby spinach leaves with sauteed butternut squash, topped with Yum Sauce. Use this sauce on any steamed vegetable, over rice, or even on salad, and you’ll be on your way to fighting memory loss!

Throw everything in a blender and puree until smooth. Store in a refrigerator for up to one week.

The Alzheimer’s Research Paradigm

If you’ve every studied philosophy of science, you’ll recognize that current research in the field of Alzheimer’s Disease is battling paradigms. The funny thing is, the Alzheimer’s field hasn’t even reached the level of robust theory, yet there is strife in the ranks of researchers fighting over the direction inquiry should take:

“Kill the amyloid plaque“Beta amyloid is a protein fragment snipped from an amyloid precursor protein (APP). In a healthy brain, these protein fragments are broken down and eliminated. In Alzheimer’s disease, the fragments accumulate to form hard, insoluble plaques.”!”
“No, viva le beta amyloid“Most people think abeta is junk,” a toxic byproduct of other activity in the brain, said Rudolph Tanzi, director of genetics and aging at Massachusetts General’s Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease. “This says tread carefully. It may play a normal, essential role in the brain and be part of the way the brain protects itself.”!”
“Forget amyloid. It takes tauThe appearance of elevated tau in CSF is important, but merely a reflection of the disease process. What is not at all touched upon and in fact routinely neglected in the press, is that the tau protein drives neurodegeneration in a very direct way, much more so than the beta-amyloid protein, which is the target of the cited study. In fact, without abnormalities of tau there is no Alzheimer’s disease. Many older individuals develop beta-amyloid deposits in their brains and never experience Alzheimer’s disease, another aspect generally not mentioned. Conversely, if only tau is abnormal, and beta-amyloid is not involved, there is always a terminal neurological disease. to tangle.”
“Ha! The biomarkerThe thing with biomarkers is that they only work/make sense if the biological processes behind a disease are fully or at least largely understood. Only then is it possible to choose a proxy (the biomarker) for the final result (optimally a cured patient). Since the processes behind Alzheimer’s (more generally in the CNS) are badly understood this area is not well suited for biomarkers emperor has no clothes!”
“Wait. Isn’t it all about insulin resistance?A new short-term trial of intranasal insulin in Alzheimer’s patients and people with mild cognitive decline showed benefits on certain memory and functioning tests”
“Nix all the above. Just get quality sleep,“Levels of the protein increased in mice during the night — when mice are mostly awake — and fell during the day when mice sleep. The longer the mice stayed awake, the more amyloid-beta levels increased, the team found. The team also measured amyloid-beta levels in the cerebral spinal fluid of some healthy young people and found the same pattern observed in the mice — amyloid-beta levels increase when people are awake and fall during sleep.” and you’ll be fine.”

If you think this is funny, these basic statistics will sober you up:
* As of 2010, there are 5.4 million people in the US with Alzheimer’s
* Almost half the people over 85 have Alzheimer’s
* When the baby boomers come of Alzheimer’s age, the costs of care for this disease alone will cripple Medicare and Medicaid
* Federal funding for research into a cure is dropping fast
* YOU will be paying for either your own care or for that of a loved one if a cure is not found. And YOU will either be grossly neglected when this disease hits you, or you will die the slow death of stress from caregiving for someone else.

Bottom line: research into Alzheimer’s—its cause(s), treatment, and cure—is alarmingly urgent and terribly underfunded.

There are plenty of people out there who believe we shouldn’t put money into research at all, because so far nothing has been found to stay the course of “Alzheimer’s” dementia, and the whole drug industryAnother new frontier for drug companies’ illicit profits. Vaccines, invented “syndromes” and now, allegedly predicting who will come down with what disease and medicating them for decades before the possible advent of that disease. With no certainty the disease will manifest this is pure sham. And the pharmas will profit double from their con job — think of the so-called “mind drugs” that will be prescribed to mediate the untold psychological effects on people given future death sentences regarding this or that disease! is just a ploy to line the pockets of the pharmaceutical fat cats. If you’re in that group, you can stop reading this now. If, however, you would really like to see your Mom or Dad or Yourself able to have a meaningful conversation with your loved ones and know whom you’re talking to—hopefully for the rest of your life—read on, because the question isn’t whether or not to research. The question is where do we put our research dollars?

Not a simple answer when you consider that the reigning paradigm for Alzheimer’s research is serious question.

Let me explain with recent findings from my own readings:

A couple weeks ago I attended a Cure Alzheimer’s Fund webinar presented by Dr. Rudy Tanzi (of Massachusetts General’s Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease) on Alzheimer’s research and drug development.

