Medical Forum / Diseases and Disorders / Alzheimer's / December 2007
not alzheimers after all
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William Stacy, O.D. - 08 Dec 2007 08:56 GMT After having mom in a senior residence for 2 months where she's now getting good nutrition, and having completed all the physical evaluations known to man, it turns out she doesn't have alzheimers. It was apparently a combo of poor nutriton,low sodium and normal senility (small vessel atherosclerosis in the brain) that caused all the short term memory loss, etc. She's now doing much better, but hopefully not so much better that she trys to fly the coop back to montana...
bill
Evelyn Ruut - 08 Dec 2007 12:28 GMT > After having mom in a senior residence for 2 months where she's now > getting good nutrition, and having completed all the physical evaluations [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > bill Hi Bill,
That's good. There are other conditions that mimic alzheimers, and many of them are reversible! That's why we always advise people who come here to post, to get their loved one tested ASAP.
 Signature Best Regards,
Evelyn
Frederick G Young - 12 Dec 2007 21:47 GMT Evelyn, I am sad to say that June died this past weekend. She had been losing weight over the past two months because of a combination of her inability to swallow and her indifference to the need for food. Both Penny my daughter and myself were at her side as she died. I shall never forget that moment. In spite of our expecting it for many years the instant when she drew her last breath had an impact that I can only describe as devastating. Almost as if a piece of myself was also dying. Now a few days later it is getting easier but only if I manage to keep my mind on other things. My daughter asked if i would mind if there was a post mortum examination of the brain. The reasons were similar to those expressed by another poster, did June have Alzeimers or was it a combination of old age and senility. It becomes important to a daughter and her two daughters because the genetic communication of the disease is less for them than is the case with AZ. I felt it was the least I could do. The procedure we requested was limited to brain tissue and not the extensive invasive procedure of a normal autopsy. I have not yet received the results, but I fervently hope that it is favorable for them. Certainly the cost is more than worth it for the possible peace of mind it will provide. Should it turnout positive, then they still have the chance because it is not a statistical certainty given the difference of lifestyles.
June was 85 years.
I wish to thank those who assisted me in living with this terrible disease.
The memory of her wonderful smile and laughter will remain with us as long as we live.
Frederick
>> After having mom in a senior residence for 2 months where she's now >> getting good nutrition, and having completed all the physical evaluations [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > of them are reversible! That's why we always advise people who come here > to post, to get their loved one tested ASAP. sweetpickleNO@SPAMknology.net - 12 Dec 2007 23:32 GMT Frederick, I am so sorry. You and your daughter certainly have my sympathy. May you soon be able to focus on the good memories and let the past years just go away. Gwen
> Evelyn, > I am sad to say that June died this past weekend. She had been losing [quoted text clipped - 44 lines] >> of them are reversible! That's why we always advise people who come >> here to post, to get their loved one tested ASAP. Evelyn Ruut - 13 Dec 2007 02:23 GMT Oh Frederick!!!!!
(((((((( hugs )))))))) I am soooooo sorry to hear that!
We shared many heartaches together on this newsgroup, back when Ida was still alive and you were trying to cope with June's illness alone. I am sad for you and your daughter too. The only bright thing is to know that Junes long time of suffering with this awful disease has finally come to an end. I am glad you told us. I hope your best memories will comfort you. I still have the nice photo of June you sent.
 Signature Best Regards,
Evelyn
> Evelyn, > I am sad to say that June died this past weekend. She had been losing [quoted text clipped - 44 lines] >> of them are reversible! That's why we always advise people who come >> here to post, to get their loved one tested ASAP. Adelle - 13 Dec 2007 13:10 GMT Oh, Frederick. I am so sorry of June's passing.
May you find comfort in happy memories when you are ready for them. And as Evelyn said, at least June's suffering is over.
