Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday

This week would have been my dad's 71st birthday.  I like to think of him hosting a pint of beer up there in the Elsewhere Bar, buying a round for the newcomers, those who just came in confused and lost.
Happy Birthday, Dad!  Wish you were here--as yourself, not the shell you were at the end."Had a Dad" Alzheimer's Blog http://alzheimersdad.blogspot.com(c) Gevera Bert Piedmont })i({Thank you for visiting! read more..

President Obama-Alzheimer's-Dementia

non pharma treatments for Alzheimer's/Dementia

There is a lovely letter here, to President Obama, about non-pharmaceutical treatments for Alzheimer's and dementia.
It reads, in part, "Drugs can't give people with dementia a life worth living. Non-pharmacological interventions can!" and includes a link to a petition to sign.
Hey, I think everything and everything possible should be thrown at Alzheimer's, including voodoo and the kitchen sink.  Sacrifice a chicken, then fry it up and eat it--it was gonna die anyway, right?   "Had a Dad" Alzheimer's Blog http://alzheimersdad.blogspot.com(c) Gevera Bert Piedmont })i({Thank you for visiting! read more..

Senior Living-Popular Vote-Facebook-Google

please vote for Had a Dad Alzheimer's Blog!

Another award!   Please vote so I can be a finalist!   Simple like the page below (the link) on Facebook or +1 on google.
Congratulations from SeniorHomes.com! 
Alzheimer's Dad has been nominated to the SeniorHomes.com Best of the Web 2012 in the Best Senior Living Blogs by Individuals category. The Best of the Web 2012 contest highlights the best senior living and caregiving websites, blogs, and resources on the web for consumers and senior living professionals.Your nominee page has been published at http://www.seniorhomes.com/d/alzheimers-dad. 
The top nominee sites by popular vote will proceed to the round of finalists and will be rated by our panel of expert judges. Final rankings will be decided by the expert panel ratings.In order to become a finalist, we encourage you to promote your website and get the vote out. Spread the word about your nomination by sharing your nominee page with your clients, customers, friends, and fans and asking for their votes. Finalists are determined by popular vote (total Facebook likes and Google +1s), so each person can vote for you twice! Voting ends on March 2, 2012. "Had a Dad" Alzheimer's Blog http://alzheimersdad.blogspot.com(c) Gevera Bert Piedmont })i({Thank you for visiting! read more..

Alzheimer's Disease-Banyan Trees

You Can't See the Forrest for the Trees

You and I travel to the beat of a different drum Oh can't you tell by the way I run Every time you make eyes at me Wo-oh
You cry and moan and say it will work out But honey child I've got my doubts You can't see the forest for the trees
By Bob DeMarco
Alzheimer's Reading Room
Banyan TreeEvery time we drive through Sherwood Forrest Dotty marvels at the size and shape of the Banyan trees. The Banyan trees are about 60 feet tall. Maybe taller.
I would estimate that Dotty has seen the same exact trees over 7,000 times. But now, each time its for the first time.
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Five years ago it would be unsettling to me when Dotty would start talking about those trees. She would marvel, look at those trees. Look how big they are. I can't believe it. I have never seen so many trees.
What did I do? I would remind Dotty that she had seen those trees thousands of times. It was somehow important for me to remind her. Of course, this would sometimes cause Dotty to become confused. It might even cause her to tell me that I was full of poop. Her words were not kind.
Eventually, I made my way into Alzheimer's World. After I made it into the World I started looking at things from Dotty's point of view. Why should I be upset if she asked me what day it was ten times? If she needed to know what day it was, she needed to know. After all, don't we all need to know what day it is? How would you know where to be, or where to go, or what to do if you never knew what day it was?
Once I made it to Alzheimer's World, I started to look at the world from Dotty's point of view. I tried to think and feel like she was thinking and feeling. I often asked myself, why? Why is she acting this way? Why is she feeling this way? I also stopped making it all about me. Instead, I made it about Dotty, and about us. I stopped complaining and saying, can you believe she does this, and she does that. I replaced words like she, me, and you, with words like we and us.
Once into Alzheimer's World, I started listening to Dotty. The sound of her voice. What was I hearing? Confusion? Anger? Happiness? Joy? I listened.
Today when Dotty starts marveling at the size or the number of trees, I'll be listening to her voice. I'll hear how amazed she is. How happy she sounds. I'll listen to her words. I'll feel happy. I'll also notice that those banyan trees are big and beautiful. Amazing looking in fact. Each and every time if you pay attention.
Way back when, when Dotty would act like she never saw those trees before in her life I would get sad. I would need to remind her she had seen them thousands of times. I was burdened.
Now, I listen to Dotty's sweet voice. Hear how really amazed she is feeling. It makes me feel happy. We get along better these days.
I finally learned to look at the trees.
More Insight and Advice from the Alzheimer's Reading Room

