Alzheimer's: Vision May Play a Role

Trouble communicating leads to frustration, uncooperative behavior

(NEWSER) - Even after they lose the ability to communicate easily, Alzheimer’s disease patients remain aware of the world around them and know when they're being talked down to, a study shows. Video evidence suggests patients are twice as likely to accept help from caregivers, and to not shut down or become distressed, when addressed not as children but as adults, the Chicago Tribune reports. More»

(USER SUBMITTED) - Sudoku, crosswords, and even listening to the radio may not be all they're cracked up to be when it comes to staving off mental decline. A study by researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago indicates that once diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimer's, increased brain activity may actually accelerate the rate of decline. For those without dementia, the rate was reduced, in line with previous studies. Read the full article . More»

Lowering it won't necessarily help, studies suggest

(NEWSER) - High cholesterol in middle age may increase a person’s future risk of Alzheimer’s disease, NPR reports. “Our study shows that even moderately high cholesterol levels in your 40s puts people at greater risk for Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia in later life,” says one researcher, who worked on a study of nearly 10,000 people that began in the 1960s. More»

(NEWSER) - States across the US are moving to create procedures that would alert the public about older people in the grips of dementia who’ve gone missing, the AP reports. The so-called “Silver Alert” system has already been taken up by 15 states, and the House has approved a national measure. Statistically, around 60% of Alzheimer’s patients, and those similarly impaired, will wander from caregivers at least once. More»

(NEWSER) - The Alzheimer’s patient had forgotten nearly everything, including his own name, but the sound of Frank Sinatra moved him to grab his wife and dance. The phenomenon demonstrates how deep-seated music is in the human brain, Sara Davidson writes for the New York Times’ New Old Age blog. “If someone sang to you as a baby, before you even knew words, you’ll respond to music after words are gone.” More»