Sending love and hugs,
Adelle
> Evelyn, > I am sad to say that June died this past weekend. She had been losing [quoted text clipped - 44 lines] >> of them are reversible! That's why we always advise people who come >> here to post, to get their loved one tested ASAP. A R Pickett - 13 Dec 2007 15:39 GMT Frederick wrote - > I am sad to say that June died this past weekend. She had been losing weight
> over the past two months because of a combination of her inability to > swallow and her indifference to the need for food. Both Penny my daughter > and myself were at her side as she died. Frederick, I send all my sympathy to you, to Penny, and to all others who knew and loved June.
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Tumbleweed - 20 Dec 2007 18:26 GMT <snip> My daughter asked if i would mind if there was a post mortum examination
> of the brain. The reasons were similar to those expressed by another > poster, did June have Alzeimers or was it a combination of old age and [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > June was 85 years. Sorry about that Frederick- But I dont understand your thinking re a PM...what difference does it make?
Suppose the PM shows it was Az ..how would that be unfavourable for your daughters? AFAIK only some fairly rare types of early Onset Az are known to be hereditable, at 85 she obviously didnt have that.
And there is no such thing, again AFAIK as 'senility', that is even more of a blanket coverage term than Az. At age 80 plus, something like 50% of people get Az/Senility/Call it what you will, and since there is no clear heredity link found yet, if one does exist it must be pretty tenuous (or it would have been found already), so they should perhaps be more focussed on the 50% (not that there is anything you can do about it) , rather than there might be a link, which even if there is one, *must* be in the decimal points, otherwise it would have surfaced a long time ago.
Or in other words, lets say there IS a link ..in which case their chance goes from 50% to maybe 50.001%...I'd be more worried about the 50% figure!
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Chuck Whealton - 11 Dec 2007 00:09 GMT > After having mom in a senior residence for 2 months where she's now > getting good nutrition, and having completed all the physical [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > bill Bill:
This is EXCELLENT news! You couldn't ask for more!
Charles R. Whealton Charles Whealton @ pleasedontspam.com
William Stacy, O.D. - 11 Dec 2007 07:59 GMT for sure. this has been a very curious journey. i've come to believe that most a's diagnoses are guesswork, and many if not most of them are wrong. usually the most obvious, simple answer is the correct one. I think that "normal senility" is more often than not the culprit, but that diagnosis doesn't carry an ICD code that will allow billing for all the fancy eval/treatment modalities.
>>After having mom in a senior residence for 2 months where she's now >>getting good nutrition, and having completed all the physical [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > Charles R. Whealton > Charles Whealton @ pleasedontspam.com Evelyn Ruut - 11 Dec 2007 12:03 GMT I don't think there is such a thing as "normal" senility. It always has a cause, even if it isn't recognized or named. My dad is 94. He has vascular problems too, but it isn't alzheimers. I know very well what alzheimers looks like, and he hasn't got it.
 Signature Best Regards,
Evelyn
> for sure. this has been a very curious journey. i've come to believe > that most a's diagnoses are guesswork, and many if not most of them are [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] >> Charles R. Whealton >> Charles Whealton @ pleasedontspam.com June - 11 Dec 2007 16:57 GMT >I don't think there is such a thing as "normal" senility. > It always has a cause, even if it isn't recognized or named. > My dad is 94. He has vascular problems too, but it isn't alzheimers. > I know very well what alzheimers looks like, and he hasn't got it. Right on Evelyn. "Normal Senility" is an oxymoron. That's like saying normal terminal cancer or normal Parkinson's. This isn't going to get better it will only take longer to get worse, we're at 14 years and counting. Just being realistic.......June
Evelyn Ruut - 11 Dec 2007 19:05 GMT >>I don't think there is such a thing as "normal" senility. >> It always has a cause, even if it isn't recognized or named. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > better it will only take longer to get worse, we're at 14 years and > counting. Just being realistic.......June Yes. I was amazed to discover just how many other illnesses are often mistaken for alzheimers disease. Creutzfeld Jakob disease, (often called mad cow disease), Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus, thyroid problems, Trans Ischemic attacks (TIA), mini strokes, not-so-mini strokes, cardiovascular insufficiency, Picks disease, frontal lobe dementia...... even some vitamin deficiencies......and I am sure the list goes on!
