Dementia

Treating high blood pressure in the very elderly may help reduce their risk of developing dementia, according to a report Monday in the journal Lancet Neurology. The findings were based on an analysis of four studies looking at the effects of blood pressure drugs in several thousand elderly patients. When data was pooled, the combined results showed that taking medication to reduce blood pressure also cut the risk of dementia by 13%. More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, accounting for 60% to 80% of cases.

Over the objections of Los Angeles County mental health officials, a judge Thursday ordered an 86-year-old murder defendant to remain in the government's care and not be released to a family member. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Norman Shapiro said that Nattie Kennebrew, who in 2009 allegedly shot and killed a handyman and tried to kill the manager at the Hollywood apartment building where he lived, must remain at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino and that the county must pay for his care.

The "good" cholesterol that removes fatty plaque from the body may also be linked to memory, and low levels may indicate a risk for dementia, a British study found. Researchers tracking the health of 3,673 British civil servants found that, at age 55, those with low levels of good cholesterol, known as HDL, were 27% more likely to have memory loss than those with high levels. The gap grew with time, so that memory problems were 53% more common in those with the least HDL by the time they hit age 60. Still, it's too soon to try to raise HDL to ward off dementia, researchers said.

While former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was reported to have died of stroke on Monday, few experts doubt that dementia, the disease she lived with for at least the final 12 years of her life, contributed powerfully to her demise. "Dementia means brain failure, and brain failure ultimately causes death from immobility, malnutrition and infection," among other downstream effects, said Dr. Paul S. Aisen, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study at the University of California San Diego.

My 82-year-old mother has been accusing family members of spying on her, listening in on her phone conversations and entering her home when she's not there, among other things, off and on for about 10 years. She told her doctor she won't talk with us. Is there anything we can do? Are there resources and/or free counseling services to help us work out issues with our mom so we can talk with her doctor? You can try to contact your mom's doctor to discuss her condition, particularly given that you're concerned she may be suffering from dementia and unable to properly care for herself.

Beta blockers, a venerable class of blood pressure drugs that has fallen from favor in recent years, may help protect the aging brain against changes linked to Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia that rob memory and mental function, new research indicates. In autopsies on the brains of 774 men after their deaths, scientists found that those who took beta blockers to help control hypertension had fewer of the brain lesions and less of the brain shrinkage seen in Alzheimer's than men who took other types of blood pressure medications and those who left the condition untreated.

John Mackey, who helped revolutionize the NFL's tight end position and whose post-football struggles with dementia became emblematic of the brutality of the game, has died. He was 69. Mackey died Wednesday in Baltimore after a 10-year battle with frontal temporal dementia, the Baltimore Sun reported. A former president of the NFL Players Assn., Mackey spent 10 seasons with the Baltimore Colts and San Diego Chargers, catching 331 passes for 5,236 yards and 38 touchdowns — including a 75-yard score on a tipped ball to help lift the Colts over the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl V in 1971.

While former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was reported to have died of stroke on Monday, few experts doubt that dementia, the disease she lived with for at least the final 12 years of her life, contributed powerfully to her demise. "Dementia means brain failure, and brain failure ultimately causes death from immobility, malnutrition and infection," among other downstream effects, said Dr. Paul S. Aisen, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study at the University of California San Diego.

Experimental drug treatments promising to slow or reverse the progression of Alzheimer's disease will need to be assessed with a new and more subtle set of rules, a pair of FDA officials wrote this week. The resulting new guidelines, predict some researchers, should allow Alzheimer's drugs under development to travel a faster path to the U.S. market -- and to the more than 5 million Americans who need them. The new guidelines, issued to drug developers last month and outlined this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, reflect a growing shift among both physicians and researchers toward earlier detection and treatment of the memory-robbing disease.

"Hello Mr. Lopez, I would very much like to meet with you. I think you will find that I have some pertinent things to say. " The email was from Dr. Arthur Rivin, 89, professor emeritus of medicine at UCLA. Rivin said he had been diagnosed in September 2009 with Alzheimer's disease, but then, something rare and amazing had happened. Using a program of therapy he developed himself, he claimed, he was now greatly improved. If I took the time to meet with him and hear all about it, Rivin suggested, together "we will do something big!"

The financial toll of caring for Americans with dementia adds up to at least $159 billion a year, making it more expensive than treatments for patients with heart disease or cancer, according to a new report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dementia is characterized by a group of symptoms that prevent people from carrying out the tasks of daily living. Reduced mental function makes it impossible for them to do things like keep track of their medications or their finances.

