1. Should the Person Stop Driving?
2. Should the Person Be Placed in a Long-Term Care Facility?
3. Is It Okay to Stop Visiting When the Person Doesn’t Recognize You Anymore?
Daylight Saving Time Can Trigger Sundowning Behaviors
It’s almost that time again. On Sunday, November 6, Daylight Saving Time ends and we turn our clocks back. This can have a dramatic effect on those who are living with dementia and their loved ones.
I already suffer from sundowning and Daylight Saving Time always makes it worse. Everyone has an internal clock, and light plays a huge role in our sleep/wake cycles. Changes in natural light are part of why sundowning occurs in the first place, but messing with the timing and amounts of daylight we receive only complicates things further.
The future of senior care could be paying your friends and family
The aging of the US population is one of the big, quiet stories of the coming decades. By 2040, the US Census projects that the number of Americans 85 or older will more than double to 14.6 million, while the 65+ population will rise nearly 60 percent to 82.3 million.
Many older people will develop disabilities that mean they need help with daily tasks like dressing and bathing. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics expects jobs for home care workers who provide this kind of support to rise from around 2.5 million now to nearly 3.5 million by 2024. But many policy experts say it’s going to be hard to find workers to fill all those jobs.
Family Caregiving: The Hardest Thing I Ever Had To Do
A new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine—Families Caring for an Aging America—examines existing support for family caregivers like Ray, and recommends ways to provide more of the help they need. For me, this report reinforces what I not only hear every day but know firsthand: family caregivers need support. Whether caring for a parent, spouse or other loved one, helping them to live independently can be overwhelming, stressful and exhausting. But with some commonsense steps, we can make the big responsibilities of America’s 40 million family caregivers a little bit easier.
Why Alzheimer's fight must go on
Recent decades have seen an extraordinary shift in our expectations when we are confronted with what once were terminal illnesses.
With access to quality healthcare, HIV can now be managed for decades and many forms of cancer that were once death sentences are now treatable.
I decided to write this letter after seeing an Alzheimer's Association-produced video that challenged viewers to realize that, with the dedication and resources that have successfully turned the tables on other previously terminal illnesses, the first Alzheimer's disease survivor could be alive right now.
National Certification Board for Alzheimer and Aging Care (NCBAC™) Announces New Course for Family Caregivers
NCBAC's new course focuses on the challenges of family caregivers who have the responsibility of caring for a relative who is afflicted with Alzheimer's disease or related disorders. This new training is the latest in a series of courses which now include courses for home care for Alzheimers and training for those working in assisted living facilities.
5-year, $1.9 million study aims to improve resident, caregiver quality of life
Georgia State University Gerontology Institute researchers are in the middle of a five-year, $1.9 million study ultimately aiming to improve the quality of life for assisted living residents and their formal and informal caregivers. Eight Atlanta-area assisted living communities are part of the research.
A big Alzheimer's drug trial is about to offer real hope for treating the disease — or crush it
Scientists at Eli Lilly are racing to wrap up a clinical trial on a drug that could be the first major advance in treating Alzheimer's in more than a decade — or a crushing reminder of why the memory-destroying disease has bedeviled researchers for so long.
This is the third time Lilly has tested the drug in large-scale trials. The first two tests flopped. But the company, which has spent about $3 billion on Alzheimer's research over 25 years, believes it has finally identified the patients most likely to benefit from its therapy.
Common Prostate Cancer Treatment Linked to Later Dementia
Summary: Men with prostate cancer who are treated with testosterone lowering drugs are almost twice as likely to develop dementia within 5 years as those with the same cancer who are treated with different therapies, a new study reports.
Source: Stanford.
A new retrospective study of patient medical records suggests that men with prostate cancer who are treated with testosterone-lowering drugs are twice as likely to develop dementia within five years as prostate cancer patients whose testosterone levels are not tampered with.
Common Prostate Cancer Treatment Linked to Later Dementia
A new retrospective study of patient medical records suggests that men with prostate cancer who are treated with testosterone-lowering drugs are twice as likely to develop dementia within five years as prostate cancer patients whose testosterone levels are not tampered with.
The study, by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, also demonstrates emerging techniques for extracting biomedical data from ordinary patient medical records.
Researchers Create A Gene Therapy Treatment That May Prevent Alzheimer's Disease
Alzheimer’s disease is devastating both for those who suffer from it and for those who love them. It is also expensive. It’s estimated that the current worldwide cost of coping with Alzheimer’s is $818 billion. A cure for Alzheimer’s is not available and current treatments for the disease focus on mitigating symptoms rather than eliminating causes. Recent research has provided evidence that the memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s may be preventable and reversible. Now, new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports on a gene therapy treatment that stopped the development of Alzheimer’s disease dead in it’s tracks.
Alzheimer's Disease, A Humanitarian Crisis That Leaves Patients Needing Asylum
Depth of dusk, a husband and wife tend to the day’s quotidian kitchen chores. He tries to help, but, of late, the house where he’s lived with her for some 50 or more years has become an uncomfortable space. He sets down the plate he’s struggling to put away, and she is, for a moment, relieved, but then she’s not because he says to her “I want to go home.”
The bedroom, the bath and the kitchen–these intimate spaces make a house a home, and this man, my patient, wanted to leave his.