Beta Amyloid: Clues From Our Genes

Dr. Tanzi’s group is in the “clues from our genes” pool (looking at the genes as a starting point rather than, say, looking at diet first). The dominant belief in this pool up until recently is that beta amyloid plaque accumulation in the brain, followed always by tau tangles, are the two main biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease. That is, where there is Alzheimer’s, there is an overabundance of beta amyloid plaque and destruction caused by tau in the brain. Also, a higher load of plaque correlates with a higher degree of dementia (see slide from webinar). Plus, as this accumulation progresses and moves to different parts of the brain, there is a parallel manifestation of symptoms.

The connection seems pretty obvious. And Dr. Tanzi certainly has the credentials: back in the 80’s when he was studying Down’s Syndrome, he realized they had isolated the gene responsible for amyloid “plaque” deposits in the brain, and—given that all Down’s Syndrome sufferers end up with Alzheimer’s—thought to make a link between this gene and other cases of Alzheimer’s. From there it was one success after another, with Dr. Tanzi participating in the discovery of three of the four known gene mutations causing early-onset Alzheimer’s (these are the genes that guarantee you will get Alzheimer’s). Granted, early-onset AD accounts for only 5% of Alzheimer’s cases, but it does give weight to the conviction that Alzheimer’s has a genetic link. More recent studies looking at family history suggest that up to 80% of Alzheimer’s cases are genetically influenced (see slide from Tanzi’s presentation).

The presentation is convincing enough until you start reading the commentary in the field and start learning that current direction of research into the causes of Alzheimer’s“It’s one reason why the so-called amyloid hypothesis, which holds that to cure Alzheimer’s you have to curtail Aβ, is in question these days: There’s little evidence so far that fighting Aβ leads to a functional difference to patients.” is highly questioned.

Researchers coming on the scene today, for example, would argue that the plaque theory is circular reasoning. You can’t say that plaque leads to Alzheimer’s if you first define Alzheimer’s as “dementia with plaque.” And when your theory states that plaque accumulation leads to Alzheimer’s, the automatic null hypothesis is that where there is plaque (in copious amounts) you will always find dementia, and when plaque is cleared, dementia will go away.

But this has not born out. It is now known that “roughly one-third of all elderly adults have such plaques in their brains yet function normally.” It has also been proven that the elimination of beta amyloid plaque (achieved by the “Alzheimer’s vaccine”) does not cure dementia.

Thus the paradigm shake-up. Why continue with the biomarker research when the facts don’t bear an airtight connection? Is the “clues from our genes” group too heavily invested financially and psychologically in this line of research (as some suggest) to give it up as dead?

Dr. Tanzi responds to these fears in his recent presentation. He didn’t use the word per se, but nuance was the main come-back. All theories undergo refinement, and this plaque-causes-dementia theory is no exception. Looking at the genes may have lead to wrong conclusions in the past, but there are still some pretty interesting clues to follow going forward.

Here is a crude rendition of the protein-level pathology in Alzheimer’s:

Beta amyloid (Aβ) is cut off from its precursor protein; Aβ links to other ab in small clusters; Aβ kills nerve synapses; Aβ accumulates into plaques

For the past twenty years, research has focused on improving the symptoms of dementia by eliminating the final clusters of beta amyloid (plaques). Looking at the little diagram above, different drugs targeted the beta amyloid at different points on the linear progression toward plaque: Flurizan targeted the process that snipped the Aβ off its precursor protein; Alzemed tried to block the aggregation of Aβ; Dimebon was designed to protect the neurons from Aβ; one drug successfully immunized the brain against Aβ (resulting in clearance of plaque from the brain, inflammation in the brain, and progressive dementia); and finally, drugs were developed (Aricept and Namenda) to act at the symptomatic level.

None has had any significant effect“No treatment is available to slow or stop the deterioration of brain cells in Alzheimer’s disease. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved five drugs that temporarily slow worsening of symptoms for about six to 12 months, on average, for about half of the individuals who take them.” on the brain’s function in memory tests.

Tanzi’s response? Perhaps the reason drug trials fail is that the potency of the drug is off—either too weak or too strong—and funding for a subsequent trial is cut off. Or perhaps researchers need to stare at the diagram a little longer and find out whether beta amyloid needs to be left to do some mission, then cleared before it wreaks havoc on the synapses.

Which is exactly what happened with Dr. Tanzi—a little stroll through the lab, a light-bulb moment, and Tanzi discovers that beta amyloid kills bacteria and yeast like nobody’s business. Beta amyloid is a good guy? The plaques themselves are just “a field of bullets” left over from some major battle?