Experimental drug treatments promising to slow or reverse the progression of Alzheimer's disease will need to be assessed with a new and more subtle set of rules, a pair of FDA officials wrote this week. The resulting new guidelines, predict some researchers, should allow Alzheimer's drugs under development to travel a faster path to the U.S. market -- and to the more than 5 million Americans who need them. The new guidelines, issued to drug developers last month and outlined this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, reflect a growing shift among both physicians and researchers toward earlier detection and treatment of the memory-robbing disease.

Beta blockers, a venerable class of blood pressure drugs that has fallen from favor in recent years, may help protect the aging brain against changes linked to Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia that rob memory and mental function, new research indicates. In autopsies on the brains of 774 men after their deaths, scientists found that those who took beta blockers to help control hypertension had fewer of the brain lesions and less of the brain shrinkage seen in Alzheimer's than men who took other types of blood pressure medications and those who left the condition untreated.

Getting an early diagnosis of dementia could lead to finding ways to cope - and it could mean feeling bereft at what the future holds. So do you want to know? The early diagnosis of and intervention for Alzheimer's and other dementia has become an increasing priority, but that means the patients and their informal caregivers are left facing many issues regarding their futures that need to be considered, researchers said Tuesday. The researchers, from several British universities, reviewed 102 studies from 14 countries to consider the ramifications on patients and caregivers of a dementia diagnosis.

  Former Detroit Lions All-Pro and actor Alex Karras has been given only a few days to live because of kidney failure. “The entire Detroit Lions family is deeply saddened to learn of the news regarding the condition of one of our all-time greats, Alex Karras,” Lions President Tom Lewand said. “Perhaps no player in Lions history attained as much success and notoriety for what he did after his playing days as did Alex. The 77-year-old Karras has been suffering from dementia . He is among the many former NFL players suing the league regarding the treatment of head injuries . Detroit drafted him 10th overall out of Iowa in 1958 and he was a standout for 12 seasons.

Jim McMahon calls baseball his first love and says he probably would have chosen a career in that sport if he had been given the opportunity.  Had he done so, however, McMahon never would have become that "punky QB" who shuffled all the way to a Super Bowl victory with the Chicago Bears in 1986, a gig that the former quarterback says still helps pay the bills today. “That was my first love, was baseball, and had I had a scholarship to play baseball. I probably would have played just baseball,” McMahon said in an interview that aired Wednesday on Fox affiliate WFLD-TV.

About to uncork that bottle of merlot? A study finds that moderate drinking may decrease the risk of dementia and cognitive decline in older people. Researchers analyzed 143 studies that looked at the association between moderate alcohol consumption and mental abilities. The meta-analysis, published this month in the journal Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment , looked at research dating back to 1977. Studies done between 1977 and 1997 mostly focused on younger people ages 18 to 54 and for the most part sought to determine whether moderate drinking had any damaging effects; Overall it didn't, said Michael Collins, the study's co-author and professor in the department of molecular pharmacology and therapeutics at Loyola University Chicago, Stritch School of Medicine . Later studies from 1998 to the present focused more on mental status tests examining memory and cognitive function among mostly older people, he added, and most showed that drinking moderate levels of alcohol showed no effect or a decreased risk of dementia and cognitive impairment compared to control groups.

Novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez is unable to write, his brother said recently, because of dementia cancer treatments. But a colleague has told the N.Y. Times that the author is no more impaired than the average 85-year-old. “I saw him in April,”  Jaime Abellos, the director of the Gabriel García Márquez New Journalism Foundation in Cartagena, Colombia, told the N.Y. Times . “He is a man of 85 with the normal signs of his age.”  That runs counter to the assessment of Marquez's decline put forward by his brother Jaime Garcia Marquez.

Nobody disputes that 85-year-old Lorraine Sullivan steered her Toyota Corolla into oncoming traffic, causing a crash that killed her longtime boyfriend, who was in the front passenger seat. But she is not the one in a Santa Ana courtroom this week facing a wrongful death lawsuit for the 2010 accident. Her doctor is. Dr. Arthur Daigneault, who practices near the retirement community of Laguna Woods Village and caters to the elderly, is being sued by the family of William Powers.

A doctor who deemed his 85-year-old dementia patient fit to drive bears no responsibility for her fatal car accident in 2010, an Orange County jury found Thursday. With longtime partner William Powers in the front passenger seat, Lorraine Sullivan turned their Toyota into the path of a fast-approaching Mercedes. Sullivan survived the crash, but Powers, 90, died of his injuries six weeks later. His family sued her doctor, Arthur Daigneault, for wrongful death, arguing that the physician should have deemed Sullivan a danger on the road and acted to have her license revoked.