• How Alzheimer's Spreads Throughout the Brain
• Test Your Memory for Alzheimer's (5 Best Self Assessment Tests)
• What is Alzheimer's Disease?
• What is Dementia?
• What’s the Difference Between Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia
• Communicating in  Alzheimer's World
• How the Loss of Memory Works in Alzheimer’s Disease, and How Understanding This Could Help You
• Learning How to Communicate with Someone Suffering From Alzheimer's Disease
• Alzheimer's World -- Trying to Reconnect with Someone Suffering from Alzheimer's Disease
• Does the Combination of Aricept and Namenda Help Slow the Rate of Decline in Alzheimer's Patients
• Driving with Alzheimer's Can Mean Death
• About the Alzheimer's Reading Room

Bob DeMarco is the Founder of the Alzheimer's Reading Room and an Alzheimer's caregiver. The blog contains more than 3,461 articles with more than 397,100 read more..

source:http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com

Alzheimer's Association-Clinical Trial

Alzheimer's and Dementia Clinicial Studies--Pay it Forward

A friend of mine sent me a link about Alzheimer's recently, and I was surprised--shocked--horrified--to read that new drugs and other treatments can't find enough volunteers.   I can't believe that.  We would have signed a deal with the devil himself if he had agreed to give my dad a drug that would have given him a chance at a longer, healthier life.
I don't know how most of these trials work, but I know that the one my dad was part of did NOT make him STOP taking his medicine, it only added new medicine.  And when we found out at the end that he was on the placebo, he received the real drug then.
The Alzheimer's Association now has a web page that helps match volunteers with clinical trials.  I'm lucky enough to live near New Haven and to have had access to Yale University for my dad's studies, but if you don't live around here that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.   There are even trials to sign up for healthy people who don't have AD--I added myself to their data bank.
Being in a clinical trial is about paying it forward.  I knew that the drug would probably not help my dad.  But down the line, it might have saved someone else from my family's pain.
I am still accepting donations for my Walk to End Alzheimer's team--the walk is October 2, 2011.  If you are not already doing the walk and haven't donated to anyone, I'd appreciate anything.  This is my first year having a team and I'd love to show up with a lot of money to prove you don't have to be a corporation to raise funds. Click the to the left (or in my sidebar) to donate."Had a Dad" Alzheimer's Blog http://alzheimersdad.blogspot.com(c) Gevera Bert Piedmont })i({Thank you for visiting! read more..

Retirement-Alzheimer

Think first?! (reaction to a negative comment)

