The reality of Alzheimer’s hits home when mom or dad can no longer be cared for and have to be institutionalized.  Family caregivers have to deal with feelings of guilt associated with locking their parents away.  It’s a difficult decision, one that’s compounded by watching their loved ones drugged into submission.

As Alzheimer’s progresses, patients tend to exhibit more symptoms.  Delusions, hallucinations, sleeplessness and paranoia are commonplace.  Aggression and violent behaviour becomes more and more frequent.

Facilities designed to care for Alzheimer’s patients will often prescribe antipsychotic drugs to deal with these symptoms.  The result of this course of treatment turns mom or dad into mindless zombies and the patients labelled as “problems patients” are drugged into submission.

Witnessing a parent who was vibrant and active suddenly sedate and immobile will upset families.

Is it wrong for institutions to take this course of treatment for the Alzheimer’s patients?  Are their alternatives to antipsychotic drugs?  Are other things causing the behaviours that could signal something else happening to the patient?

As a first course of treatment, using antipsychotic drugs to treat Alzheimer’s is wrong.

While there may be challenging behaviours being shown by the people affected with this brain disease, there may be some underlying condition causing them to be inconsolable or in a state of persistent distress.

Family caregivers should not accept antipsychotics as a first course of treatment and they should become advocates for their loved ones.  There may be another medical condition causing the decline and symptoms may exist to point to other conditions preventing the patient from receiving the care necessary to curb the “undesirable” behaviour.

Before turning to antipsychotics to treat Alzheimer’s or any dementia, it is important to have the patient undergo a full medical evaluation to ensure some other health issue is not causing or at least contributing to the problem.

As a family caregiver, chances are you have legal authority to make medical decisions regarding your parent.  Insist on a consultation with a neurologist, geriatric psychiatrist or geriatrician before approving the use of antipsychotic medications on the Alzheimer’s patient.

This is your right!

Institutions given authority to prescribe antipsychotics to Alzheimer’s patients generally do so in high doses.  This will turn your loved one into a zombie.  This will put your loved one in a state of coma.  This will cause a rapid deterioration of your loved ones health.

These drugs may be effective at improving the quality of life of Alzheimer’s patients when prescribed in doses that do not overly sedate.  However, it is common practice to use these drugs to improve the quality of life of the workers given the responsibility to care for the patients themselves by drugging the patients into submission.

Using antipsychotic drugs properly with a proper plan of care will improve the quality of life of the Alzheimer’s patient and will also improve the quality of life for the caregiver.  It won’t change the fact the person is still suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia but the problem behaviours can be reduced.

Antipsychotic drugs have very dangerous side effects especially at the levels typically used to sedate Alzheimer’s patients into submission.  These drugs raise the risk of heart attack and stroke, and have been shown to cause death in older adults, the exact demographic that generally suffers from Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Quite often, antipsychotic drugs have never been officially approved for treatment of dementia or Alzheimer’s based behaviours.  The drugs are prescribed through a practice called off-label prescribing.

This is not to say antipsychotics don’t have a place in treating Alzheimer’s patients.  They can and have shown to have benefits when used in smaller doses.

As a family caregiver, it is important you weigh the pros and cons of using these drugs.  They can provide a balance and restore a quality of life the Alzheimer’s patient has not seen in some time.

However, facing the reality that this is a disease that will progress and will reduce the life of your loved one may have to factor in when making a treatment decision.

There are some difficult decisions you will have to make and do some soul-searching.  How long will your parent live with the disease?  Are you prepared to have their lives shortened by using antipsychotic drugs?  Are you willing to sit and watch your loved one being drugged into submission?  How will you cope with the guilt this will cause in yourself?

At the end of the day you are still the caregiver.  You have to make the decisions and be the advocate for your parents.  Never give blanket approval for using antipsychotics without talking to other healthcare professionals.

Make the best decision for your loved one and for your own peace of mind.

This nutritional drink in this Alzheimer’s clinical trial is thought to have an ability to improve overall cognitive performance in Alzheimer’s patients with mild to moderate forms of the degenerative brain disease.