Definitely worth an investigation. A new direction.

To Fund Or Not to Fund

So it turns out that looking at clues from the genes is not a paralyzing avenue of research after all. Is the paradigm really dead, or just needing refinement? In the new direction of Alzheimer’s research, Dr. Tanzi’s findings have lead to a more recent drug (PBT2) that takes the “antibiotic” role of beta amyloid into account as it tries to clear its toxic leftovers. Do we pull the plug on funding just when the story is getting really interesting?

The competition out there is fierce. You would think from some of the stinging accusations aimed at the “old school” research that funding for groups such as Tanzi’s should be questioned. Yet, as the webinar pointed out, “the vast majority of our knowledge about AD and AD drug discovery has been based on studies of the four known AD genes over the past two decades.” That’s old school success.

On the down side, “about 70% of AD genetics is unexplained by the four known AD genes.” On the further down side, it’s going to take A LOT of funding to find the genetic culprits for the rest of Alzheimer’s cases. And genetics is still only one of several approaches to studying this disease! (Besides, paradigms don’t die until a better one supersedes it, and there is no airtight theory out there yet).

Do we put all our eggs in one basket? What if there aren’t enough eggs to spread around to the different baskets?

Frankly, I don’t know the answer to this question.

There are a couple good reasons I think the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund group is worth supporting, though. One reason is the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund website itself. The Internet has plenty of faults, but it also has the advantage of open criticism. If you look at the comments sections of one of the papers put out by Tanzi’s group on the Alzheimer’s Forum, you’ll see an open debate. It’s free collaboration. It’s crowdsourcing at its best. I think it multiplies the value of your funding dollar.

Another reason is that I’ve suspected my own mother’s caseStay tuned for a post on this topic to be of possible bacterial/fungal originAt a speculative level, one alternative explanation would be that some cases of AD could result from a persistent CSF infection, or from a transient infection that went away but engendered a permanent Aβ response and its attendant immune modulation. and am dying to see what this group finds in their new line of research. The only thing I fear is the psychological barrier to this new approach.

A Taboo Research Project?

To be specific: the two agents being considered by Tanzi’s group as possible aggressors in the beta amyloid battle are Chlamydia and Candida Albicans. But looking at Candida Albicans as a possible cause of anything is TABOO in mainstream medicine. Just browse the comments section of a recent article in the New York Times about Candida Albicans, and you’ll see what I mean.

Will Tanzi’s group have the courage to fight all the enemies of research at the same time: tainted motives (the desire for personal glory), psychological entrapment (continuing in a line of research simply because it’s been going on for so long), and mainstream opinion about what is acceptable research (we do not look at X)?

I guess it’s going to take a lot of money to find out. Which brings us back to the basket issue.

Do we have to duplicate Alzheimer’s research at the Federal and State levels? The state of Texas, for example (being one of the top three states that will go broke paying for Alzheimer’s care in the future), is spreading its research egg money into several baskets:
* Science
* Prevention and Brain Health
* Disease Management
* Caregiving
* Infrastructure.

Why repeat this with every state, plus private groups on the side? Is there a way to get more collaboration between research groups? The well of needed funding is infinitely deep, so why are we digging multiple wells?

I guess part of the answer is that individual motivation for research (even if it is for personal glory) is the strongest kind you can find, and therefore the best engine for finding a cure. And likewise, education plus individual conviction will drive donations. There is certainly enough information available at one’s fingertips to give no one who is interested in a cure an excuse to sit on the sidelines!

So what will you do?

Because where there is a will, there will be a way to end the increasingly long goodbye.

For further reference:
Beta-Amyloid: An Antibiotic? (with a slew of interesting comments)
Alzheimer’s Brain Tangles Offer Clue To Worsening
Alzheimer’s Disease: No End to Dementia
New Potential Cause of Alzheimer’s Disease Detected
Alzheimer’s Scary Link to Diabetes
Follow the Alzheimer’s Breakthrough Ride journal
An video report on several intriguing theories of Alzheimer’s.

Yesterday Bloomberg Businessweek published an article titled Mouse Study Suggests Alzheimer’s-Linked Protein Can Migrate Into Brain.
The story is this: researchers took brain matter from mice that had beta amyloid plaque (were genetically modified to have such plaque), injected it into the stomachs of normal mice, and months later found beta amyloid plaque in the brains of the normal mice.
If all you read is the headline of this story, the conclusion is that the beta amyloid from the sick mice got into the bloodstream of the healthy mice and passed through the blood brain barrier to take up residence in the healthy brains.
But if you read to the end of this article, it is suggested that there could be all kinds of reasons the healthy mice ended up with beta amyloid plaque in their brains, such as maybe there is some chemical in the plaque brain sample that passes through the blood brain barrier and causes a chain reaction that produces beta amyloid plaque—which would negate the headline altogether.
Now, watch the news and see how many people with take only the headline of this story and pass it off as scientific fact.