I've been writing this blog for a LONG time, and I know I often talk about things that might make people feel uncomfortable--that's the road I've chosen to travel.   I have other blogs, on other subjects, and I often get negative comments on those.  But on this blog, NEVER have I had anyone say anything bad...until now.
(I'm not talking about spam--I'm talking about rude.)
I recently did a post about what Alzheimer's cost my family in terms of Social Security income.
This is what someone commented:   
"Some people don't think about their retirement thoroughly. And they take important steps before thinking about it twice or asking an expert."
WHAT?!  My dad retired because he had ALZHEIMER'S.  Did you miss that, jerk?  And my mom retired to be a CARETAKER for my dad, who had ALZHEIMER'S.   
There is nothing to "think about thoroughly" when you are sick with a fatal illness, or your spouse is. 
And if you are implying they should have had investments, I didn't even get into that in the other post.  But I will now.  My mom had a nice 401(k) and some other savings.  But there is a thing called a SPEND DOWN where the government makes you spend ALL your money before you or your spouse can go on Medicare.  So the retirement she did plan for instead went to $10k a MONTH on a nursing home until she ran out of money.  How do you plan for that, huh?  You got an extra $120K a year just lying around waiting to be spent on nursing care?  Good for you, I hope you live a LONG TIME and suck up all that money and someone comes along and tells you that you should have planned better and died quicker.
"Had a Dad" Alzheimer's Blog http://alzheimersdad.blogspot.com(c) Gevera Bert Piedmont })i({Thank you for visiting! read more..

Alzheimer's Disease-Reading Room-Dotty

Keeping Dotty Active Works Miracles

It appears at the moment that Dotty has some new awareness and is more engaged. Yes, like always I am amazed, and greatly heartened.
By Bob DeMarco
Alzheimer's Reading Room
Bob DeMarcoI had a long conversation with Carole Larkin yesterday about how Dotty has recently "perked up". She is more alive and more aware.
As this happens, I always ask myself, what changed, what variables are causing the difference? What am I learning, or relearning, that could help or benefit other dementia caregivers?
I think a key word is relearning. It is amazing how I have to relearn something I already learned over and over as an Alzheimer's caregiver for my mother.
AD caregiving is difficult. There is always so much going on. One of the things that make it difficult is that the variables are always changing, the person living with dementia is always changing. As persons living with Alzheimer's change, so do the tasks you perform each day change.
In a way, at least for me, this sometimes makes it difficult to stick to the routine, to stick with the program. To do the things that are necessary to help keep the dementia patient attached to the world, and aware.
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One reason that I get distracted from our routine is that I have to deal with the reality that Dotty's condition continues to worsen. This is not unexpected, but nevertheless dealing with the "expected" as it happens is taxing emotionally and psychologically. So I think this explains in part why I sometimes get distracted and fall out of our routine. It takes a lot of energy to deal with the progression of Alzheimer's disease.
Recently, I have been distracted because Dotty can barely walk. We are now using the wheelchair every time we go out the door.
Dotty can no longer walk the 60 or so feet to go see Jim and Ruth. I must tell you this does make me a bit sad. That drains energy. Dotty can no longer "mosey" on down to see Jim and Ruth. This means she can't go get her own social interaction. This means I have to take her down, or find a way to fill in the void. Again, emotionally, psychologically and energy draining.
It took me a while to figure out what we were going to do adjust to these new circumstances. As a result, while I was making a plan, we fell out of our routine a bit.
A few weeks ago, I finally gathered up the energy and focus to start pushing Dotty around in the wheelchair. The purpose is simple, get her out into the sunlight for a big injection of Vitamin D. Yes, I think the level of vitamin D is important. You absorb vitamin d from the sun. So, if Dotty is not getting enough vitamin d she gets dull, bored, and less communicative.
Recently, we have been getting some very large doses of sunlight. This happens on our wheelchair walks, and on our renewed trips to the pool.
I have to assume that sunlight is one factor that is making Dotty more aware and more communicative.
Let me throw this out while we are here. The sun is out folks even if its cloudy or dingy out. Keep that in mind.
During the last trip to pool Dotty started saying some things and making some observations she had not made in a long time. I wondered about this. The only thing I can conclude is that the trips to the pool are "throwing Dotty back in time". In other words, she talks and acts a bit like she did in the long ago "days". I see this as a big positive. Why? Well, at least Dotty is initiating some talk and make some observations. This seems to carry over at home.
For the last two days, Dotty has started to say over and over, "I'm hungry, I'm starving". I had not been hearing this for a long time. So yes, it catches my attention. Why? The sunlight? The pool? The rides in the wheelchair? Me? Or, all of them in combination?
I think it is all of them in combination plus I am paying more attention to Dotty.
Another thing read more..

