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Tag: alzheimers disease
This Week in Health: New Hope For Alzheimer’s Treatment

This Week in Health: New Hope For Alzheimer’s Treatment

“This Week In Health” offers some highlights from the world of health news and wellness tips that you may have missed this week:

  • This week, the Alzheimer’s Association’s International Conference unveiled new advances in understanding the disease. Recent findings offer insight into factors that can offset genetic disposition, including diabetes, activity levels, and high blood pressure. Continuing studies on two experimental treatments will also be presented at the Washington, D.C. conference.
  • According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) a recent outbreak of salmonella can be attributed to people kissing and cuddling their chickens. Eighty-six percent of those infected who were interviewed by the CDC had had close contact with poultry before infection.
  • A baby girl known as “Big Head Baby” in her Chinese village received titanium scalp implants in order to treat a rare disorder known as hydrocephalus. Hydrocephalus caused fluid retention in the brain, leading to ulcers, optic nerve damage, and a swollen cranium. Diagnosed at 6 months old, the baby, Han Han, was having trouble lifting her head and was nearly blind. The operation took 17 hours and Han Han is expected to make a full recovery.
  • Lastly, armadillos are believed to be responsible for a rash of leprosy cases in Florida. Though the average numbers of infected per year is typically between two and 12, Florida doctors have already reported nine cases in 2015. The spike in leprosy cases is believed to be caused by the growth in housing development and building construction, which has displaced armadillos and pushed them into further contact with humans.

Photo by David Foltz via Flickr

This Week In Health: A Tough Strain Of Tuberculosis

This Week In Health: A Tough Strain Of Tuberculosis

“This Week In Health” offers some highlights from the world of health news and wellness tips that you may have missed this week:

  • Alzheimer’s Disease is significantly less prevalent among people who have received an organ transplant, according to findings from a University of Texas at Galveston study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s not the transplanted organs themselves fighting Alzheimer’s, but the medication that transplant patients take daily in order to prevent organ rejection.
  • The possibility that stem-cell treatment could be the cure-for-everything has been heralded for years. Much is still unknown, however, and as the first generation to be treated using stem-cell therapies on a large scale, patients should be aware of the potential risks.
  • A woman with an especially tough strain of tuberculosis — extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) — is being treated at the National Institutes of Health after traveling through the U.S. for about six weeks. XDR-TB, which does not respond to the most potent antibiotics used to fight it, is not easier to contract, but it is more lethal. The Centers for Disease Control are currently trying to ascertain who the woman may have come into contact with, and who rode in airplanes with her, during her visit. According to the CDC, tuberculosis can be spread when released into the air via coughs, sneezes, shouting, or singing.
  • A stroke takes a toll on its victims roughly equal to aging eight years all at once. According to a new study published in the journal Stroke, stroke survivors’ performance in memory and quick-thinking tests suffered as badly as if they had aged 7.9 years.

Photo: Sanofi Pasteur via Flickr

For Those With Dementia, ‘Springing’ Power Of Attorney Debated

For Those With Dementia, ‘Springing’ Power Of Attorney Debated

By Tim Grant, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)

Cognitive impairment can have a huge impact on a person’s ability to look after their own money.

When someone who is usually prompt about handling finances starts forgetting to pay bills, it’s a common warning sign of the beginning stages of dementia.

“Depending on the family dynamics, the person’s financial adviser may be the first to notice,” said Shomari Hearn, vice president of Palisades Hudson Financial Group in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

As a financial planner serving many older clients, Hearn sometimes works with people who are in the beginning stages of dementia. But even when they recognize and acknowledge their own declining capabilities, many people, even in the later stages of dementia, want to stay involved with their money.

“Giving someone else the power to take control of your affairs can be a bit scary,” Hearn said, which is why he recommends designing a health care proxy and power of attorney that only become effective once two physicians determine that you lack the capacity to make medical and financial decisions.

This type of power of attorney is called a “springing” power of attorney. Springing powers of attorney are not permitted in every state, but Pennsylvania does permit them.

In Florida, however, a power of attorney must be effective immediately. The person who has the power of attorney can act as an agent handling all of a person’s financial and legal affairs.

Dementia is not a disease, but rather a group of symptoms that affect mental tasks like memory and reasoning. Dementia can be caused by a variety of conditions, the most common of which is Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease of the brain that slowly impairs memory and cognitive function. The exact cause is unknown, and there is no cure. People who have it can easily get lost, forget things and have mood swings. Gradually they lose control of their bodily functions and usually die three to nine years after diagnosis, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. The association, based in Chicago, estimates about 5.4 million Americans were living with the disease in 2014.

Not everyone sees the use of springing powers of attorney as the answer for such situations. Pittsburgh trusts and estate lawyer E. David Margolis does not recommend them.