Following on recent clinical studies conducted in Europe, where the nutritional drink known as Souvenaid was shown to have improve verbal recall in Alzheimer’s patients during a three-month study.  The current study at Rush University wanted to determine if Souvenaid could slow the degeneration of memory in those people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease.

The European results showed that Souvenaid improved verbal recall in patients suffering from mild Alzheimer’s disease.  Of the 225 patients studied, patients suffering from mild Alzheimer’s were randomly divided into two groups, with one being given Souvenaid and the other a placebo.

The current study will see 500 patients with both mild and moderate Alzheimer’s disease on FDA approved Alzheimer’s medications will take part in the double-blind study.  Half of these patients will take 4 ounces of Souvenaid for 24 weeks and the other have will take a placebo similar in flavor, color and composition.

Researchers will test whether the Alzheimer’s patients show improvements in cognitive and functional performance in areas such as memory, language, attention/concentration, executive functioning, information processing and recall.

If Souvenaid is shown to be effective at improving cognitive function , this nutritional drink may be used to supplement Alzheimer’s disease treatments in the near future.

The electromagnetic waves generated by cell phones impact on beta amyloid, a build up of protein associated with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, seem to be reduced from cell phone usage.

The study was conducted on mice engineered to contract Alzheimer’s disease.  An antenna was placed in their cage and delivered the some dose of electromagnetic radiation adults are exposed to when using cell phones.  Exposure was for two, one-hour periods for 7-9 months.

Mice that showed signs of Alzheimer’s disease showed a reversal of Alzheimer’s symptoms.  Memory in these mice improved throughout the course of the study showning their Alzheimer’s was indeed reversing.  Mice that had previously shown no Alzheimer’s symptoms were completely protected from the brain disease.

What was even more astonishing in this Alzheimer’s research was the normal mice showed improvement in their cognitive function.

This amazing Alzheimer’s research has implications for others who may suffer from brain injuries.  Beta amyloid also builds up in those people suffering from brain injury and this research may not only benefit Alzheimer’s patients but also these patients.

With Alzheimer’s disease affecting 1 in 10 adults over the age of 55, this potential treatment for Alzheimer’s with a potential for reversing the disease could have major implications in future treatments.  If reversing Alzheimer’s disease is possible, this will dramatically improve the quality of life for Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers.?

The research conducted was focusing on determining if ginkgo biloba had an ability to slow the rate of cognitive decline and help fight off progression of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.  The research into the effects of ginkgo biloba on Alzheimer’s disease was carried out on 3000 people over the age of 72.

As part of the study, people were categorized into two groups with one half taking ginkgo biloba supplements twice daily and the other half taking a placebo.  Patients taking ginkgo biloba were prescribed 120 milligrams per dosage.

At the end of the study it was concluded that ginkgo biloba was not any better at preventing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia than the placebo.  The use of the herbal supplement did not slow the rate of cognitive decline that is associated with both brain disorders Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Additionally, researchers concluded that there were no effect found in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease or the early stages of dementia when patients were taking ginkgo biloba.

Research into the effects of Ginkgo Biloba on Alzheimer’s disease and dementia was conducted at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

There is no known cure for Alzheimer’s disease.  In fact, there is no treatment that will top the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

Without the existence of a cure for Alzheimer’s and treatments to stop its progression, what options are open to Alzheimer’s patients and their families seeking support?

Currently in Canada and the United States, there are several medications that have shown to slow the decline of memory, language and thinking abilities in those people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.  While not a cure for Alzheimer’s, these drugs do provide patients and families with some relief from the symptoms associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

There are three drugs used to treat patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease.  These include Aricept, Exelon and Reminyl.  Moderate to advanced Alzheimer’s disease is treated with Ebixa and Aricept.

It is important to remember that these drugs are not a cure for Alzheimer’s disease and merely treat the symptoms associated with Alzheimer’s.

Aricept is not a cure for Alzheimer’s disease but is used as an Alzheimer’s treatment for people with mild, moderate and advanced Alzheimer’s symptoms.