That is why we always tell anyone who comes to this newsgroup as a newcomer with a loved one showing signs of memory problems, that they absolutely need to get a serious bunch of tests done to get a real diagnosis! The kicker is that some of those are reversible! Alzheimers is unfortunately, not. I often wonder how many poor people have not been diagnosed properly out there.
 Signature Best Regards,
Evelyn
William Stacy, O.D. - 12 Dec 2007 03:05 GMT > I don't think there is such a thing as "normal" senility. > It always has a cause, even if it isn't recognized or named. > My dad is 94. He has vascular problems too, but it isn't alzheimers. > I know very well what alzheimers looks like, and he hasn't got it. Actually, senile means old. senility means getting old. it is very normal to get old. in fact, if you don't get old, it means you died of something that is not at all normal.
so the normal aging process does result in a gradual, inexorable decline in all body functions, including thinking.
if you deny that, well, you are deluded. for sure, some people decline faster than others, but we all do, if we should live so long. and also for sure, there are things you can do to reduce the rate of decline, even temporarily reverse it, but as everyone knows, life is a one way street. gravity wins. entropy cannot be reversed.
my best to all, and above all, be sure to test for all other causes of dementia before applying the "A" name to it. it worked for my mom...
bill
stopalz@gmail.com - 15 Dec 2007 22:21 GMT > After having mom in a senior residence for 2 months where she's now > getting good nutrition, and having completed all the physical [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > bill That so good!. Do you know that more than 50 % of persons diagnosed and under pharmacological treatment, they aren´t alzheimer? I think that perhaps the following studies can help you and your mom best regards, Luis PSYCHO-SOCIAL ALTERNATIVE THEORY ON THE SO CALLS ALZHEIMER ALZHEIMER´S PROJECT ARGENTINA, September 2007
Chronic Progressive Dementization, (CPD), the scientific name that would correspond to which vulgarly calls Alzheimer, is a quite different question from depression, the different types of psychosis and obviously also from surprising and novel conducts that appear sometimes with the normal aging. But in the long run much more serious, since it leads to death, if it doesn't stop on time. He is so extremely specific as low frequent, and has been over dimensioned in extreme proportions by ignorance of normal aging behaviors, with which it is confused many times, or simply to make a great business with it.
Although the final step of brain disintegration is quite similar, there are two types of processes: the one that occurs in young or greater adults and another different one that it happens in very greater adults, so to so of around 80 years old or more. In these the problem is "simply" the loss of the vital motivation, the desire´s exhaustion to continue living. Abandonment of dreams, as Miguel de Unamuno would say (1904) on the cession that Don Quixote in favor to Sancho did at the end of the history, for soon, obviously, dying. It's hardly ethical to catalogue these cases like patients, to dominate them and to impoverish them with useless medicines.
Risk's people for a DCP are those that generally have a introverted personality, had poor social relations, with tendency to isolation, difficulties to face the challenges of the life, tendency to depend on others, have constructed their personal identity under the shade or on shoulders of another one (the woman of the engineer, the husband of the owner, etc.), with cope deficit with normal life's difficulties, tendency to be self-absorbed on proper or another's painful events, which is and designates in general like depression.
IN NO WAY IT TOUCHES TO ANYONE. There is nothing of chance, neither suddenly nor magician in it. Neither familiar, nor infection, nor contamination, nor any physical indeed. Only an alone human in a blind alley.
With aging the probability that these people to suffer a painful loss increases, obviously, like everyone. Risk increases in them enormously without having capacity of facing of their painful and innermost losses, that can be of the husband who gave or lent their identity, of a children who gave their life's meaning, of their activities that justified their existence, of their corporal or mental capacity to which he had bet or concentrated. And when not counting on a familiar network or a social network to stop their fall after a non elaborate duel or to find an exit for it, the person collapses. It is the beginning of the aim. The duel impossible to solve drags to its own identity. It can have 40 years o. (the case younger than we have had was a girl of 38 years o.), or 80.
