Slipping Away: Jo Aubin Has Alzheimer's. He's 38
site.macleans.ca
site.macleans.ca
It's unspeakably distressing seeing people you know degenerate in seemingly random ways, knowing full well there's literally no chance of improvement, just temporary pauses in the inevitable.
My friend was quite open when speaking privately in the early days and said things like "It's OK my mind is still there" when you saw him shaking or unable to walk properly.
Later though his mental capacity deteriorated and one time when I asked whether he was aware of his diminishing function he said "No". He understood the question and for me it was a minor consolation, as heartbreaking as it seems, for him to be unaware of that. To think that you are aware of your situation when your body an mind are basically failing would be that much more horrific. Still it's small consolation. His wife also suffered tremendously, as strong and stoic as she is. Living with these diseases takes a toll on everyone around you too.
It makes me so angry, as instead of good memories of the person, you get this ~decade of someone else essentially destroying the memories.
Nicely put. These songs always sadden me. :(
Great analogy, yet also one which may eventually be lost to the mists of time. Much like "disk" icons for "save", younger folks today may have no reference point for what 'radio static' is, or may certainly not in a few years. Between internet radio, self tuning radios, spotify/ipods and satellite radio, "radio static" isn't something I've actively heard myself in many years. Haven't seen a tube TV picture fade away in to a glowing dot in decades either. :/
Is that just a complicated way of saying blue?
(Although I prefer to think that this is a description of an alternate future, not our own future extrapolated, which neatly does away with worries about fax paper).
This comment is a long way of saying ThatsTheJoke.png
[1] sorry jgrahamc!
[2] or analogy.
This is the fall-back position for lazy doctors. I know because I've been through it with my wife and a different condition.
We knew at the time that the diagnosis of depression was bullshit, and immediately sought second (and third) opinions to get to the bottom of what was going on.
Air's less and less clean.
God knows how many chemicals are being added to foods, water, construction, and the environment that are unregulated or poorly studied. I remember seeing something recently like thousands of chemicals are being used without FDA approval.
There's also the grandfather theory or whatever. The few generations before us are some of the first in the industrial revolution, and all of the new exposures in that are causing DNA changes that are propagating to offspring, and newer generations are feeling the negative after effects of it.
Yup, we're fucked.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration,_Evaluation,_Auth...
I don't think I'd agree that air is less and less clean, incidentally. There have been big improvements in clean technology for cars and other vehicles, big reductions in the use of coal in developed countries, and so on.
And I doubt other environmental pollutants are significantly higher than they were in the age before serious environmental legislation (for instance, before the EPA was created)
You might be right about the air cleanliness thing. I recall my father saying how the air was disgusting where I live now, 40 years ago.
[1] http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_10_signs_of_alzheimers...
Generally speaking, this is not a cost-effective approach to medicine.
For Alzheimer's that could be as simple as getting enough sleep for a solid 2-4 weeks. As the disease progresses really slowly waiting that time period has minimal impact, but A the pre-test is cheap and good for you, and B you rule out a lot of false positives.
"given that most of the research is around prevention of damage"
Given that aren't any preventative treatments, you're barking up the wrong tree.
"surely it's better to get tested early if you even remotely suspect there is a chance of it being Alzheimer's."
No, it's surely not.
Testing like that seems pointless to me.
Working: (0.9 * 0.00054) / (0.9 * 0.00054 + 0.1 * 0.99946)
I think my point stands that it doesn't make sense to test for extremely rare diseases because of a self diagnosis.
The onset of Alzheimer's itself is recognizable more by 1. your begining to experience such "brain fog" states more and more often (when otherwise well-rested), and 2. your beginning to experience a bit of "brain fog" all the time, such that you at your "best" is no longer as awake/alert/aware as it was previously.
The loss of memory in Alzheimer's simply means you stop remembering stuff. There's no brain fog so far as I can tell. You just - stop remembering.
It has a lot of unexpected practical effects. You can't give someone new stuff, because they won't recognise it as their's, or remember you gave it to them, and they'll think they've lost the old stuff (or someone has stolen it - which is a common delusion.)
You have to be careful about medication and feeding because they won't remember either. It becomes incredibly easy to overdose on meds by accident, or to forget to eat, or to eat too much.
Likewise shopping. When someone's memory is so poor they can't walk around a store and check things off a list, they need professional help.
After a while conversations become incredibly repetitive. In middle stage AS sufferers literally forget what you said at the start of a sentence before you've finished it. They forget they've already asked the same question six times in the last ten minutes - literally.
You can't teach them anything new at all. So if you try to buy various memory aids or anything that needs a bit of thought or learning, they won't find them useful.
Worst of all is the prospect of personality change. Some people become very agitated, abusive, and even violent - which can be a devastating surprise if they showed no signs of that before.
Eventually they stop recognising people or showing much awareness of their surroundings.
My relative actually became more settled and friendlier, which was a very good thing. But there were a couple of support meetings where we are all wondering which way things were going to go.
If they'd gone the other way, it would have been horrible - well, even more horrible - for everyone.
I can see slight similarities with my dad now. He might repeat the same question within 5 minutes-- this happens when he's really tired.
I remember there was a discussion here about preventative drugs? Anyone one had experience with them?
This could be perfectly normal age related deterioration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_and_aging
There are things you can do to reduce the effect, but it will affect most of us to a certain extent eventually if we live long enough. Heck, I show such symptoms when tired at 37, have done for years, and suspect everyone does too. Also, my late grandmother had problems with names (she'd sometimes run through a couple before getting the right one, even flipping genders part way through the list) but otherwise seemed to have a fairly complete and pretty well polished set of marbles until the end.
Of course if you have any concern you should broach the subject of consulting a relevant doctor. It might be nothing (well, nothing unusual) but it is worth being slightly paranoid with such matters in case it is something significant for which there are treatments to delay, mitigate, or possibly block, more serious ramifications.
One key seems to be remaining active, both mentally and physically. Staying mentally active is a no brainer here (sorry...), and recent studies seem to indicate that the old wisdom of staying active prolongs not just physical fitness but mental awareness and other abilities too (https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28001-why-choosing-th...).
I started to write my check and couldn't remember what date, and even what year, we were in.
Actually, why rushed, or don't like a person I interacting with; my memory fails me, or I say things I don't mean. This one car hussler was trying to buy my car, and doing the "dance"--it's just worth this much to me--dance, and I'll half your advertised price. Well he took me by suprised, with the hard bargaining/bad manners in my garage. I just wanted the guy to go. When he walked out he noticed a '68 Karman Ghia(no rust-complete--good orig. condition). He asked how much. I told me $200.00 I told him I mistook his question later, but to this day I wonder why I said 200.00. I sometimes wonder if I'm that guy who that's not too savy, and gave always to much over the years? I remember giving away my inheritance, and look back and regret it. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but I have a feeling this particular family member manipulated me when I wasen't felling well psychologically?
Anyway, I think stress can play with judgement, and memory. To those that prey on weak individuals, or capitalize on someone's misery; you're not a good person--no amount of denial will take the truth away?