source:http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com

Social Security Income-Retirement Income-Real Income

a Hidden Cost of Alzheimer's: almost a $million per family

Here is a cost of Alzheimer's I've never heard discussed:  loss of Social Security income.
I'm going to completely make up figures here.
My dad retired, literally, the earliest he could, meaning he got the minimum SS income.  Let's say he got $1000 a month, but if he had stayed until he was 65, he would have gotten $2000 a month.  And assume he lived a normal lifespan to 80 years.  So from age 65 to 80 (15 years) he made $24,000 a year ($360,000).  Then when he died at age 80, my mom would then get that money for the rest of her life--she's from a long-lived clan, so let's say she made it to 95 (her mom's still kicking at 93 and her grandma made it to 99).  That's 20 years (she's 5 years younger than my dad) at $24,000 or $480,000 in SS income.  Not counting what she made for her own SS income from age 65 to 75.
Let's say my mom would have retired at the maximum of 65 and gotten $1800 a month.  That's $216,000 for those 10 years, until my dad died.  So total retirement income for my parents=$576,000 from age 65 to death.  Half a million, not bad.
But that didn't happen.  My dad retired early, to the minimum amount (which I invented as $1000 a month).  So not only did he lose his job's income of several times that amount from age 62 to age 65, but he then lost $1000 every month to early retirement (due to Alzheimer's.)  Let's say he made $3000 a month at his job.  So $108,000 in real income from selling cars, evaporated.   From age 65 on, $12,000 a year of SS, not coming in.
Then we get to my mom.  She also had to retire early (age 60), to take care of my dad.  So instead of the $1800 a month she should have gotten, she only got $900.  Let's say she made $2000/month at her job.  She lost 5 years of that real income ($120,000).   Then my dad died at age 67 and my mom started to get his SS, $1000 a month rather than the $2000 he would have gotten if he just retired 2 years earlier.
Let's summarize the math.
Mom's early retirement, lost income through not working
$120,000 (5 years x 12 months x $2000/month)
Dad's early retirement, lost income through not working
$216,000 (3 years x 12 months x $3000/month)
Loss of maximum SS for my dad, ages 65-67
$48,000 (2 years x 12 months x $2000/month)
Loss of maximum SS for my mom, age 65-95
$360,000 (30 years x 12 months x$1000/month)
total: $744,000.
So if my mom lives to be 95, she will have lost three quarters of a million dollars in income because my dad had early-onset Alzheimer's.
I invented these figures, but they aren't very inaccurate. I would say that for an average family with one person developing Early Onset Alzheimer's, this is probably close to reality.
Has no one else thought of this?  It's really depressing.  And it makes me really angry.  My parents could have had an enjoyable retirement with almost a million dollars.  Now my mom struggles by on the absolutely minimum through no fault of her own--and because I don't work, I can't help her out financially.
"Had a Dad" Alzheimer's Blog http://alzheimersdad.blogspot.com(c) Gevera Bert Piedmont })i({Thank you for visiting! read more..

