Alzheimer’sNotes.com 
By most standards, I’d be categorized a “senior.”  As I wrote the previous post, Should All Seniors Be Tested for Alzheimer’s?, I began thinking about how this would affect me personally,
  I asked for others to share their thoughts.  So I’ll begin:
Do I want to be tested?  More specifically, do I want someone to say, “You MUST be tested for Alzheimer’s or your likeliness of acquiring it?”
Because my aunt and mother had Alzheimer’s disease, someone could say, “You’re more likely to get it.  So in that case, you MUST be tested.”  Or they simply might consider it a good idea to be tested.
I …read more

Professor Simon Lovestone from Kings College talks about a potential blood test to detect Alzheimer’s Disease:

A new study links blood inflammation in the brain to Alzheimer’s disease:

For older adults, difficulty identifying common odors may indicate an increased risk of developing diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.
An article recently published in the Archives of General Psychiatry documents a study by the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago that looked at the correlation between smell and mental impairment. The study tested nearly 600 people ranging in age from 54 to 100 over a period of five years on their ability to identify 12 familiar odors (onion, lemon, cinnamon, black pepper, chocolate, rose, banana, pineapple, soap, paint thinner, gasoline, and smoke)
The results:
“The people who made at least four errors on …read more

Depression is a common occurrence with people suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, especially amongst those who are able to realize that their memory and normal functioning abilities are worsening.
Identifying depression in someone suffering from Alzheimer’s disease is difficult as dementia itself can create many of the signs and symptoms commonly associated with depression.
Doctors, therefore, have to rely heavily on nonverbal clues such as:
- apathy
- expressing feelings of worthlessness and sadness
- change in sleeping patterns
- loss of appetite and losing weight
- extreme emotional reactions (ie inappropriate or unusually emotional crying, anger, or agitation)
- refusal to participate in their own personal cares (ie …read more

“Emma, it was so nice of the boys [her grandsons] to bring my plants when we moved here,” Mother commented, as we sat at the breakfast table one morning after I arrived from my home 275 miles away to spend a few days with her.
Mother was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and had begun to get confused.  But now I was confused.  Mother, and my dad when he was alive, had lived at this house for more than 20 years.
“Moved here?”  I asked.  “When did you move here?”
“A few days ago,” she answered.  “The boys and I moved here from …read more