Debunking Alzheimer's Myths (Video, Text)

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Here is a GREAT video that I wanted to share.....I only hope I copied the

link properly!

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om.com/2010/06/debunking-alzheimers-myths-video-text.html?utm_source=feedburner & \

utm_medium=email & utm_campaign=Feed%3A+The

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(http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com/2010/06/debunking-alzheimers-myths-video-t\

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(Alzheimer's+Reading+Room))

Question: What are some of the biggest myths surrounding Alzheimer’s?

Small: I think one of the biggest myths is that there are no

effective treatments. Now we do have effective treatments, but they’re

probably not

as effective as people would like. They don’t cure the disease, but they

do help temporarily. They can keep people out of the nursing home for a year

or more and we’re finding that if we treat people very early that we can

have an impact, so I think that’s probably one of the biggest myths I hear

about.

Question: What are some of the most promising studies you have done?

Small: Probably one of the most gratifying studies I’ve been involved

in has to do with detecting Alzheimer’s very early. It always made sense

to me that the brain doesn’t all of the sudden get Alzheimer’s disease,

that this is something that begins very gradually and is a process and in

developing new brain scanning technologies we found that definitely to be the

case, that we can see very subtle evidence of Alzheimer’s disease decades

before people obviously have the disease. Now that often scares people because

they think my God, I’m in my forties or fifties and I’ve got the inklings

of Alzheimer’s, isn’t that terrible? I think it’s cause for hope because

it means that we will in the future be able to detect people at risk and

work to protect to a healthy brain rather than try to repair one once the

damage sets in.

Question: What are the unique challenges in treating Alzheimer’s Disease?

Small: Well you know I think a big challenge with Alzheimer’s disease

is that it’s so subtle and gradual and so how do you differentiate it from

normal aging?

We get this question all the time and it really comes down to the degree

of the symptoms because all of us complain about memory slips. It’s very

gradual an onset, but at some point we say you’ve got Alzheimer’s, you just

don’t have normal aging and I think it’s a question of degree.

So that’s a big challenge, but I think in the research we’re doing that

that may be something eventually that we aren’t so concerned about because I

think that we’ll get to a stage where we’ll have brain scans and blood

tests and we’ll do brain checks so we’ll deal with Alzheimer’s disease

the

way we deal with high cholesterol where you’ll have some kind of a marker

that will tell you, you know you’re at high risk for Alzheimer’s so you

should take this drug or vaccine and so in the future it will lower your risk in

the future. So that would be great because it would de-stigmatize the

problem. Right now a lot of people don’t come in until very late because

they’

re afraid of what they’re going to find out and I think it’s really

something that probably will affect us all if we live long enough, so it’s

important to try to deal with it now.

I mean if you look at the risk… If you look at the risk of Alzheimer’s

disease it just keeps going up with age and if you follow the statistics, by

age 110 we might all have it, so I don’t think that’s true because I think

that lifestyle is very important. It’s not all biological or genetics, but

there are probably thing we can do to improve our brain health and lower

our future risk for Alzheimer’s.

GARY SMALL is a Professor of Psychiatry and Aging, UCLA School of Medicine

Hugs, Pammie, proud daughter of the " Little Queen " , 78 years old,

Diagnosed with LBD in the fall of 2007, currently taking Exelon Patch,

Namenda,Avapro,Verapamil ER, Nexium, Tarazadone and Boneva.