The moral of the story: be careful what you read and how you read it.

Another thing I got from Oliver Sacks’ book was a new notion of the power of music in dealing with dementia. My previous post on music and Alzheimer’s dealt exclusively with the notion of music as a memory stimulant. But Sacks’ book made me realize that music can be used as a tool to organize thought and action in the present—in the midst of neurological damage.

Yesterday as I lay down for a recuperative nap, I listened to a Scarlatti sonata in the background, and immediately got a visual sense of what goes on in the brain when music is played. The first picture that came to mind was an animation of DNA transcription: that funny little zipper head that makes a perfect copy of your DNA as it unzips the double helix. Nibble, nibble, nibble, copy, copy, copy. Then I saw Scarlatti’s sonata as doing the opposite with my thoughts: grabbing all the randomness in my mind and knitting it into a useful strand, or, if you want to be more esoteric, turning it into functional narrative.

In Sacks’ The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, the first clinical case is of a man who had lost all “sense of familiarity:” he could not recognize faces, body parts, food, clothing. Sacks wondered how the man (also a music professor) could function with this neurological deficit, so he went to visit him in his own home. It turned out the man had a very musical brain, and he functioned by humming a tune as he went about his daily business. He could eat as long as he sang, but if interrupted, would no longer recognize his food and would stop eating. He could dress by the same means. His wife would set out his clothes for the day, and he would only recognize them as clothes and dress himself once he started singing! His musical brain was compensating for his lost sense of recognition.

And now I remember a funny little entry by Bob Demarco on the Alzheimer’s Reading Room that is seriously brilliant. He talks about using music to stimulate his mother into action:

My sister was shocked when I told her on the phone that I finally “convinced” my mother to drink prune juice after years of trying and failure. Joanne was here and saw my mother refusing to drink and calling the prune juice poison. It was only after I introduced the “prune juice song” that my mother starting drinking the juice every day and the dreaded Poop-E problem was solved.
I also have the pee song, the poop song, and a long list of songs soon to be number one hits.

This is exactly what Oliver Sacks would have recommended! Music and Alzheimer’s (and Parkinson’s and most other dementias): stimulating the mind into action.

See also: Alzheimer’s and Music: Stimulating the Brain to Remember

Deep In The Brain is a cerebral self-examination written by a philosophy professor who was riding the top of a success wave when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Talk about the relationship between mind and brain! Here is one who, thanks to his training, steps outside himself to make an objective assessment of his behavior even as he battles the attachment he has to that self.
In this book, Helmut Dubiel analyses his response to the personal and social implications of his Parkinson’s disease. He does not blame or excuse. Rather, he tries to put his and other’s reactions in context of the overarching laws of social interaction.
There is pain in this book. There are lies and pity and anger and judgment. But mostly, there is acceptance of the facts of disease and an acknowledgement of man’s irrepressible will to live and to thrive.

Yesterday as I read this book to Dad, I noticed him fidgeting more than usual. I stopped and asked him what was the matter. He said, “It seems like you’re reading about me.” I explained that this was a philosophy professor writing about himself. Dad calmed back down and listened with interest. Dad doesn’t talk about his inner battles much, so this would logically be painful for him. But good. I think this was one of Professor Dubiel’s hopes-that through his honest self-examination, others would feel released from the need to hide from their disease and, in so doing, find relief.

I’ve often asked people, “Which would you prefer: to lose your body or to lose your mind?” Given that I live with one parent with Alzheimer’s and the other with Parkinson’s, this question has personal weight. In his book, Professor Dubiel clearly expresses his preference for holding onto the self despite the ostracism brought on by the physical distortions of Parkinson’s. Knowing you are being unfairly rejected is still preferable to knowing nothing at all. On the other side, in Still Alice the protagonist affirms this appreciation for the self when-in a lucid moment-she acknowledges “I didn’t meant to get this way. I miss myself.” The mind is a far greater gift than the body.

Of course, in the end, Parkinson’s takes the mind as well.

My take-away? Pray for a cure for both diseases; forgive my and others’ shortcomings; enjoy today.

