September is World Alzheimer's month. With advances in medicine keeping us living longer - much longer, we have moved from worrying about childhood diseases to focusing on diseases that occur in later stages.
Loss of identity that comes with cognitive impairment, dementia or specifically Alzheimer's is the ultimate penalty that a disease can inflict. The question, 'Who am I' that we have all struggled to answer all our lives, suddenly fades away.
I heard this unbelievable statistic from the CDC - that the chances of getting some demential related impairment at age 85 is 1 in 2. That is, every other individual we meet at age 85, will be affected.
Between finding a cure and caring for millions now, we need to race to pay attention to this coming tsunami!
Here is the Today Show this week on this topic . I work closely with George Vradenburg who is featured in this video clip (at 3.00 minutes in the segment):
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/alzheimers-activists-seek-change-face-disease-8C11062057
Here is my friend Skip who was published in the Huffington post this week on the broader need to eliminate the stigma of mental illness:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/skip-shuda/working-letting-the-blues-back-into-our-life_b_3848902.html
Also, here is my friend G.B. Prabhat, who published this short story with an Alzheimer's theme:
http://hindu.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2006010800310600.htm&date=2006/01/08/&prd=mag&
I have been spending a fair bit of time with researchers in this field. I have no clue what they are talking about when they talk technical and they have no clue when I talk financial. But we are muddling along!!
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| The Fading |
I heard this unbelievable statistic from the CDC - that the chances of getting some demential related impairment at age 85 is 1 in 2. That is, every other individual we meet at age 85, will be affected.
Between finding a cure and caring for millions now, we need to race to pay attention to this coming tsunami!
Here is the Today Show this week on this topic . I work closely with George Vradenburg who is featured in this video clip (at 3.00 minutes in the segment):
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/alzheimers-activists-seek-change-face-disease-8C11062057
Here is my friend Skip who was published in the Huffington post this week on the broader need to eliminate the stigma of mental illness:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/skip-shuda/working-letting-the-blues-back-into-our-life_b_3848902.html
http://hindu.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2006010800310600.htm&date=2006/01/08/&prd=mag&
I have been spending a fair bit of time with researchers in this field. I have no clue what they are talking about when they talk technical and they have no clue when I talk financial. But we are muddling along!!
2 comments:
No doubt... the pain of Alzheimers impacts everyone around the sufferer. I hope progress can be made on prevention and arrest of the disease, but sometimes I worry it may end up being as elusive as the common cold.
Thanks for shedding light on this important topic, Surya - and thanks for the reference.
Recent research shows that Alzheimer's affects seniors far more in extremely hygienic societies. The proponents of this thesis argue that in very hygienic societies, since exposure to bacteria and other pathogens is almost absent, the immune systems are poorly developed. At an advanced age, when the immune systems can no longer develop, even a minimal exposure to bacteria leads to the production of amyloid and tau protein in the brain that leads to Alzheimer's. I have empirically observed the effect in societies like India and other Asian societies. Forget Alzheimer's, even more benign forms of dementia were practically unknown. The recent advent of such diseases in these societies, still very minimal, can be correlated with an improvement in hygiene.
Opponents of this theory argue that in very hygienic societies, most other causes of illness have been removed. Hence finally degeneration takes over (a similar argument was advanced for higher cancer rates in hygienic societies).
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