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

The Essentials You Need To Keep Yours Eyes Healthy

• Lutein and Zeaxanthin are used by your body to produce the macular pigment that absorbs UV rays before they can damage your retina
• Bilberry promotes the strength and elasticity of microcapillaries in the eyes and optic nerve, and supports the millions of nerve cells and blood vessels in the retina
• Vitamin C protects the eye from sunlight-induced diminutions of photoreceptor cells, rod deterioration, and loss of rhodopsin
• Vitamin A helps maintain a crystal-clear cornea and prevent clouding over, and also helps improve night vision
• Vitamin E and Selenium flush out toxic heavy metals like cadmium from eye tissue--levels of which have been found to be higher in the lenses of cataract patients
• Taurine is vitally needed in the retina where it blocks UV rays and helps protect the lens
• Riboflavin is part of the enzyme system that maintains the lens' supply of glutathione -- a major free radical fighter in the eye
• Zinc -- so essential to a normally functioning retina that deficiencies of it can lead to vision loss and inability to see clearly at night.
• Copper attacks free radicals and protects optic nerve fiber by maintaining myelin, the insulating sheath that surrounds nerve cell

It's never too late to begin protecting your eyes against the ravages of free radicals.

Source: HSI

Posted: True Health Is True Wealth

Eat Right And Look Good

Five foods that fight the effects of aging.

If you plan to have great sex for the rest of your life, you want to look good doing it, right? Add a couple of servings a week of these fountain-of-youth foods.

Sunflower Seeds

These salty wonders have the highest natural vitamin E content of any food around. "Vitamin E is one of the most important nutrients around for looking younger," says Barry Swanson, Ph.D., a professor of food science at Washington State University. "No antioxidant is more effective at fighting the aging effects of free radicals."

Spinach and Beans

Researchers in Australia, Indonesia and Sweden studied the diets of 400 elderly men and women, and found that those who ate the most leafy green vegetables and beans had the fewest wrinkles. The reason? Spinach and beans are full of compounds that help prevent and repair wear and tear on your skin cells as you get older.

Grape Juice

Besides providing protection from heart attack and stroke, grape juice can also help keep your middle-aged skin from sagging. "Grapes are filled with antioxidant polyphenols that help to keep your skin flexible and elastic," says Swanson.

Sweet Potatoes

Overexposure to the sun is one of the primary reasons men age prematurely. But sweet potatoes may help to fight sun damage. European researchers recently found that pigments from beta-carotene-rich foods—like sweet potatoes and carrots—can build up in your skin, helping to prevent damage from ultraviolet rays.

Cheese



No wonder rats always look so young. "Cheese is one of the best foods you can eat for your teeth," says Matthew Messina, D.D.S., an American Dental Association spokesman. "It's a good source of calcium, to keep your teeth strong. Plus, eating cheese can lower the levels of bacteria in your mouth and keep your teeth clean and cavity-free," he says. Dr. Messina recommends eating at least two servings of block cheese every week.

Source: By Brian Good, Men's Health

Oxidative Stress

Even though the average life expectancy in the United States has increased dramatically during this past century, our quality of life due to chronic degenerative disease has taken a major hit. We are essentially "living too short and dying too long". Most of us can simply look forward to suffering and dying from heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer’s dementia, Parkinson’s disease, arthritis, macular degeneration, and the list goes on and on, unless we literally attack the underlying cause of all of these diseases—oxidative stress.

How long do you expect to live? Now envision what your last twenty years will look like. I can assure you my patients today are not as concerned with the number of years in their lives as they are the quality of life in those years. Who wants to live to a ripe old age if he or she cannot even recognize close family members because of Alzheimer’s dementia? Who looks forward to a decade or two of suffering severe joint or back pain due to degenerative arthritis?

One of my close friends told me recently that he simply wants to live until he dies. Is this your desire? It certainly is mine. That is why I recommend preventative rather than post-problem medicine--empowering people to avoid getting major diseases in the first place. Over the past seven years, I have changed my approach. I now strongly encourage and support my patients in taking a three-fold approach to health: eating well, practicing a consistent exercise program, and daily consuming high-quality nutritional supplements. I now use medication as a last resort—not as my first choice.

Do you fear growing old? Have you accepted chronic disease or pain as a given in your future? Are you willing to make necessary life changes to ensure your health? I believe a full and abundant physical life does not need to start slipping away at age forty. Each year of your life can be your very best. But first you must understand the war that is waging within every one of our bodies.

Oxygen is essential for life itself. But did you know it is also inherently dangerous to our existence? I call this the "dark-side" of oxygen. And as a result, we are essentially rusting both inside and out. The same process that causes a cut apple to turn brown or iron to rust is the cause of all the chronic degenerative diseases we fear and even the aging process itself.

