Mom has adjusted to living at the retirement center. That's what it's called, but even the staff calls it a nursing home. Much as we know Mom wants to be in her own home, she accepts that we need for her to be in a safe place because she wants us to keep living our lives. She doesn't want us to put our lives on hold to take care of her.
She looks very well. There are people who talk to her and then say to a staffer, "That woman does NOT have Alzheimer's." Well, if they were around for a little while they would see that, indeed, she does. She still talks about her trip to the North Pole. (She never went there.) It was actually a trip to Nova Scotia. Mom had painted a picture from Peggy's Cove that she found on a calendar. She wanted to go there to see it. Dad said he wasn't going, so she got into the truck (camper on the back) and drove herself to Peggy's Cove.
As my brother described AD, it's like the thoughts go along the track in the brain and short circuit when they reach the gunked up spots and when the short circuit occurs, thoughts become jumbled. That's quite a graphic to consider.
I was reading ADRC Pathways, the University of Pittsburgh Alzheimer Disease Research Center's fall 2009 newsletter. (You can probably read the same stories at www.adrc.pitt.edu.) Headline: ADRC Embarks on new study of brain aging in cognitively normal volunteers. Essentially, they want to use "state-of-the-art brain [imaging] of our volunteers who are cognitively normal as part of a new study on brain aging."
I have to tell you, I'm tempted to call them and say, "Let's do it!" I am terrified that I will be the next generation of AD in my family. When I visited Mom this evening everyone said they knew who I belonged to without even asking!
By studying the aging process of normal, healthy aging brains, they will study the subtle changes that occur to the brain over time and get a look at what leads to the development of AD/dementia. Perhaps it will even result in finding treatment for early diagnosed AD. And wouldn't that be a wonderful thing since it was announced at the July 2009 international Alzheimer's conference held in Vienna, Austria, that AD is at epidemic proportions globally?
As my brother described AD, it's like the thoughts go along the track in the brain and short circuit when they reach the gunked up spots and when the short circuit occurs, thoughts become jumbled. That's quite a graphic to consider.
I was reading ADRC Pathways, the University of Pittsburgh Alzheimer Disease Research Center's fall 2009 newsletter. (You can probably read the same stories at www.adrc.pitt.edu.) Headline: ADRC Embarks on new study of brain aging in cognitively normal volunteers. Essentially, they want to use "state-of-the-art brain [imaging] of our volunteers who are cognitively normal as part of a new study on brain aging."
I have to tell you, I'm tempted to call them and say, "Let's do it!" I am terrified that I will be the next generation of AD in my family. When I visited Mom this evening everyone said they knew who I belonged to without even asking!
By studying the aging process of normal, healthy aging brains, they will study the subtle changes that occur to the brain over time and get a look at what leads to the development of AD/dementia. Perhaps it will even result in finding treatment for early diagnosed AD. And wouldn't that be a wonderful thing since it was announced at the July 2009 international Alzheimer's conference held in Vienna, Austria, that AD is at epidemic proportions globally?
(c) 2009 Cathy Thomas Brownfield
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