Memory-Mood Boosted by Curcumin

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UCLA 
The paper’s authors, in addition to Small, are Prabha Siddarth, Dr. Zhaoping Li, Karen Miller, Linda Ercoli, Natacha Emerson, Jacqueline Martinez, Koon-Pong Wong, Jie Liu, Dr. David Merrill, Dr. Stephen Chen, Susanne Henning, Nagichettiar Satyamurthy, Sung-Cheng Huang, Dr. David Heber and Jorge Barrio, all of UCLA.

Turmeric spice contains curcumin. In a new UCLA study, curcumin significantly improved memory and mildly improved mood in people with memory problems. 

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Lovers of Indian food, give yourselves a second helping: Daily consumption of a certain form of curcumin — the substance that gives Indian curry its bright color — improved memory and mood in people with mild, age-related memory loss, according to the results of a study conducted by UCLA researchers.

Curcumin, Memory & Alzheimer's

The research, published online in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, examined the effects of an easily absorbed curcumin supplement on memory performance in people without dementia, as well as curcumin’s potential impact on the microscopic plaques and tangles in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Leigh Hopper/UCLA Health

Dr. Gary Small

Found in turmeric, curcumin has previously been shown to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties in lab studies. It also has been suggested as a possible reason that senior citizens in India, where curcumin is a dietary staple, have a lower prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and better cognitive performance.

“Exactly how curcumin exerts its effects is not certain, but it may be due to its ability to reduce brain inflammation, which has been linked to both Alzheimer’s disease and major depression,” said Dr. Gary Small, director of geriatric psychiatry at UCLA’s Longevity Center and of the geriatric psychiatry division at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, and the study’s first author.

90 Milligrams of Curcumin

The double-blind, placebo-controlled study involved 40 adults between the ages of 50 and 90 years who had mild memory complaints. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either a placebo or 90 milligrams of curcumin twice daily for 18 months.
  
All 40 subjects received standardized cognitive assessments at the start of the study and at six-month intervals, and monitoring of curcumin levels in their blood at the start of the study and after 18 months. Thirty of the volunteers underwent positron emission tomography, or PET scans, to determine the levels of amyloid and tau in their brains at the start of the study and after 18 months.

Significant Improvements in Memory & Attention

The people who took curcumin experienced significant improvements in their memory and attention abilities, while the subjects who received placebo did not, Small said. In memory tests, the people taking curcumin improved by 28 percent over the 18 months. Those taking curcumin also had mild improvements in mood, and their brain PET scans showed significantly less amyloid and tau signals in the amygdala and hypothalamus than those who took placebos.

The amygdala and hypothalamus are regions of the brain that control several memory and emotional functions.

Four people taking curcumin, and two taking placebos, experienced mild side effects such as abdominal pain and nausea.

Relatively Safe Form of Curcumin

The researchers plan to conduct a follow-up study with a larger number of people. That study will include some people with mild depression so the scientists can explore whether curcumin also has antidepressant effects. The larger sample also would allow them to analyze whether curcumin’s memory-enhancing effects vary according to people’s genetic risk for Alzheimer’s, their age or the extent of their cognitive problems.

“These results suggest that taking this relatively safe form of curcumin could provide meaningful cognitive benefits over the years,” said Small, UCLA’s Parlow–Solomon Professor on Aging.

SOURCE:

• UCLA
  The paper’s authors, in addition to Small, are Prabha Siddarth, Dr. Zhaoping Li, Karen Miller, Linda Ercoli, Natacha Emerson, Jacqueline Martinez, Koon-Pong Wong, Jie Liu, Dr. David Merrill, Dr. Stephen Chen, Susanne Henning, Nagichettiar Satyamurthy, Sung-Cheng Huang, Dr. David Heber and Jorge Barrio, all of UCLA.
  
  The study was supported by the Ahmanson Foundation, the Marshall and Margherite McComb Foundation, the McMahan Foundation, Bob and Marion Wilson, the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation Fund for Alzheimer’s Disease Research, the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health.
  
  Theravalues Corp. provided the curcumin and placebos for the trial, as well as funds for laboratory testing and for Small’s travel to present preliminary findings at the 2017 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.

