Caregivers and healthcare professionals, here is some great information

Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professionals,

Your residents will love the Amazon Kindle Fire

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care professionals to get an easyceu or two

Follow alzheimersideas on twitter

Dementia Caregiver's Little Book of Hope [Kindle

Johns Hopkins News Alert

 

The brain contains about 100 billion neurons. A common misconception is that tens of thousands of neurons die each day. In reality, few neurons die over a person's lifetime, but they do shrink. This shrinkage may partially explain why mental functioning slows in middle and older age. (Serious memory problems do occur when major disorders such as a stroke or Alzheimer's destroy whole clusters of neurons.)
In addition to the shrinkage of neurons, starting in middle age the brain begins producing smaller quantities of many neurotransmitters -- chemical messengers that relay information between nerve cells. Brain blood flow is also reduced 15 to 20 percent between ages 30 and 70, although the shrinkage of neurons may account for the reduced flow because less tissue requires less blood.
Cultural attitudes and preconceptions about aging and memory loss can also influence the occurrence of memory lapses as people age. In one study, researchers compared the memory skills of two groups known to harbor few stereotypes concerning old age -- the people of China and deaf Americans -- with those of a third group known to have numerous preconceptions about aging, hearing Americans. Among these preconceptions is the notion that aging causes an inevitable decline in memory skills.
The study results suggest that there is a strong link between culture and memory: The first two groups were less forgetful than the third group, and older Chinese participants performed as well as the younger people in each of these groups. The implication is that if people expect their memory to get worse, they may be less diligent in trying to remember.
Other research indicates that the mental processes required to remember newly acquired information are the same as those needed to retrieve memories from long ago -- something most older people do quite well. This finding implies that older people retain the capacity to recall recent events, but the new information is not being recognized as important or is being discarded instead of stored.
Some researchers interpret this to mean that occasional memory lapses may result from a failure to pay close attention to the information rather than an inability to remember. Thus, it appears that forging new memories depends in large part on staying interested, active and alert.

 

 

 

Discovery of new drug targets for memory impairment in Alzheimer's disease

Caregivers and healthcare professionals, here is some great information

Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professionals,

Your residents will love the Amazon Kindle Fire

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care professionals to get an easyceu or two

Follow alzheimersideas on twitter

The Dementia Caregiver's Little Book of Hope [Kindle

Medical Xpress

 

Research team in Korea has discovered that reactive astrocytes, which have been commonly observed in Alzheimer's patients, aberrantly and abundantly produce the chief inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA and release it through the Best1 channel. The released GABA strongly inhibits neighboring neurons to cause impairment in synaptic transmission, plasticity and memory. This discovery will open a new chapter in the development of new drugs for treating such diseases.

 Alzheimer's disease, which is the most common cause of dementia, is fatal and currently, there is no cure. In Alzheimer's disease, brain cells are damaged and destroyed, leading to devastating memory loss. It is reported that 1 in 8 Americans aged 65 or over have Alzheimer's disease. In 2011, 7,600 elderly people with dementia lost their way back home and became homeless in Korea. However, to date, there has been no clear understanding of the mechanisms underlying dementia in Alzheimer's disease. So far, neuronal death is the only proposed mechanism available in scientific literature.

The research team led by Dr. C. Justin Lee at Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and Dr. Daesoo Kim(KAIST) discovered that reactive astrocytes in the brains of Alzheimer's disease model mice produce the inhibitory transmitter GABA by the enzyme Monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B) and release GABA through the Bestrophin-1 channel to suppress normal information flow during synaptic transmission. Based on this discovery, the team was able to reduce the production and release of GABA by inhibiting MAO-B or Bestrophin-1, and successfully ameliorate impairments in neuronal firing, synaptic transmission and memory in Alzheimer's disease model mice.

In the behavioral test, the team used the fact that mice tend to prefer dark places. If a mouse experiences an electric shock in a dark place, it will remember this event and avoid dark places from then on. However, a mouse with modeled Alzheimer's disease cannot remember if such shock is related to dark places and keeps going back to dark places. The team demonstrated that treating these mice with a MAO-B inhibitor fully recovered the mice's memory. The selegiline is currently used in Parkinson's disease as an adjunct therapy and considered as a one of best promising medicine for MAO-B inhibitor. But it has been previously shown to be less effective in Alzheimer's

 

Legalizing marijuana for Alzheimer's disease

Caregivers and healthcare professionals, here is some great information

Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professionals,

Your residents will love the Amazon Kindle Fire

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care professionals to get an easyceu or two

Follow alzheimersideas on twitter

The Dementia Caregiver's Little Book of Hope [Kindle

Today only 4 percent of Alzheimer’s patients are 65 or younger, but as the baby boomer generation ages that number will dramatically increase. Five million older Americans suffer from the disease. It is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. Unfortunately many older Americans will wonder why they should spend their golden years battling the illnesses or caring for someone who has it, when this is unnecessary because of the benefits boomers could gain in the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease should they have access to legalized marijuana.
Scientists have made ground breaking discoveries in early detection of the disease but this does little for baby boomers who are working with older brains. Of the major deadly diseases in America, Alzheimer’s is the only illness that doctors have no way of slowing its progression, have no exact treatment that has had proven results, or a cure for the disease. When treating the disease doctors have to consider the age of the patient’s brain, according to Gary Wenk. Wenk is an expert on Alzheimer’s disease and inflammation of the brain. As a neuroscience professor at Ohio State he has studied extensively the effects of cannabis on the aging brain and inflammation. Using rats, he discovered that marijuana has positive impacts on cognitive health. “It’s worked in every rat we’ve given it to. We have some happy, intelligent old rats.”
Unfortunately that is the extent of the research. Studies like this are met with major challenges. Marijuana is legal in only two states. Cannabis is strictly prohibited in 25 states. In addition to that these studies are expensive. Professor Wenk was spending $150 per rat and spent $100,000 overall. The National Institute of Health spends far less on Alzheimer’s disease research than HIV/AIDS, cancer and heart disease research. In comparison $3-$6 billion is spent on each of the previously mentioned illnesses versus $480 million on Alzheimer’s research. Why support legal marijuana over medical marijuana for the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease is a question that should be asked? With legal marijuana patients would not have to wait for the disease to develop in order to treat it. Legal marijuana also is heavily taxed by the government. This could indirectly create more funding for research and other programs that affect the aging population. While deaths from HIV/AIDS, cancer and heart disease decrease, deaths from Alzheimer’s disease continues to grow enormously.
Baby Boomers can change all of this. They are the demographic most heavily impacted by the illness and as half the voting population is over 45, they have the power to change the outcomes. Pined as the bell bottom wearing, war protesting pot smoking generation, it seems only natural they would be advocates of legalizing it. However, trends suggest that baby boomers are segregated. The younger generation was heavily influenced by Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. The oldest of the crowd have a tendency to lean more Democratic. Like all other generations they further differ in race, sex and socioeconomic status. This makes it hard to predict how they will behave in elections.
Perhaps one major unifying factor of this generation is community and the impact Alzheimer’s diseases will have on it. As the illness progresses it prevents seniors from enjoying the activities they participate in to remain a part of their communities. More and more seniors prefer to age at home. This is something that may not be possible when advanced dementia care is required. If baby boomers returned to their radical drug friendly roots it could open up a new level of funding for aging care, Alzheimer’s research and the treatment of the diseases that is hitting their community so hard. With these kinds of benefits it should be easy to see why legalizing marijuana would have such great benefits to baby boomers and the care they receive for Alzheimer’s Disease.
 
By Ashley Poag