Final Stages of Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer's disease is a progressive degenerative brain disorder. Early symptoms of the disease are difficult to distinguish from the normal signs of aging. Diagnosis & Treatment of Mild to Moderate Alzheimer's Disease As it progresses, the late stage symptoms are clearly identifiable as additional symptoms appear and others worsen.

Severe to Late Stage Alzheimer Disease:

Facts

• Millions of Americans suffer from Alzheimer's disease. The vast majority of these individuals are over the age of 65 but younger-onset Alzheimer's disease can strike individuals who are in their 30s. Treatments available only address the symptoms of the disease; they do not stop or delay its progression and there is no cure.

  The final stage of Alzheimer's disease can last anywhere from three months to three years before death occurs. During the final stage of Alzheimer's disease, the individual can no longer meet any of his own basic needs and depends on family, friends and caretakers to take care of him.

End-Stage Symptoms

• By the final stage of Alzheimer's disease, the individual has lost the ability to communicate and even the ability to smile. While he may utter understandable words and phrases occasionally, it is the exception rather than the norm and is not willfully done.

  Further, the individual will no longer be able to tend to her own toileting needs and will be incontinent with her bladder and bowels. She will no longer be able to bathe, brush her teeth, brush her hair or dress herself. She will depend on family, friends and caretakers to complete these tasks.

  The individual in the final stage of Alzheimer's will no longer be able to control his movements. If he can still walk, he will need assistance (most people in this stage will be wheelchair-bound or bedridden).

  In this late stage, he or she will also no longer be able to hold her head up independently, and due to muscle atrophy, they will have difficulty swallowing, requiring a diet of pureed foods and will need others to feed them.

  A person in the the last stage of Alzheimer's is no longer able to communicate the fact that she doesn't feel well and must be monitored on a daily basis by family, caregivers and friends for any signs of illness or pain. Fever, appearing pale and changes in behavior are all signs of a potential infection or illness.

Warning

• Once a person is in the final stages of Alzheimer's, he generally requires care on a constant basis. It is important for family members who serve as caregivers to have a strong support network.

Hospice

• Doctors determine the appropriateness of hospice care by observing several factors. Not being able to communicate in a meaningful way and no longer being able to walk are criteria doctors use to determine when to order hospice care. A third factor is if the person is diagnosed with a dementia-related health issue, such as aspiration pneumonia, urinary tract infections and weight loss.

  When hospice care becomes necessary, family members face making decisions about resuscitation orders (DNRs), feeding tubes and ventilators. Hospice care, after all, focuses on end-of-life comfort, not prolonging life. Ideally, though, it's best to make these decisions upon the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

Considerations

• Conventional medicine takes a drug centered approach. (See the Rockefeller Drug Empire)  If you really want to challenge this disease a holistic approach might be the answer… before the onset or at the early stages, and for some even at the moderate or late stages. (See Dr. Blaylock below). Centers like Sanoviv focused on finding the source of illnesses, cleansing the body and natural healing one might find answers and even cures with programs like: Sanoviv recommended program "NeuroRepair" and "CCSVI".
• The survival rate for patients with late stage Alzheimer's is one to two and a half years.
• New medications are available to help slow the rate of the disease and the amount of harm done, but there is not cure and it will continue to progress, to the question is slowing the inevitable when someone is suffering the right decision?
• According to the Alzheimer's Disease Education & Referral Center (ADEAR), scientists have identified at least two genes that seem to be related to an increased risk in developing Alzheimer's. A healthy lifestyle, including a robust social life, are suggested as ways to prevent or delay Alzheimer's.

Related:

7 Alzheimer's Triggers by Dr. Blaylock – definitely worth listening to!!

Find Dementia Care

Games for Alzheimer's

Alzheimer's Homes

Technorati Tags: Alzheimer's,Alzheimer's disease,caretakers,dementia,Alzheimer's Association,aging. drug based medicine,Rockefeller,Dr. Blaylock

Warning Signs: A New Test to Predict Alzheimer's

By:  ALICE PARK

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and the University of Pittsburgh have developed the first screening tool that can help predict whether elderly patients are at low, moderate or high risk of developing dementia. The new test takes into account characteristic risk factors for dementia, including advanced age and the presence of genes associated with Alzheimer's, but also relies on lesser-known contributors such as patients' body weight and alcohol-drinking habits.

Detecting the earliest signs of memory loss and dementia — the broader category of age-related conditions of mental decline, up to 80% of which are Alzheimer's — has always been a major goal of researchers. While there is no cure for Alzheimer's, the earlier patients are diagnosed, the sooner they can make lifestyle changes that may help slow the progression of the neurodegenerative disorder. But so far, no test has proven dependable enough to help patients predict their true risk; even the presence of genes known to be associated with Alzheimer's does not reliably lead to the disease.

To date, the only other major screening tool for Alzheimer's was developed by Finnish scientists in 2006. However, that screen is targeted toward a younger population and designed to identify the highest-risk individuals in midlife. But considering how many factors may intervene between midlife and the 60s — the decade in which Alzheimer's typically sets in — Deborah Barnes, a professor of psychiatry at UCSF, says she wanted to develop a screen for the older population more likely to be at immediate risk of the disease.

"It's important to figure out who is at high risk and low risk, so that as we develop tools for prevention, we can try to target our prevention efforts at people with the highest risk for developing dementia," says Barnes, lead author of the new report published today in the journal Neurology. 

