Life Done Right™

The National Family Caregiver Support Program provides states with Federal Grants to help caregivers in their daily chores of looking after seniors who are no longer capable of living on their own. This grant was awarded to programs in North Carolina. Nice to see some of that taxpayer ching providing a real service instead [...]

Arricept sing-along-songs for those who can’t quite seem to remember. Please join Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam in their rendition of “Elderly woman behind the counter in a small town.” All together now…
I seem to recognize your face
Haunting, familiar, yet I can’t seem to place it
Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name
Lifetimes [...]

Away From Her offers an unusual glimpse into Alzheimer’s Disease. It portrays a couple that have lived their whole lives together for forty years. The wife suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease and ends up in a nursing home after being “lost” yet again.
Here’s the kicker, while she’s in the nursing home, she begins to turn [...]

Announcement:
Alzheimer Day was established to showcase Alzheimer’s research conducted at Northwestern and bring this information to the community. The day begins with a lecture by an outstanding researcher followed by 45-50 poster presentations by Northwestern clinicians and scientists who are conducting basic science, clinical and social science research in addition to developing new programs and [...]

It happens at some point: you work for hours and hours on a project, save it to your handy flash memory stick, and then suddenly when you go to print it out later, it’s gone. Vanished. Poof. Like it never existed in the first place. The thought of reproducing hours of work can be so [...]

“They’ll do anything to avoid paying, because if they wait long enough, they know the policyholders will die.”
Insurance companies suck, no doubt about it. They get you to buy an intangible product on the promise that if something should go wrong, don’t worry, we got you covered. As they always like to say in their [...]

The bad news: The Picker Institute Europe for the Patients’ Association recently concluded that a whopping two out of five patients in nursing homes were in constant pain. That’s a whole lot of suffering that sure seems like it could be alleviated by some good prescription drugs. But since the vast majority of people are [...]

Five million people currently have Alzheimer’s Disease, a form of dementia that mucks up the brain chemistry required to make the rest of your body work. This is the first article I’ve read that suggests this disease is in fact a disease and not some rite of passage that comes with growing older. Is this [...]

The glory days of being an NFL superstar may make for a great conversation starter at cocktail parties, but beware, all those hits to the head may turn your brain to mush, Alzheimer’s mush. A couple of NFL wives got together and pressured the NFL to pay for a program called the 88 Plan, which [...]

We were searching for a book called Inheritance by Andrea Stern but stumbled onto Natalie Danford’s book instead. While the cover of Andrea’s book sure does look provocative, the review of Natalie’s brings home the family. Our suggestion: hit Borders and browse the Stern book but buy Natalie’s. Cheap thrills are cheap thrills. Admit it. [...]

Susan Berg is the Activities Director at the Hunt Nursing Home in Danvers, Massachusetts. She’s been working around some of the 4.5 million people with dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease and learned a few things that might help other caregivers. Photographs, it turns out, provide an excellent source of stimulating the memory of those with Alzheimer’s [...]

‘Faith, Hope And Love’ Helps Elderly Shovel Snow
WRTV TheIndyChannel.com via Yahoo! News Sun, 18 Feb 2007
Elderly Hoosiers with a snow-covered sidewalk or driveway often have difficulty figuring out how to dig out, but those who live in Hamilton County can get help from a volunteer group with an intriguing name.
Elderly widow fights to keep cat
UPI [...]

The brain inside your head has a mind of its own when it comes to aging…unless you force it to exercise in a particular way that keeps it active and challenged. Use it or lose it is the brain’s motto. So stop looking at Burt Reynolds and start figuring out how many Japanese Yen equal [...]

The fun thing about science is anyone can dream up an experiment and then test their hypothesis for its validity. With the right controls in place, even a 10-year-old just might discover his or her insight provides a breakthrough in medical knowledge.
Some researchers recently tested the idea of whether social isolation contributes to the [...]

The more you stimulate your brain, the less likely you are to suffer from cognitive impairment later in life, especially from nasty diseases like Alzheimer’s…at least that’s what a host of new companies are saying as they push their brain games into the marketplace.

Here’s a rundown of what’s out there:

Posit Science Brain Fitness Program
The Brain [...]

Good news on the Alzheimer’s Disease front: researchers have discovered genetic markers that indicate a likelihood of getting the disease. Time to buy more kids chemistry sets. The earlier kids get fascinated with science, the better off the health of the world.
Having genetically screened some 6,000 people, the researchers found that in four of their [...]

Great to see researchers have uncovered a clue that might be used in testing for Alzheimer’s Disease.
Scientists appear to have found a fingerprint of Alzheimer’s disease lurking in patients’ spinal fluid, a step toward a long-awaited test for the memory-robbing disease that today can be diagnosed definitively only at autopsy. Researchers at New York’s [...]

Britain, lately, seems to be hellbent on controlling the cost of health care. They have even gone so far as to propose euthanizing severely disabled babies or “hopeless” seniors. Money, reason and profit do not make good health care buddies, that’s for sure.
The Government’s health watchdog faces court action over its decision to deny tens [...]

Galerie Beckel Odille Boicos
Art Exhibition: The Later Works of William Utermohlen

Click here to view works by William Utermohlen
Exhibition description: In 1995, the artist William Utermohlen was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. It was then he embarked on a series of self-portraits that poignantly and powerfully depict his journey living with the disease.
This exhibition showcases these [...]

With the average cost of a nursing home in the $6,000 to $8,000 per month range, you have to wonder why it’s so expensive. One clue just emerged: prescription drugs given to Alzheimer’s patients appear to work no better than placebos.
How much is that worth in practical terms? $2 billion to pharmaceutical companies. How [...]