Gray Stone

A place to say goodbye, or hello

I was stuck at a red light the other day, right next to a cemetery, and several of the graves had little American flags on them.  I started to wonder if my dad was eligible for a flag.  He got a medical discharge out of the Air Force.  I know he wasn't in long enough to get any benefits.  Does a flag count as a benefit?
But it's a moot question, cuz my dad doesn't have a grave.
I guess when I decided to cremate him I wasn't thinking about that.  When I worked around the corner from the cemetery where my grandpa is buried, I used to get a spicy chicken sandwich from Wendy's and then sit on his grave and eat it.  Then I'd go back to work and say that I had lunch with my grandfather.  It didn't make me feel CLOSER to him (although I physically was), it just seemed like the right thing to do.  I only worked there a couple of months and I haven't been back to "visit" my grandpa since.  I have to wonder what state his gravestone is, since I don't think my mom's been there to clean around it or plant flowers and obviously my grandma hasn't driven anywhere in 4 years.
Of course, visiting my father is easy.  His ashes are at my mom's.  She'd probably let me borrow them if I asked.  I guess technically every time I eat at mom's, I'm having dinner with dad like I had lunch with grandpa--he's only on the other side of the wall from the dining room.
But it's weird not to have a GRAVE, with that ponderous gray stone that distills a life into 10 words or less (name, dates, maybe a "beloved father and husband" inscription).  The ceremony at the grave site, well those are always terrible and I'm not sad we didn't have one (I'd have been a lot sadder if we had, if you know what I mean).  Everyone I know who died has a grave.  Except my dad.   Does that mean I don't love him?  I could spend all my money and buy a plot and pay a backhoe to excavate a hole and put his pretty green stone box underground and put up a big ugly gray stone to tell everywhere were the pretty box is hidden.  That seems silly.  My mom wants the box buried with her.  Fine with me, but I'm keeping a spoonful or two of dad so he can be in the coral reef with me.  Because I know how much my dad loved nature and he'd think being a coral reef was awesome.  And although no one would ever actually do it for me, I think it's pretty cool that to visit a coral reef grave, you have to scuba dive.  "Going to visit my dad, gotta get my tanks filled." The big blue sea, the immense green ocean, becomes your gray stone.
Then again, whether you believe in life after death, or the Elsewhere Bar, or that life is a candle that just gets snuffed out at the end, everlasting life is really when people who are still alive remember you.  If you're a fan of Terry Pratchett, the British author whose battle with Alzheimer's started exactly when my dad's ended, you might have read his book Small Gods (it's pretty stand-alone if you're not a Discworld reader).  It's about a bunch of gods who no one worships anymore, because no one remembers them.  That's what happens eventually to people I guess, no one is alive who remembers you and you fade away.  But I've written all this and as long as Blogger is online, even if I die today, people will read my blog and remember my dad.  And maybe me.  So this blog serves, I guess, as my dad's big gray stone, a place to visit him and say hello.  Because he's here, somewhere. "Had a Dad" Alzheimer's Blog http://alzheimersdad.blogspot.com(c) Gevera Bert Piedmont })i({Thank you for visiting! read more..