“The challenge in using springing powers of attorney is, when do they spring?” he said. “You have to have a trigger, and it’s not always a clear line as to whether the facts and circumstances are there for it to trigger.”

Even having two physicians declare a person unfit is far from perfect, he said.

“Which physicians? And what if they take opposite points of view?” Margolis said. “One of them could know the principal well and (have) seen him over the years and has a good feel for his cognitive capacity. Another one who has only seen the person once or on a bad day could reach” a different conclusion.

“Powers of attorney are fraught with problems,” he said. “The fundamental problem is, the power is vested in the agent to act for the principal and, if the principal is not capable of oversight, the relationship relies on the loyalty and integrity of the agent. It’s hard to police a wayward agent who has power of attorney.”

Springing powers of attorney can potentially complicate matters even more at a time when a person’s health is in decline.

“Anyone they use as an agent should be someone they trust completely and unquestionably,” Margolis said. “I use a presently effective power of attorney. But the agent can’t use it unless they have it or the principal gives it to them or makes it available to the agent.”

In many cases, he said, the principal will allow an attorney to hold onto the signed power of attorney. The attorney would turn it over to the agent only when necessary.

For those in the beginning stages of dementia who chose to use a springing power of attorney, Hearn said they need to make sure their loved ones know about the documents and they should give copies of the executed documents to their appointed agents.

“It’s also a good idea to give copies of your health care proxy and living will to your health care providers,” he said. “If your doctors know your wishes ahead of time, it will be easier for them to help ensure that your wishes are respected.”

(c)2015 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Photo: Jeffrey Simms Photography via Flickr

Researchers Aim To Build Database Of Brain Health

Researchers Aim To Build Database Of Brain Health

By Lisa M. Krieger, San Jose Mercury News

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Quick: Find the fruit! Feed the fish! List a sequence of steps, in reverse!

Your online test results aren’t pass-fail. You aren’t graded. But your scores give valuable snapshots of your mental flexibility and memory, contributing to what researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, hope will someday be a vast archive of information about brain health — and the first neuroscience project to use the Internet on such a scale to advance research.

By volunteering — repeatedly over time — participants join a pool of research subjects in the new Brain Health Registry, opened Tuesday, for studies on brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, as well as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other neurological ailments.

You won’t learn your own scores; that disclosure could influence your future performance or trigger unwarranted “freak outs,” said UCSF’s Dr. Michael Weiner, founder of the registry and lead investigator of the Alzheimer’s disease Neuroimaging Initiative, the world’s largest observational study of the disease.

Rather, you will help speed up research by helping cut the time and cost of conducting clinical trials.

“To accelerate research, studies have to be done more quickly, and efficiently,” said Weiner.

One-third of the cost of running trial studies is patient recruitment — and many trials fail, or are delayed, due to problems getting enough of the right volunteers.

The traditional approach to finding participants is low-tech, such as posting notices on bulletin boards or buying ads in newspapers. And it’s time-consuming to determine if someone is even eligible to volunteer, then document that person’s family and personal medical history. Think clipboards, and pens and paper.

Frustrated by how much effort would be required to launch a giant San Francisco Bay Area-based study in Alzheimer’s prevention, “a light bulb went off in my mind,” said Weiner.

“Why not use the Internet as a way to enroll in trials,” he said, “where volunteers take a few minutes to take some online neuropsychological test to measure brain performance?”

Hundreds of other researchers could share this pooled and updated database of patient information — with participants’ identities removed — saving the time and expense of new recruitment with every new clinical trial.

“The large pool of data gathered by this registry can help the broader brain research community,” said Maria Carrillo, vice president of medical and scientific relations for the Alzheimer’s Association. “It’s paving the way or better treatment options for others,” she said.

The initial focus will be on the San Francisco Bay Area, and the goal is to recruit 100,000 people by the end of 2017. Nearly 2,000 people have already signed up during the registry’s test phase.

Volunteer Jackie Boberg of Saratoga, Calif., called the fast-paced tests “a little nerve-racking,” but enjoyed the challenge.

“I want to help any scientific efforts,” said Boberg, 62, an artist recently retired from high-tech sales and marketing at Adobe Systems Inc. “I am watching a lot of my friends help with their parents and relatives who are suffering from Alzheimer’s or other dementia, and see the toll it is takes the entire family. I feel like it is just the tip of the iceberg, as aging Baby Boomers come along.”

She cares less about her personal results than broader population-based findings.

“It is not about me. It is more about being able to contribute,” she said. “Anything I can do to help with science moving forward.”

Volunteers provide a brief personal overview — such as family history of dementia and health status — and take online neuropsychological tests designed by companies Lumosity and Cogstate to evaluate memory, attention and response times.

Later tests will reveal information about how volunteers’ brains are changing as they age.

“We’re seeking people with all kinds of problems — or are completely normal — to build this database,” said Weiner.

“It will open up the research world,” he said.

AFP Photo