76 Miles, 16 Hours and a Commitment to End Alzheimer’s
After some crazy back and forth emails tossing around ideas, it was decided. We would run for an hour at a time on a high school track, alternating shifts for the entire 16 hours of daylight on the longest day of the year. Why? As a way of turning our passion for running into a fundraiser for The Longest Day – a sunrise-to-sunset event to raise funds and awareness for Alzheimer’s care, support and research. [...]
A Return Trip to Washington D.C., This Time as an Alzheimer’s Advocate
Over the course of my professional career as a space scientist (from 1966 to 2002), I probably visited the Washington, D.C. area 14 or 15 times every year. These trips averaged two or three days, visiting various government agencies involved in funding scientific research from Greenbelt, Maryland to Alexandria, Virginia and beyond. However, the only time that I can remember that I visited the Capitol Building was as a seventh grader on a spring school [...]
Where We Are Today in Alzheimer’s Research: A Year in Review
One year closes and another begins. Here are the 2012 Alzheimer’s disease research highlights, as well as new directions that we will likely be heading during 2013. Genetic Insights: Among the important discoveries of 2012 was the identification of a genetic mutation that protects people from developing Alzheimer’s disease. The mutation in Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) significantly decreases the amount of beta-amyloid a person makes (about 40 percent), conferring a resistance to developing Alzheimer’s. Just to review, all neurons secrete APP, and [...]
The Caregiver Solution to New Year’s Resolutions
One of the things I hate about New Year’s Resolutions is they seem to be about taking away something rather than giving yourself something. I suppose one could argue if you lose weight with more exercise and eating more nutritiously you are giving yourself a longer, healthier life. But when our brains think of resolutions as punishment rather than pleasure, it’s hard to maintain them. For caregivers, resolutions are even harder since you are typically [...]
Choosing to Accept the Changes Dementia Brings
Choice is a luxury and usually a gift. As a caregiver to a loved one, the absence of choice is a difficult concept to grasp when you are accustomed to the illusion of choice and control in your life. It is earth- shaking to have circumstance thrust upon you, pushing you towards decisions that may go against your grain. – Tania Richard My mother was diagnosed with dementia in the summer of 2011. At the [...]
How Caregivers Can Use Pet Therapy to Care for Their Loved One
My favorite cartoonist, the late Charles Schulz of Peanuts fame, wrote that, “Happiness is a warm puppy.” I wonder if he knew that happiness is just the start when it comes to enhancing the lives of older loved ones in nursing homes or assisted living, terminal patients such as those suffering from AIDS, children with special needs and even caregivers looking to improve their own health. Known as Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT), there is a growing [...]
Caregivers Who Are Changing the Game
Girls on the Gridiron – Taking the Fight Against Alzheimer’s to the Field People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society. – Vince Lombardi It is officially fall and fall means football season – fans, cheerleaders, Friday night lights, afternoon tailgaters, Monday Night Football. When we think of football – we think of the gladiators of the gridiron. However, one of the best football [...]
Breaking Past Stigma & Finding Hope: Rob Epp’s Story
Courage is the thing you need most and the hardest thing to get when you’re faced with Alzheimer’s Disease. Jordan, my partner of 17 years has younger-onset Alzheimer’s. His father and several grandparents had memory problems, so the diagnosis was not totally unexpected, but it is still hard to grasp that someone so young and vital is facing such a ravaging illness. Since Jordan’s diagnosis four years ago, we’ve both experienced the stigma that is [...]
Alzheimer’s Is One of My Greatest Battles
I have faced many battles in my life. I served in Vietnam as a Marine Corps corporal. I also completed four tours in Iraq in the U.S. Army, and four of my sons served in Iraq, too. But all my battles have not been while serving in the military. My mother passed away from Alzheimer’s disease. I lost my son, Dennis Jr., in a motorcycle accident. And now, I am facing my own battle with [...]
Can Caregiving Make You Happy?
Whether your musical tastes run to the 70s television show with the Partridge family singing their theme song, C’mon Get Happy, or the 1950s song that inspired it, Get Happy, made famous by Judy Garland, the message is that happiness is in our hands — not something we are handed. When it comes to caring for a loved one, happiness may not be the first emotion that you would associate with a life role that [...]
This past holiday season, I had the pleasure of appearing as Mrs. Cratchit in “A Christmas Carol” at The Goodman Theatre. On several occasions I thought how much my mother would have loved to see me in it. Before I met my husband, my mother was my biggest fan. When I say my mother would have loved to see the show, I mean the mother who raised me and was always there for me in [...]
Alzheimer’s disease has been the greatest heartbreak of my life. I lost my mother to Alzheimer’s disease. And then, my father. I tell their story, because they can’t. I tell their story in hopes that future generations will not have the same story to tell. Today, I am surrounded by fellow advocates at the 25th annual Alzheimer’s Association Advocacy Forum – my thirteenth. We are the voice of many, with one message: The time to [...]
Sometimes I feel like I’m standing with a crowd of people on a railroad track and there’s a freight train coming. I can hear a whistle in the distance, but everybody else is chatting about the weather or shrugging their shoulders. They are saying things like, “It sure would be terrible to get stuck on this track when the train comes,” or worse, “I don’t hear anything.” The train continues to get closer—but no one [...]
“This Is Our Life” is the final line of a production entitled “Resurrection” that my husband Steve and I have been a part of with our church singing group for the past 17 years. During the last song, everyone in the congregation holds a candle that is lit from a single candle that stands alone on the altar. As each candle is lit, we watch the church go from dark to light. The first year we performed, a small group of us got together and pitched in—sewing costumes, rehearsing and doing whatever [...]
Recently, findings were published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease that may help explain why people who are susceptible to stress are at more risk of developing Alzheimer’s and why — increasingly — we are finding evidence that physical activity, which reduces stress levels, may reduce the chances of developing Alzheimer’s. It is widely believed that the stress hormone corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF) may have a protective effect on the brain, including the memory changes brought on by Alzheimer’s. CRF is associated [...]
I recently attended a salon event hosted by The Judy Fund, an Alzheimer’s Association donor sponsored effort created by Marshall Gelfand and his family now lead by daughter Elizabeth Gelfand-Stearns who lost both her grandmother and her mother, Judy (the fund’s namesake), to Alzheimer’s disease. Elizabeth’s heartfelt passion is finding a cure for the disease that took her loved ones. To date, the family has raised almost $5 million to fund research and advocacy efforts [...]
Although the FDA approved florbetapir (Amyvid) in April 2012 as a tracer for PET scans in detecting brain amyloid, Medicare has not covered it. The test costs about $3,000 in total and some patients have been paying for it out of pocket. Last month, a Medicare advisory panel voted against medicare coverage for amyloid brain PET scans. Although the technology has been around for eight years, and numerous studies have shown its accuracy in detecting [...]
During February, Black History Month, the Alzheimer’s Association sat down for a one-on-one talk with Dr. Goldie Byrd, an African-American scientist who has spent more than a decade researching the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease. Early in her career, Dr. Byrd recognized the impact of studying the nature of Alzheimer’s disease on a genomic level. Here are some of her thoughts on her observations and her motivations for continuing her research. “I decided to focus my [...]