Still Alice Book Review-Flowers For Algernon

'Still Alice' book review

I read Still Alice last night.  For those of you not familiar with it, it's a novel written from the perspective of a 50-year old woman with early onset Alzheimer's.
I was expecting something more like Flowers for Algernon, especially as the title character starts off with a PhD and as a tenured teacher at Harvard.  If I was writing such a novel (and I still might), I'd do it that way.  If you haven't read Flowers for Algernon, it's a story about a mouse named Algernon who is made incredibly smart, and then a human named Charlie who goes from basically mentally retarded to genius by the same process, and it's all told in journal form by Charlie.  The unreliable narrator is a great tool when properly done.
I am proud to say that I did not cry, even when she got diagnosed, until page 111, when she started talking about butterflies.  My dad loved butterflies long before (and after) his diagnosis, and we covered his memorial picture board in butterfly cut-outs.
I don't think, however, that Alice took me into any uncharted waters.  They were all familiar.  She can't find the bathroom and pees on herself and feels shame.  She forgets one of her daughters.  She makes mistakes at work and doesn't realize her poor performance.  She was never violent like my dad, but that's rare.  I expected more frustration and more control issues.
Two things did bother me, that were left hanging.   She forgets to go to her support group meeting, and she can no longer deal with her e-mail to respond to her EOAD friends. It doesn't seem like anyone ever takes her to the meetings or that she ever talks to those people again.  Then she leaves the suicide instruction document open on her computer and no one ever remarks on it or looks for her vial of sleeping pills.
The suicide pact was probably the best part of the novel--her way of checking if she's still cognizant of her surroundings.  She puts a series of questions on her Blackberry that she has to answer every morning at 8 a.m. and if she can't, she has to go to the Butterfly (suicide) document on her computer and follow the instructions immediately.  At first the answers to the questions are detailed and crisp--the exact address of her home and office, the exact birthday of her daughter.  Then they get less so, until finally she is simply saying what state her home and office are and getting the birthday completely wrong.  But she doesn't even realize it, of course.
I didn't like the character of her husband very much.
His refusal after a while to exercise with her, the whole Sloan-Kettering thing--he was a jerk.  Their marriage felt fake.  I never thought they loved each other, there was no passion.  They never had sex--implied or implicit, offscreen or on.  And I would think that's an important part of EOAD--do you still have sex?
As far as a character study of her, and of the disease, it was fairly brilliant, but all the other characters were flat, cutouts moving through her world, even when she is barely diagnosed and showing symptoms.
I would give this book 4 out of 5.  It's really good, but it could have been amazing.
I was thinking about the book after I finished it, and how Alice is treated by her co-workers and friends after she admits to her diagnosis, and I realized that it would be better to lie to the world and say "I have a brain tumor."  My great-uncle had a brain tumor that caused dementia and everyone rallied around him.  My dad had plain old dementia and he was a pariah.
(book cover from Amazon, butterfly montage from www.mgcpuzzles.com--we used it on my dad's board)"Had a Dad" Alzheimer's Blog http://alzheimersdad.blogspot.com(c) Gevera Bert Piedmont })i({Thank you for visiting! read more..

Reading Room-Alzheimer's

R.I.P. Harvey

Sadly, last Thursday my pal and Alzheimer's caregiver sidekick, Harvey passed away.By Bob DeMarco ...
The Alzheimer's Reading Room is the number one source of life news for the entire Alzheimer's community. Our goal is to Educate, sometimes Entertain, and Empower Alzheimers caregivers and their families worldwide. read more..

source:http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com

Why Don't The Emails from the Alzheimer's Reading Room Get Forwarded

Just wondering?By Bob DeMarco Alzheimer's Reading RoomI was looking at a subset of the Alzheimer's...
The Alzheimer's Reading Room is the number one source of life news for the entire Alzheimer's community. Our goal is to Educate, sometimes Entertain, and Empower Alzheimers caregivers and their families worldwide. read more..

source:http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com

ARR Readers Respond to Email Forwarding, My Repsonse

One of the most important things I learned is that I should never underestimate the Collective Brain of the...
The Alzheimer's Reading Room is the number one source of life news for the entire Alzheimer's community. Our goal is to Educate, sometimes Entertain, and Empower Alzheimers caregivers and their families worldwide. read more..