People with Alzheimer’s disease show a progressive degeneration in nerve cells, especially those that make acetylcholine – a chemical thought to be important for both learning and memory.  The Alzheimer’s treatment Aricept works principally by reducing the breakdown of acetylcholine, resulting in more of this chemical being present in the brain of those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

With such an Alzheimer’s disease treatment, it has been suggested based on research data that Aricept enhances the action of acetylcholine by making receptors more responsive in the brain.

People treated with the Alzheimer’s disease treatment Aricept may take as long as 12 weeks to show signs of responding to the drug treatment.

In recent developments, the FDA approved a generic version of the Alzheimer’s disease treatment Aricept.

Ebixa is not a cure for Alzheimer’s disease but treats Alzheimer’s symptoms by stabilizing the decline in cognition and daily function.

The Alzheimer’s treatment Ebixa is one of a group of drugs classed as a NMDA receptor antagonists.

Alzheimer’s disease causes nerve cells to leak large quantities of glutamate which leads to excessive interaction with the NMDA receptors resulting in the disease or death of the receiving nerve cells.  With the Alzheimer’s disease treatment Ebixa, the drug interacts with the NMDA receptors and prevent glutamate from interacting with the receiving cells.  This results in the normal transmission of nerve messages between nerve cells.

With such an Alzheimer’s disease treatment, there is a slowing in the decline of memory and cognition in those patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

Ebixa can be used by itself or in conjunction with other Alzheimer’s disease treatments.

People treated with the Alzheimer’s disease treatment Ebixa may take as long as 12 weeks to show signs of responding to the drug treatment.

Dimebon or dimebolin hydrochloride is an older Russian drug that was commonly used as an antihistamine.  Dimebon has shown to have successes in preventing brain cell deaths associated with brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Both pre-clinical trials and Russian research has shown dimebon as a promising new Alzheimer’s treatment.  When used to treat Alzheimer’s patients, dimebon resulted in improved thinking, memory and behavioral functions in early to mid-stage Alzheimer’s patients.

Entering into clinical trials as an Alzheimer’s disease treatment, dimebon is hoped to provide a new therapy for Alzheimer’s disease within the next 10 years.

Brain disorders Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s have been shown to be impacted by amyloids.  With this discovery of this chemical in green tea, researchers hope to use these findings to develop a cure for these brains diseases.

In their research, scientists discovered that amyloid plaques associated with the development of Alzheimer’s disease would break apart and dissolve when exposed to a green tea compound epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG).  While this green tea compound shows promise as a treatment for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, researchers caution that further studies are required.

Another study published in 2006 showed those older adults who drank the most green tea were least likely to demonstrate weakened brain function.

The medicinal effects of green tea have been documented through many other studies.  Its effects on Alzheimer’s disease is a positive step towards finding an effective treatment or cure.

These latest results for this Alzheimer’s disease treatment were recently reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In exploring the theorized effects of an overproduction of amyloid-beta researchers hoped that tarenflurbil, a selective amyloid-beta lowering agent, as an Alzheimer’s disease treatment would be beneficial.  Amyloid-beta is a peptide composed of certain amino acids that appear in brain plaques of patients with Alzheimer’s and it is thought to contribute to the onset of the brain disease.

In performing its Phase III trials on this Alzheimer’s treatment researcher was conducted at 133 research sites and involved 1,684 participants.  Patients were randomized to receive the Alzheimer’s disease treatment consisting of 800mg tarenflurbil or a placebo.  A total of 1,046 Alzheimer’s patients completed the 18-month trial.

Researchers concluded that the Alzhiemer’s treatment had no beneficial effect on the primary outcomes of cognition and activities of living after the 18-month trial.  In examining secondary outcomes such as quality of life and caregiver burden, this Alzheimer’s disease treatment showed no significant differences in those outcomes.

While participating in the trials, patients receiving the Alzheimer’s treatment tarenflurbil showed more incidents of dizziness, upper respiratory tract infections and anemia than those taking the placebo.

These Phase III results of this Alzheimer’s disease treatment were somewhat surprising given the encouraging results shown from a Phase II trial.