Celebrate Your Age

As I was sitting listening to our various conversations around the table, something struck me as different this year. We’re all hovering around 50—give or take a couple years—and the aging process is beginning to take a more prominent seat at the table. Not only do conversation topics start with the premise of aging: declining health, the cost of health insurance, etc, but it seems that no matter what the topic, it eventually touches on something to do with aging.
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One thing Parkinson’s can’t take away from a man is all he has passed on in his lifetime. Here is Dad, rock-hounding Parkinson’s style. The fact that he can’t stand up on his own or kneel and claw through the dirt to get to the jasper or petrified wood doesn’t detract from the fact that he instilled the love of nature and science in his children. It’s in our blood now to visit all the national parks we can and to dig for fossils wherever there be beds.
He’s taught his children so many good things, and Parkinson’s can’t take that away from him.

Crosby, Stills & Nash, “Teach Your Children Well”

As near as I can figure, these are the five stages of elder caregiving that correspond to the Kubler-Ross states of grief:

1. DELUSION. This is where you have boundless energy and think two lives are possible: one with you as caregiver, and one with you as successful entrepreneur.

2. FRUSTRATION. This is where you realize you have been delusional and have to make a choice between the two yous. The results are tress and guilt. Stress because your intentions are still lofty, but your body is getting tired. And guilt because you know you have to give up your own agenda, but want to keep it.

3. ANGER. This stage starts with resentment. You may start thinking part of what’s going on is on purpose—that your loved one is intentionally “pretending” some of the sickness. Or you think they’re not trying hard enough to cooperate with your care. You are in constant correction mode here, and getting angrier because your [barely] loved one keeps repeating the same frustrating behaviors (see Elder Rage).

4. DESPAIR. You finally get it that it’s not their fault. You accept that the disease is controlling your loved one and getting worse. You stop blaming them, and instead heap all the blame on yourself because you still think you ought to gain control over this caregiving business but can’t. Along with despair you have increased guilt and exhaustion.

5. RELEASE. In this stage you finally give up control. You realize you cannot do this entirely by yourself. You delegate care (maybe for a day or two of day care, maybe institutionalization). The result is considerably less stress; even joy; and certainly wisdom.

This past week has been a little brutal on my ego. My fictitious self (the me I hold in high regard) has seen its reflection in various external realities and has taken a mortal blow.
At least I hope it has.
You see, I’ve had to acknowledge all in one breath that I’m not as clever as I thought I was; I’m not all that kind or thoughtful of others; my conversation skills have dulled; and my hair isn’t really red (all this self-revelation is partly due to reading Crazy Love—a book that spoons out truth about the self in a cod-liver-oil kind of way: nasty; painful; healing).
I’ve been thinking a lot about my hair in particular, perhaps as a metaphor for all the other traits I have to face up to in myself. My hair—which appears rich and red and full to others—is actually flimsy and almost entirely white. If you look close enough and run your fingers through the root system, the truth is quite apparent: I’m somewhere between grizzly gray and snow white. And as metaphor, I’m thinking it’s time to go white once and for all. It’s time to stop covering up the truth.
Just one thing holds me back: the stigma of white. No, not that elegant, brilliant white, but the mousy salt-and-pepper white. It’s terrifyingly old. I know the difference it would make at the supermarket, at the realtor’s office, at a job interview. I’m young; I should not have to place myself in the old category just yet. Lushious red gives you youth and authority. Mousy gray, and it’s an uphill battle to convince others you can still think. It’s ridiculous that pigment can make the world go ’round, but there you have it.
I know you’re wondering why I’m talking about hair in a blog about dementia, but you’ve probably sensed the connection. Aging has enormous stigma in our culture, and everything in us resists revealing anything that might indicate we are aging. Particularly for those of us who are aging prematurely.
My struggle with hair has atuned me to the struggle in the early-onset Alzheimer’s community. I follow a group on Facebook called Memory People comprised of people of all ages who have been diagnosed with some kind of dementia, their caregivers, and other supporting cast. Some members are open about their dignoses and are brave enough to face public scrutiny; others accept their diagnoses but keep it somewhat private; and still others straddle the cover-up fence: should they reveal something that isn’t fully blown yet but could have as devastating results as if it was? All of them long to live truthfully, but all also know the stigma of dementia and the costs incurred in making their mental status known. As with pigment, we are valued for our synaptic connections. Why would anyone want to expose their deficits and risk rejection?
It makes my stomach turn. What kind of society have we become? When are we going to change the way we value each other? When are we going to free ourselves from the layers of untruth that we spend a lifetime building up? When are we going to trade all our lies in for Truth and finally be set free?