source:http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com

Alzheimer's Disease-Dotty

Dotty Walks on Water

Dotty can't walk because her brain can no longer tell her legs what to do.
By Bob DeMarco
Alzheimer's Reading Room
Yesterday, I decided to take Dotty to the pool, and to get her into the water.
One of motivations here is to determine if I can somehow get Dotty walking. Well, walking a bit. Like walking on her own in the house.
Right now, Dotty can't walk more than a few steps without assistance. And, she can no longer get around in our house on her own.
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Let me take a short cut here.
Dotty can't walk because her brain can no longer tell her legs what to do. Her legs are not yet weak, and she isn't falling.
I have been discussing this phenomena for years with people in the Alzheimer's community. Dotty's walking problem is not related to weakness in her legs, hips, or knees. It is not related to balance, although, Dotty does say all the time, she is going to faint. For a while now she has been saying, I can't move, and her feet are stuck to the ground.
I have been waiting patiently for a day when it was warm enough to put Dotty into the pool, and a day where I could get her on the move before it was too late.
So, yesterday we took off for the pool around 11:30 AM. I admit, I had some feelings of trepidation because I was not sure if Dotty would be able to get into the pool.
Oh that Dotty, never one to disappointed. I rolled her up to the pool and she made it in.
It is not so easy for one simple reason. The pool has this giant edge around it. So, you actually have to step up, then over, and then down to the first step in the pool. Then down a few steps.
Dotty girl make it over that first giant hump without too much of a problem. Going down the steps was a bigger problem. First, Dotty's brain is not helping her much to pick up her feet. Second, to Dotty it looks like it is a million miles down to the next step. She has no real depth perception when it comes to looking into the water. So she steps down with the greatest of trepidation.
Of course, I am assisting, not coaching her all the way in. You just lather on a lot of positive reinforcement like, "you can do it", "don't worry I have a good grip on your", "don't worry even if you fall all you are going to do is fall in the water and I won't let you drown".
I don't actually say that last one, I just wanted to see if you were paying attention.
Once we made it into the water, Dotty was able to walk. After a few trips across the pool, I let her go on her own. She help the rope and walked across.
So Dotty can still walk a bit. We will keep this up if we can, and maybe, maybe, we will give the treadmill a shot somewhere down the road.
By the way, just so you understand, it is not about me wanting or needing Dotty to walk. It is about finding out if I can improve Dotty's ability a bit so she can go snip out her own mound bar without me having to bring it to her. Stuff like that.
No, Dotty didn't walk on water. But, she did walk in the water. She seemed to be enjoying herself. Made me feel pretty good that is for sure.
More Insight and Advice from the Alzheimer's Reading Room

• How Alzheimer's Spreads Throughout the Brain
• Test Your Memory for Alzheimer's (5 Best Self Assessment Tests)
• What is Alzheimer's Disease?
• What is Dementia?
• What’s the Difference Between Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia
• Communicating in  Alzheimer's World
• How the Loss of Memory Works in Alzheimer’s Disease, and How Understanding This Could Help You
• Learning How to Communicate with Someone Suffering From Alzheimer's Disease
• Alzheimer's World -- Trying to Reconnect with Someone Suffering from Alzheimer's Disease
• Does the Combination of Aricept and Namenda Help Slow the Rate of Decline in Alzheimer's Patients
• Driving with Alzheime read more..
  source:http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com

Amyloid Plaques-Bexarotene-Caregivers-Alzheimer

Scientists Pinpoint How Vitamin D May Help Clear Amyloid Plaques Found in Alzheimer's

This new study helped clarify the key mechanisms involved, which will help us better understand the usefulness of...
The Alzheimer's Reading Room is the number one source of life news for the entire Alzheimer's community. Our goal is to Educate, sometimes Entertain, and Empower Alzheimers caregivers and their families worldwide. read more..

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Hiring caregiver to relieve THE MAIN CAREGIVER

He has had a sharp decline the past 6 months and I am finding it more difficult to bring in new caregivers to sit...
The Alzheimer's Reading Room is the number one source of life news for the entire Alzheimer's community. Our goal is to Educate, sometimes Entertain, and Empower Alzheimers caregivers and their families worldwide. read more..

source:http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com

Bexarotene, Coconut Oil, and Enbrel

I am being bombarded with emails asking me about off label Bexarotene, promoting Coconut oil, and asking me about...
The Alzheimer's Reading Room is the number one source of life news for the entire Alzheimer's community. Our goal is to Educate, sometimes Entertain, and Empower Alzheimers caregivers and their families worldwide. read more..