It doesn't any relation with aging (except in sanitary data), but only that when they advance the years is more probable that we suffer painful losses. Until this moment and much later its brain is like a quite normal ones, it does not show absolutely anything abnormal and it's totally useless to want to see something in images, including with the more sophisticated technology, and less even in electroencephalograms, that is something so coarse and inadequate as to try to observe a virus with our old magnifying glass of the school. The culture of the image, the sickly fascination by the image that comes from the TV consumption, has displaced to the logic, the common sense and the semeiology. But perhaps it is only part of another great business, since if possibly there were something in the brain, simply we would not know what to face with this information. And when indeed there is it, well at the end of the process, it has left everything exposed so the simple observation that returns to be useless.
The landslide of the person, its "delivery" as much in the dictionary of the Real Spanish Academy (already in the first edition, 1713) like in the original dictionaries of all the languages, is expressed in the idea to wish to die, in the fixation of the attention in its own one and wished death. There the abnormal, unnatural and destructive thing begins because in fact we are programmed biologically, ancestrally, for all the opposite, as it is to explore, to fight, to defend to us, to hunt (in symbolic and generic sense), to attack, to ask to us, to inquire to us, and our attention concentrated in each objective part of a basic alert status that we never lose, except for when we slept well, to recover of the permanent state of alert. We are not programmed to give to us tamely, as it is not it no animal. And rather that we are animals, no matter how hard the present cultures have blurred it.
In addition in the beginning, that can be weeks or months, the person enters and leaves the process. One resists to give itself and she even can attack, and she does not do it against the people although it seems, but against their reality, in which they does not find any place.
How takes place then the cerebral damage that leads to the death?
So that it is understood we must refresh some very basic things, although surprising little well-known and spread. In the first place that we have nine senses: vision, hearing, balance, tact, spatial perception, taste, smell, sense of strange it (or familiarity) and of the body perception. All these senses, and perhaps others more, are active from the basic alert status and have two components: an automatic one of immediate reaction (a light falls in love and blinking, I smell of ammoniac, that it is used in home cleaners and I am myself forced to separate away), and another one of recognition or identification, in which the stimuli are sent to the brain and there it is collated if that information has been loaded. They are the sensorial recognitions.
Then, EVERYTHING WHAT WE DO, EVERYTHING WHAT WE THOUGHT, BY MORE BANAL OR INSIGNIFICANT THAN IS, IS RECORDED IN THE BRAIN IN FORM OF A NEURONAL NETWORK IN WHICH INEXORABLY PARTICIPATE NEURONS OF THE SENSORIAL RECOGNITION SYSTEMS OF THE NINE SENSE CHANNELS: they are those that incorporate the key information that avoid us to act. And those networks that are armed in our brain also reinforce when we return to make the same act or generated the same thought, but in addition... because IN FACT ALL IS YET CONCECTED IN THE BRAIN WITH ALL; WHICH WE ARE GOING TO DO WILL BE CONNECTED WITH WHICH ALREADY WE HAVE DONE AND LOADED LIKE NEURONAL NETWORKS IN OUR BRAIN.
Some of those connections have a great importance in activities of dairy life, and others very remotely: although the door seems to us very heavy, already we know that the force is not to much that we must make to open it. That attraction by rates which they are multiple or submultiple of the heart rate (that that we listened for the first time from the uterus of our mother), would be related indeed with those. That is to say, to live means to be stimulating everything somehow what we have done, lived and thought. For that reason it is that when after a great activity of many years we happened to a sedentary situation, under lower stimuli, then letting connect to many areas of our neural brain networks, we began with the forgetfulnesses that as much fear they give us now, that has invented the Alzheimer like sword of Damocles to force to us to run to the pharmacies. Which will understand that it is useless, at least for the consumer.