Consider the aging of our skin. Oxidative stress is the cause of wrinkles, sagging skin, and age spots. The next time you are with a large gathering of people of different ages, observe closely the change you see in people’s skin. Aging is a process we all take for granted, but when you look more closely, and compare a baby’s face, to that of a grandparent’s, the effects of our largest organ being exposed to all the pollutants in the air, sunlight, and cigarette smoke is baffling. This aging of the skin is an outward manifestation of "oxidative stress," which is occurring within every cell in your body.

Over the past 7 years, I have reviewed well over 2,000 medical and scientific studies in regards to nutritional supplements and their affect on your health. These studies appearing in medical journals like the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, British Lancet, and Annuals of Internal Medicine report that beyond any doubt the "root" cause of well over 70 chronic degenerative diseases is "oxidative stress." These are the "who’s who" of diseases we all fear and want to avoid; diseases like heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s dementia, macular degeneration, lupus, MS, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue. "So what," you may be wondering, "is ‘oxidative stress’?"

Within every cell of the body is a furnace called the mitochondria. As oxygen is utilized within the furnace of the cell to create energy and life itself, occasionally a charged oxygen molecule is created, called a "free radical." This free radical has at least one unpaired electron in its outer orbit essentially giving it an electrical charge. If this free radical is not readily neutralized by an antioxidant it can go on to create more volatile free radicals, damage the cell wall, vessel wall, proteins, fats, and even the DNA nucleus of our cells. Chemically this reaction has been shown to be so volatile that it actually causes bursts of light within our bodies!

Imagine yourself in front of a crackling fireplace and I’ll give you the best illustration I have to explain the process of oxidation. The fire burns safely and beautifully most of the time, but on occasion out pops a hot cinder that lands on your carpet and burns a little hole in it. One cinder by itself doesn’t pose much of a threat; but if this sparking and popping continues month after month, year after year, you will have a pretty "ratty" carpet in front of your fireplace.

The fireplace represents the furnace of the cell (the mitochondria), the cinder is the charged "free radical," and the carpet is your body. Whichever part of your body receives the most free radical damage will be the first to wear out and potentially cause one of these degenerative diseases. If it’s your arteries, you could develop a heart attack or stroke. If it is your brain, you could develop Alzheimer’s dementia or Parkinson’s disease. If it’s your joints, you could develop arthritis.

Through biochemical research we’re learning that we are not defenseless against this attack on our body by free radicals. Antioxidants are like the glass doors or fine-wire mesh we place in front of our fireplace. The sparks are still going to fly but our carpet will then be protected. As you begin to imagine the war that is taking place within every cell in your body, you can envision the two opposing forces: the enemy--free radicals; and your allies--antioxidants and their supporting nutrients.

Living a healthy life becomes a matter of balance. You must have enough antioxidants available to readily neutralize the number of free radicals your body produces. If you don’t, "oxidative stress" will occur. When this oxidative stress is allowed to persist over a prolonged period of time, you will most likely develop a serious chronic degenerative disease.

Each of us must ask, "Am I getting enough antioxidants from my diet to protect myself from this onslaught of free radicals or do I need to be taking nutritional supplements?" This is the question that I’ve had to ask myself as I have spent countless hours researching medical literature. You see I was taught in medical school that you don’t need supplements—that you can get everything you need from a good, healthy diet. And this is what I told my patients for years. I was wrong.

Since balance is the key, we need to look closely at the individual players that are at war within. The number of free radicals you produce each and every day is never the same. All the pollutants in our air, food, and water dramatically increase the number of free radicals we produce. Enormous stress, excessive exercise, cigarette smoke, sunlight, radiation, and every drug prescribed greatly increases the number of free radicals produced in the body. In fact, there has never been a generation on this planet subjected to more oxidative stress than this present one. We are literally under attack from our polluted environment, stressful lifestyles, and over-medicated society.

This ongoing attack is depriving us of our most precious gift—our health. But God did not leave us defenseless against this onslaught by free radicals. In fact, we actually have our own army of antioxidants, which are able to neutralize free radicals and render them harmless. In generations past, these defense systems were sufficient. Unfortunately this is no longer the case. Our bodies’ defense systems need additional allies.

Most antioxidants come from vegetables and fruit. This creates a gap in our protection, because our foods have become significantly depleted in their content of antioxidants and supporting minerals as a result of mineral depletion in our soils, green harvesting, cold storage, foods that are highly processed, our poor food choices and food preparation.

At a time when we are under the heaviest attack from the environment around us, our natural defense systems are becoming overwhelmed and depleted. We must do all we can to rebuild our antioxidant systems with a healthy diet, but too you need to learn how complete and balanced nutritional supplementation with high quality supplements (cellular nutrition) is our best hope in winning this war within and protecting our health.

Source: Dr. Ray Strand