source:http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com

Lighthouse Park-Alzheimer's-Flowers

Walk to End Alzheimer's pics

The Walk to End Alzheimer's was this morning, at Lighthouse Park in New Haven, which is on the beach and has an indoor carousel.
The four flowers from my team.  The colors got confused somehow, my friend's shouldn't have been yellow which is caretaker but they told us yellow was supporter. 
My hubby with his Alzheimer's shirt on.
My mom with her Alzheimer's shirt on.
I found this cool rock on the beach with a cross on it.  I'm not Catholic but my dad was so I kept it.
Me with some of our flowers.
Part of the Memory Garden.  Blue was for people who had Alzheimer's.
Starting line.
3 memory flowers for my dad, planted in my yard.  They are fun, they spin like pinwheels.
I raised, between my tag sale and Facebook, almost $400 for the walk (and they gave me 4 t-shirts, even though it's $100 per shirt).  It was very crowded.  The day started out rainy and horrible but by the time we got there, it was gorgeous and they said it was the biggest turnout ever.  When I tagged my pictures on Facebook with Lighthouse Park, it said 1077 people were checked in there--and I didn't use FB check-in there (I used FourSquare) and neither did anyone with me. I'd say over 2,000 people."Had a Dad" Alzheimer's Blog http://alzheimersdad.blogspot.com(c) Gevera Bert Piedmont })i({Thank you for visiting! read more..

Alzheimer’S Association

In the paper again, for this weekend's Walk to End Alzheimer's

I was interviewed yesterday about the Alzheimer's walk this weekend. Last weekend, I had another tag sale (mostly books and jewelry supplies) and raised another $120 (miserable rainy weather) for my team, adding to the $200 or so donated through Facebook friends.
OCR article text
Daughter raises funds for Alzheimer’s work
By Russell Blair, Record-Journal staff
Roberta Piedmont managed to raise more than $1,000 on her own this year for Alzheimer’s research.
What if more people pitched in to help eradicate the disease, she wonders.
“I had a friend tell me ‘with enough shovels, you can move a mountain,” she said.
A year of fundraising for the Alzheimer’s Association will culminate for Piedmont this weekend when she takes part in the Walk to End Alzheimer's in New Haven on Sunday.
“I’m looking forward to it. It's a chance to meet other people and talk and share stories,” she said.Piedmont’s team includes her mother, her husband and some friends. Piedmont said that while many people know of Alzheimer’s, only those who have seen its effects understand the severity of the disease.
“When I tell somebody, they either look at me with a blank look on [their] face, or their own story comes out,” she said.
Piedmont’s father, Bob Rizza, worked for more than 30 years in the car business in Meriden and Wallingford before he had to retire at age 62 due to the beginning stages of the disease. He was diagnosed a year later, on June 21, 2004, and died on Nov. 26, 2007.
Piedmont has also advertised the walk on her popular Alzheimer’s blog, “Had a Dad.” Piedmont’s blog is the No. 1 result on Google for the search of “Alzheimer's blog,” above the Mayo Clinic's blog and a blog maintained by the Alzheimer’s Association. Piedmont's team name for the walk is the web address to her blog: Alzheimersdad.blogspot.com. Piedmont said her own fundraising is an example that every individual can do something to help.
Christy Kovel, senior director of communications for the Connecticut chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, said the walk is the biggest annual fundraiser for the chapter.
“It’s our signature event,” she said. “We’re expecting a very large turnout.”
Last year, the organization had more than 3,500 walkers in events across the state.
“All kinds of people come,” Kovel said. “We get people who lost family members to the disease, people who are suffering from the disease, those who bring their loved ones who have the disease and people who work at facilities that provide care for Alzheimer’s. There are children’s activities; it’s really a family-friendly atmosphere.”
According to data from the Alzheimer’s Association, 5.4 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and someone develops the disease every 69 seconds. The organization estimates that by 2050, as many as 16 million people will have Alzheimer’s. In Connecticut, 764 people died from the disease in 2007.
Piedmont said that it’s important to raise awareness about the disease, and the effects it can have. The recent diagnosis of Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summit with early onset dementia, Alzheimer's type, has helped bring new attention to the disease, she said.
“Lately more people have been telling me their own stories. This is a disease that touches almost everybody,” Piedmont said.
The Sunday walk will take place at Lighthouse Point Park, 2 Lighthouse Point Road, New Haven. Walkers can register online at www.alz.org or in-person Sunday at 9 a.m.
rblair@record-journal.com
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