Eye Surgery Improves Mood of Alzheimer's Patients(part 2)

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Eye Surgery Improves Mood of Alzheimer's Patients
Study Shows Alzheimer's Patients May Sleep Better, Be Less Depressed After Cataract Surgery (continued)
Benefits for Caregivers continued...

Thies points out that the study was small and there was no comparison group that did not get surgery to compare the results to.

Still, he tells WebMD, there are a lot of things that can contribute to a person's sensory deprivation. "If you can improve those things," he says, "you will improve their ability to perform."

AAO spokesman Jeffrey Whitman, MD, of the Key-Whitman Eye Center in Dallas, says, "I find this study to be a proof of what we may have already suspected -- that poor vision, in an already compromised patient, is a burden to both the patient and the patient's caretaker."

In an email, Whitman, who is the son of an Alzheimer's patient, told WebMD: "I have found that anything that can help mobility, the ability to feed oneself, or ambulate from room to room, is a great boon."

He adds that better vision leads to better nighttime behavior. A person with Alzheimer's often displays what's known as sun-downing behavior, in which forgetfulness and other symptoms worsen at dusk.

In addition, better vision can lead to less depression among people that uniformly become more depressed as the disease advances. "The continued evaluation and surgical management of cataracts should be pursued in these often forgotten patients," Whitman says.

These findings were presented at a medical conference. They should be considered preliminary as they have not yet undergone the "peer review" process, in which outside experts scrutinize the data prior to publication in a medical journal

Eye Surgery Improves Mood of Alzheimer's Patients

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

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

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WebMD

Study Shows Alzheimer's Patients May Sleep Better, Be Less Depressed After Cataract Surgery
By Charlene Laino
WebMD Health News Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

People with Alzheimer's disease should have regular eye tests to screen for vision problems.

That's the recommendation of researchers who found that people with mild Alzheimer's disease who have cataracts may benefit from vision-correcting surgery. The benefits include improved sight, better sleep, and less depressed mood.

Also, people with Alzheimer's often had better communication and interaction with others after the surgery.

According to Brigitte Girard, MD, a professor of ophthalmology at Tenon Hospital in Paris, treatment improved the patients' lives and also the lives of some caregivers.

Girard reported the researchers' findings at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) at the end of October.

Despite fears to the contrary, Girard says, surgery did not worsen patients' general condition or dementia.

William Thies, PhD, scientific director of the Alzheimer's Association, reviewed the findings for WebMD. He says that general medical care, including vision problems, are often overlooked in people with Alzheimer's.

"The assumption is made they won't benefit," Thies says. The assumption, he adds, is wrong. "The fact that they do benefit is very much the message from this study."

Improvements in Mood and Sleep

More than 1.5 million cataract surgeries are performed annually in the U.S. One in three Americans, most of them older people, will have the surgery at some point in their life.

The surgery is performed to remove the natural lens of the eye, which sometimes becomes clouded over time. A permanent artificial lens is then implanted to replace the natural lens.

The study involved 38 people with mild Alzheimer's disease who underwent cataract surgery. The average age was 86; nine were 90 or older. The majority (82%) were women.

Three months after surgery, all but one patient could see better. Three in four patients had improved or unchanged scores on tests of mood, memory, and their ability to wash, dress, and otherwise function independently. Sleep, in particular, improved, Girard says.

Six of the seven people with depression before surgery were less depressed afterward. The other person's depression was about the same as before.

As rated by the patients and their caregivers, social lives improved or were unchanged in two out of every three people studied.

Girard says "unchanged" scores were considered a mark of success. "As one neurologist told me," she says, "if people with Alzheimer's disease don't get worse over three months, it's a win."

The researchers did find that some people were more agitated after the surgery.

Benefits for Caregivers

The study also found that the surgery eased the burden for one in four caregivers. For another one in four, though, caring for their loved one was harder. The main reason cited was an increased level of agitation.

How to Talk to a Person With Dementia

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Over 5.3 million Americans suffer from dementia reports the Alzheimer's Association. You may have a loved one or client with dementia. As dementia progresses, talking with him or her becomes more challenging Following a few simple steps allow you to have a positive encounter and will improve the comminication between you and a person with dementia. Understand some moments are better than others and what works one day may not work the next.

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