Barnes and her colleagues studied 3,375 patients age 65 years or older who were enrolled in a study analyzing heart disease and cognition. Researchers recorded which of the patients developed dementia in the six-year study period, then isolated the risk factors that appeared to make dementia more likely. Many factors were considered: age, genetic risk factors, mental health status, depression, physical fitness, alcohol consumption, fine motor skills and social support. In the end, only a handful of factors, arranged on a 15-point scale, emerged as being highly predictive of dementia.

Volunteers who scored eight points or higher on the index — which includes older age, worse cognitive function, some heart disease risk factors and the presence of genes linked to Alzheimer's — were at high risk of developing dementia within six years; 56% of these high scorers showed serious mental decline by the end of the study period. Of those scoring lower on the index, deemed at moderate or low risk, 23% were diagnosed with dementia. 

Many of the risk factors included in the new screen are familiar: advanced age and the presence of Alzheimer's genes (which are associated with the growth of fatty plaques and tangles in the brain that gum up neural connections), for example, have long been clearly linked to dementia. Even heart disease risk factors are somewhat expected, since recent studies show that the same conditions that boost the risk of heart attack, such as high cholesterol, hypertension and atherosclerosis, may also raise the risk of dementia; the theory is that whatever is causing fat deposits in heart vessels may also contribute to fat and protein deposits in the Alzheimer's brain.

Related Resources:

• Sanoviv Medical Center
  
• Big Red Juice

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• Alzheimer’s Research Holds Promise
  

How does a pool work for detox? part 1

Lap Pool at Sanoviv

How does a pool work for detox? part 1

 In order to explain the benefits of certain pools, we will have to give you a bit of background on toxins and how they work.

The core of Sanoviv’s vision is: “The Cell is meant out to live healthy. Within its DNA there are all the necessary instructions for it to repair any damage, providing we take the cell to a more natural state. The causes of all the diseases of the cell are:

• Lack of proper micronutrients (Quantity & Quality)
• Free Radical & Oxidation Damage (10,000 hits per cell per day)
• Accumulation of Toxins (True venoms for the microscopic world of cells)

But let’s focus today on Toxins… Better, let’s focus on the Detox process of the use of ourthermal-mineral enriched-Jacuzzi pools. Our body is naturally exposed to toxins, and as such, it has powerful systems to deal with such toxins. But the pace of exposure to man-made toxins has increased in few years 1,000 fold… and the body’s Detox pathways have become insufficient to deal with such an amount of trash. Normally, the body will Detox through the following pathways:

• Lungs
• Skin
• Urination (Kidney’s function)
• Defecation
• Liver
• Lymphatic System and Nodes
• Chemical buffers (which neutralize some harmful substances)

When our intake of toxins is more than the capacities of the body to handle… the body starts to store such harmful chemicals as far away from vital tissues or organs. The body will then store extra pollutants in regions such as:

• Fat tissue
• Inter-cellular spaces
• Eventually and other tissues

We intake toxins through:

• Skin (lotions, creams, soaps, other chemicals)
• Breathing (cigarette smoke, car fumes, etc)
• Drinking (artificial of all sorts… normally not found in a natural drink)
• Eating (with preservatives, artificial sweeteners, etc)

Our modern world is toxic, and being exposed to it is a certainty, that is why it is important to understand the pools, because such a simple system you can replicate at home.

So, how does a pool work for detox?…. for the answer, log on next week for the next chapter my friends…

by The Sanoviv team | April 1st, 2009 - Sanoviv Medical Institute

Sanoviv Virtual Tour Video

This is a virtual tour of the fabulous Sanoviv facility.

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• Sanoviv Medical Center
• USANA

 SALT LAKE CITY -- Dr. Myron Wentz, founder, chairman, and CEO of USANA Health Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: USNA), and Sanoviv Medical Center was honored with the Albert Einstein Award  for Outstanding Achievement in the Life Sciences.

Where Are The Goji Berries?

"Where are the Goji berries?" ... is fast becoming the most-heard phrase in many health food stores around the world.

If you have not yet heard of goji juice, you will soon. The goji berry has occupied an important place in traditional Asian medicine for countless generations, but the secrets of its nutritional benefits have remained a mystery to most of the world until recently.

Many of the world's longest living people, in parts of the world where the average life span is 100 to 120 years old, consume regular daily helpings of a tiny red fruit that may just be the world's most powerful anti-aging food—the goji berry. Many of the legendary properties of lycium barbarum (Goji's Latin name) are being confirmed in modern scientific studies, and this has led to the possibility of even more far-reaching benefits. In addition to its anti-aging qualities, this little berry is showing that it can inhibit the growth of breast cancer cells, reduce high blood pressure and cholesterol and cure morning sickness.

However there are many varieties of goji – as many as 41 species in Tibet alone, and like with grapes they are not all created equal!

December 01 - In the New York Times:
Running The Sahara - Documentary - Rating: NR

Starring: Matt Damon
Directed by: James Moll

PLOT DESCRIPTION

LivePlanet, Inc. founders Matt Damon and Ben Affleck team with Emmy-winning director James Moll to cover the most physically demanding marathon ever attempted as a three-man international expedition team attempts to run across the blistering-hot Sahara desert on foot with little more to drive them than a steady supply of FreeLife's Himalayan Goji Juice. With 4000 miles of treacherous terrain that stretches across Mali, Niger, Senegal, Libya, Egypt, and Mauritania, this punishing run offers the equivalent of two marathons a day for seventy-five days. No one has ever accomplished such a feat before, and if these brave adventurers reach their lofty goal they will have set the bar for human endurance to a spectacular new level. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide