You may get little help from your hospital when looking for a nursing home

At age 88, Elizabeth Fee looked pregnant, her belly swollen after days of intestinal ailments and nausea. A nurse heard a scream from Fee’s room in a nursing home, and found her retching “like a faucet” before she passed out.

The facility where she died in 2012 was affiliated with a respected San Francisco hospital, California Pacific Medical Center, and shared its name. Fee had just undergone hip surgery at the hospital, and her family, pleased with her care, said they chose the nursing home with the hospital’s encouragement.

10 Reasons to Be Hopeful About the Future of Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease and good news? Somehow these two terms don’t fit.

After all, more than five million Americans are afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S., which kills more of us than breast and prostate cancer combined. Some experts estimate that as many as 16 million could be afflicted by 2050.

Americans at Work: Caring for Our Elders

This week, our Americans at Work photo essay features images of caregivers at work in eastern Massachusetts, in their offices and in the homes of the elderly clients they serve, made by photographer Amanda Swinhart: “Aging is something most of us do not like to think about. Though subconsciously we are aware of its inevitability, we often avoid imagining our impending aging, and the real possibility that we may have to endure this process alone. Yet, for the men and women in these photographs, along with so many others, aging is no longer something in the distant future; it is an encroaching reality that threatens their independence and strips them of their dignity.

Why Do Humans Still Have a Gene That Increases the Risk of Alzheimer's?

When the former nurse Jamie Tyrone learned that she carried two copies of a gene called ApoE4, she “lost hope and direction,” and her “days were filled with fear, anxiety and sadness.” It meant that as she got older, she would likely develop Alzheimer’s disease, as her father had done before her.

The apoliprotein E gene, or ApoE, comes in three forms—E2, E3, and E4. The last one is the problem. People who carry one copy have a three-fold higher risk of Alzheimer’s than those with none. And those with two copies, as Tyrone carries, have 8- to 12-fold higher risks. Between 51 and 68 percent of them will develop the disease by the time they are 85. The risk is so large that some people who get their genomes analyzed (including James Watson, a co-discoverer of the DNA double helix) deliberately decide to redact their ApoE4 sequence. They’d rather not know.  

Key to good caregiving: A healthy, stress-free caregiver

More than 15 million Americans provide unpaid care for people with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. For the vast majority, the deeply personal responsibility of caring for a person with a devastating disease constitutes a labor of love.

A staggering 59 percent of family caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s and other dementias rate their emotional stress as high or very high, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.

Down Syndrome and Alzheimer’s Disease: Related Disorders, Overlapping Needs

People who have Down syndrome are living longer than ever before, and a significant number of them will go on to develop Alzheimer’s disease. This article explores the connection between these two disorders, and provides a summary of interventions that may help people who have both conditions.

Wandering in Alzheimer's and dementia patients is more complicated than you think: Caregiver SOS

I came over to say “hi” to my mom who has Alzheimer’s and found her standing on the corner. Mom said she was on her way to the corner store. There is no store close by! Is this the wandering I feared?

No Wanderlust

Most people have heard of dementia and wandering. Wandering is a complicated concept, as it is a term that conjures up someone aimlessly walking around and potentially getting into trouble. The latter part is true, it is potentially dangerous, but it often happens for a reason.

Sauna Bathing Reduces Risk of Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease

A new study, published online in the journal Age and Ageing, found a strikingly large protective effect for regular sauna bathing. Researchers found that men who regularly used the sauna were far less likely to develop dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. Compared to men who went to the sauna once per week or less, men who bathed in the sauna 2-3 times per week were 22% less likely to develop dementia and 20% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Men who frequented the sauna 4-7 times a week were 66% less likely to develop dementia and 65% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Put another way, those who went to the sauna only once per week were three times as likely to develop dementia or Alzheimer’s disease than those who went almost every day.

From Psychedelics To Alzheimer's, 2016 Was A Good Year For Brain Science

With a president-elect who has publicly supported the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism, suggested that climate change is a hoax dreamed up by the Chinese, and appointed to his Cabinet a retired neurosurgeon who doesn't buy the theory of evolution, things might look grim for science.

Yet watching Patti Smith sing "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" live streamed from the Nobel Prize ceremony in early December to a room full of physicists, chemists and physicians — watching her twice choke up, each time stopping the song altogether, only to push on through all seven wordy minutes of one of Bob Dylan's most beloved songs — left me optimistic.

Artificial Intelligence For Early Alzheimer’s Detection

A handful of startups are employing artificial intelligence technologies and big data in an attempt to diagnose dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s disease. The effort could lead to better interventions and even therapeutic drugs if it becomes possible to detect cognitive decline before it really starts.

The benefits to society – not to mention market potential – for the early detection of dementia anId Alzheimer’s disease are huge. According to the World Health Organization, there were 47.5 million people worldwide with dementia in 2015, with 7.7 million new cases each year. The total number of people with dementia is projected to reach 75.6 million in 2030 and almost triple by 2050 to 135.5 million. There are nearly 500 open studies on Alzheimer’s disease alone, according to ClinicalTrials.gov.

Alzheimer's and dementia patients benefit from MemoryWell digital storytelling project

Australian Graham Newton-Small used to drive Winston Churchill around London between his shifts as a barman in Earl's Court.

He also spent 20 years working for the United Nations in Africa, grew up in regional NSW and loved watching MASH and listening to The Beatles.

But none of the dementia care nurses working with him every day would have known that about him, if it were not for his daughter Jay Newton-Small.

Study Urges Training Radiologists to Detect Elder Abuse

Although radiologists are highly trained to detect cases of potential child abuse, very few have received either formal or informal instruction in detecting elder abuse.

And while spotting abuse in older people tends to be a much more complicated task, many radiologists express a desire for more training in this area, according to a new study.

“Radiologists are a core part of the medical team in child abuse cases, so why shouldn’t they be a core part of the team in elder abuse?” said Dr. Tony Rosen, study coauthor and emergency physician at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York.