However, when to fix attention to death, that is something abstract that does not generate necessity to us of motor or cognitive answer, and RESORTING TO THE NATURAL MECHANISM and AVAILABLE IN ALL to block the reception of other stimuli like when we concentrated the attention in something, these people happen to block, in the beginning in oscillating form, with variations throughout a day or of days, weeks or months, the sensorial stimuli of the different channels. It is basic a biological mechanism since we must be concentrated in the tiger that attacks to us and we cannot disperse with the colored birds that more back jig about: it is a survival principle. Who know more of the utility of this principle are the pickpockets of the agglomerations: one of them produces a smaller but clear aggression on the victim; this one is put in guard and concentrates its attention on the aggressor, while his companion removes the wallet or cuts the portfolio's strap, because we have blocked the tact and the body perception when putting to us in guard in front of the aggressor and concentrating the attention in him.
The displacement of the attention towards different objectives is normal and routine, but in the people who enter process DCP blocking persistently the reception of stimuli by the different sensorial channels and their consequent shipment the brain, it does that the neurons of the systems of sensorial recognition that comprise of the sensorial networks let to receive stimuli, with which in the long run lose the sinapsis connections, the connections between neuronal networks do not travel stimuli by the dendrites and the networks are disarmed. Something equivalent to the atrophy of a muscle that we did not use.
One frequent and a more common form of this process of a very hard fix attention fixing on something, but that is not to wish to die, it's happens in the normal aging, when the concentration in a painful fact (the death of a sister or brother, the divorce of a daughter, the disease of a grandson, etc.) it disperses to us, but we continued doing mechanical activities very known, like driving, to prick onions or to drive the key of the gas. And here it is another habitual source of that forgetfulness that confuse to all those related with the Alzheimer, that happens through the same.
As now we know that in fact we have at least nine sensorial channels, we can understand why the people with dementia don't recognize relatives, lose the sense of smell, the taste, the spatial orientation, reel or they fall, etc. They are that part of the cerebral functions that are losing when blocking the stimuli to have fixed obstinately the attention to the death desire. No longer they recognize, no longer have capacity of recovery of recent smaller events (weak neuronal networks, with low sensorial stimulation, easy to inactivate when they do not receive stimuli), and however still can recover events of the past. But anyone, but... only THOSE IN WHICH THE LIVED EVENTS (SENSORIAL NETWORKS ARMED IN THE PAST) WERE POSSIBLE WITH A GREAT STIMULATION (EMOTIONAL), PROTROCTADELY REINFORCED and CONNECTED WITH MULTIPLE OTHER SENSORIAL NETWORKS, LIKE THE DOOR OF STREET OF OUR CHILDHOOD´S HOME, by where we did not shelter, by where we shook to get dirty, by where we entered to eat, to find with the arms of our mothers or the severe but protective glance of our parents, etc. Then obviously the process of dissolution of the neuronal networks becomes difficult when it arrives at those emotional networks of the past, our true mental jewels. Thus he is then which the biological indicators more solids to detect the one that a person is in a dementia of this type are the faults of the systems of sensorial recognition. The PROGRESSIVE DISINTEGRATION OF The NEURONAL NETWORKS IN OUR BRAIN BY DEFICIT OF STIMULATION OF The SENSORIAL SYSTEMS OF RECOGNITION IS THE ESSENCE OF THE PROCESS OF THIS DEMENTIA, AND LEADS TO DEATH BECAUSE AN ESSENTIAL AUTOMATIC SYSTEM HAS CONNECTIONS WITH SENSORIAL NETWORKS YOU SPECIFY, THAT WHEN ALSO THEY GET TO BE AFFECTED, CAUSES OBVIOUSLY THE DEATH. Why is not wanted it to recognize, if it is so obvious? Perhaps because it would leave perhaps the majority of the supposed cases outside.
But the person is not conscious of the great damage there are caused to their self. Also their relatives and the majority of their doctors doesn't know the basic mechanism that produce the phenomena. The person is in a psychological paralysis forehead to the reality, she does not find the way to return to it, and they only wishes to die. Then, an order word, with the firmness and the affection of a father, could avoid the continuation of the process. And this explains why we have been able to even recover people with several years of medical diagnosis with this type of dementia.
