Estelle Getty, who played ‘the meddling mother’ Sophia in the hit sitcom Golden Girls died on Tuesday at the age of 84. She was suffering from advanced parkinsons and dementia.
Here’s a video tribute that I found over at youtube to help us remember this dynamite lady…

                   
Carol O’Dell visits us today at Alzheimer’s Notes to share her thoughts concerning Mothering Mother, a humorous and heartbreaking memoir about caring for her mother who developed Parkinson’s disease and a heart condition.  Carol faced situations many of us have in caring for a family member afflicted with Alzheimer’s.  The world of caregiving has many commonalities and brings us together to share, to cry, to laugh…and then realize, “It’s okay.  Someone else felt like this, too.  I’m not alone.”
(If you’d like to read an excerpt from Mothering Mother, visit her web site.  )
Mary Emma – People often ask …read more

I continue to find articles about antioxident foods that may come into play in warding off or slowing down Alzheimer’s.  An article about Dates, Cranberries, Red Grapes and Expresso in Medical News Today discusses these foods as helping control dementias such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Researchers are coming to believe that these are among the foods that help combat oxidative stress involved in neurodegeneration.  The article about this research was recently published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation by Doras Dias-Santagata, a Portuguese scientist and her colleagues.

Research is continual for causes and cures for Alzheimer’s disease.  One of the latest news items involves a nerve toxin found in an ocean snail.  Researchers at the Univ. of Utah have been studying the possibility of developing a drug from this nerve toxin to combat neurological diseases including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
For more information, check out Alzheimer’s Daily News (www.alznews.org) for Aug. 22.