Then it isn't properly a disease ("joint of signs and symptoms that responds to a well-known cause that is function of the doctor to neutralize"), is not genetic, it does not have to do with the aging (confusion comes from which to greater age, greater it's the probability of suffering personal painful losses, that are a very frequent trigger one, since we have already said), does not begin with any damage in the brain but that concludes in the long run in it, it isn't a problem of the memory but of the attention, and before this one of the motivation, and before this one of the search of satisfaction according to priorities, and before this one of the biological and psychological pulsions controlled or not by the will, and even before the basal state of alert that it perceives immediately what it is necessary to him, which him lack.
In short, that the memory is so depend on scenaries, circumstances and factors in that the central protagonist we are, who can think that in fact the memory are ourself. And although many along the man history tried it for perverse intentions, we are not reduced to a taxonomy simplification. To have centered and to have related this dementia to the memory, and to have located in the thought of which this one is an organization in himself, that have a physical or biologically localization, we think that it has been the origin of the great confusion that it has prevented until now understanding the phenomenon. Confusion and error that is reflected in a near percentage al 50 % of cases diagnosed and pharmacologically treated like "Alzheimer" and that is merely normal aging, so as we have been able to verify in Argentina, Spain, the Great Britain and United States. Merely aging with disattention to be fixing the attention to painful facts. Aging of women who are been in submission forced or allowed all their life and who have decided to break the scheme ("seventy-agers", or the rebellion of the 70), aging with forgetfulness to have passed to a life not only sedentary but also with many less stimuli, aging with affective, economic, social marginalization. Aging catalogued like patient because no longer they want, is not interested (they forget) to do what they always did: to mop plates, to clean the floors, to take care of the eighth grandson, to fix the car. Aging with ironies, sarcasms, fantasies and also aggressions as novel forms in which it express the difficulty of the communication, of the participation in the familiar or social life. A true alzheimerization of the greater adults, and the society everything, to which it is necessary to put a final point.
It remotely have the phenomenon nor the dimension that is said to have and in addition, the changes that come promptly producing, in special the freedom, independence and own construction of his own identity in the women and also in men, it is raising a dock to him of important containment, and who or we would do in betting to that change.
And finally, it isn't either irreversible, since it is possible and it gives clear and forceful result, to elevate to those people the self- esteem and the attention to him, and to permute the abstract idea of death wished by the one of a real life that surrounds it, with a alluvium of satisfactory stimuli that the person identifies like own, the shade by the light that surrounds us to all to little that we lend a little attention, taken care of and love, and inserting it soon in a new extolled dairy life. It isn't easy, it is an abyss of difference with giving a tablet, but he is tremendously positive as much for the affected ones as for which we worked with the protocols derived from the psycho social theory neuro sensorio desintegrative of progressive the chronic dementia, that are under free disposition to all.
It is an open theory that we hoped to finish constructing between all, between the relatives, the own ones affected, cargivers, and the free, independent, critical, studious, professionals and scientists, Prof.Lic.Luis María Sánchez, Neurobiologist, University of Entre Rios, Full Professor, Director, Alzheimer Project Argentina TE 0054 3442 431442 stopalz@gmail.com www.stopalz.org
Sanchez LM. Effect of social isolation, coping deficit after personal losses, apathy and perception blockade in patients with alzheimer´s disease. Rev Esp Geriatr Gerontol 2004;39(6):371-80. Sanchez LM. Progressive to acute social and psychosocial introversion features and behaviors toward alzheimer´s process. The I J World Health and Societal Politics 2005; 2(1). Sanchez LM. Teoría de la articulación de factores psicosociales y sensoriales deficientes en la desintegración cerebral en casos de Alzheimer. Geriatrianet.com 2006;8(2). Sanchez LM, Rubano MdelC, García JD, Cantero CR, Gárate LMT, Florentin BR. Behavioral factors and sensorial identification deficits as predictors for dementia of the alzheimer´s type. Rev Neurol. 2007;44(4):198-202.
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