Tag Archives: medicare

Alzheimer’s Disease: Forgetting Your Partner

Former U.S. Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor is happy that her husband is in love with another woman. Last year, O’Connor left her seat on the U.S. Supreme Court to look after her husband John, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. John O’Connor has been slowly losing his memories to the disease for the last seventeen years. Although the O’Connors have been married for fifty-five years, John has started a new relationship with a patient at a care facility in Arizona. Experts say that it is not common for Alzheimer’s patients to start new relationships. People who suffer from the … Continue reading →

A Link Between Alzheimer’s and Glaucoma

British researchers have discovered common protein fragments in people with Alzheimer’s disease and people with glaucoma. This discovery may change how both diseases are treated. These protein fragments are called amyloid-beta. In people with Alzheimer’s disease, amyloid beta fragments form plaques in the brain. In people with glaucoma, amyloid beta fragments seem to cause the death of cells in the retina. The University College of London study focused on testing drugs that blocked pathways normally traveled by the amyloid beta fragments. In animal testing, the drugs reduced eye damage and helped preserve the lives of cells in the retina. The … Continue reading →

How Old Lady Jail Is Helping My Grandmother

This spring, we finally got an official diagnosis for my grandmother’s memory problems: Alzheimer’s disease. The doctor started her on Aricept and encouraged the family to find a Senior Care Center for social stimulation. My grandmother was not happy about this development. She called it the “looney bin” and “old lady jail” and put her foot down: she was not going to go. We coaxed and cajoled; we blamed it on the doctor. Finally, we put our collective feet down. The staff gave us a copy of the schedule, and we tried to get my grandmother excited about upcoming events: … Continue reading →

Alzheimer’s Medication: Aricept

One of the more popular medications used for Alzheimer’s disease is called Aricept (generic name: donepezil). The drug has been in use in the United States since 1996 for the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease; it was also approved in 2006 for use in patients with severe dementia. In people who respond well to the drug, the progression of Alzheimer’s disease is delayed by six months to a year. Aricept is a cholinesterase inhibitor. This type of drug delays the breakdown of a neurotransmitter known as acetylcholine, which aids in the communication between nerve cells. This neurotransmitter is very important … Continue reading →

An Alzheimer’s Patch Is On The Way

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Sometime soon, there will be a skin patch available for treating the dementia that comes with Alzheimer’s disease. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved the patch form of Exelon (generic name: rivastigmine). This is good news for the more than four million Americans who are losing memories and cognitive abilities to the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Exelon is already available in capsule form, but many patients have complained of gastrointestinal side effects like severe nausea. In patch form, the drug will enter the bloodstream directly and bypass the gastrointestinal system entirely. Exelon inhibits the breakdown of a neurotransmitter … Continue reading →

Five More Major Health Threats For Men

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a list of the top ten killers of American men. The first two (heart disease and cancer) do most of the work, and were responsible for more than half of all male deaths in 2003 (the most recent data available). But just because a health threat is lower on the list doesn’t mean you can ignore it. Diabetes. Approximately three percent of all male deaths in 2003 were caused by diabetes. Weight is a big risk factor for diabetes; complications of diabetes include heart disease, stroke, and kidney disease. Influenza and … Continue reading →

Medicare Perscription Drug Plan 2007 Open Enrollment

Where does the time go? It seems it’s that time of year again. Sorry, I’m not talking about the holiday season, even though they are coming as well. What I am talking about it the annual open enrollment period for Medicare Part D. This is the Medicare Prescription Drug plan. Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage open enrollment for 2007 is opened! If there is going to be a change made to the current coverage, enrolling and making the change before December 8 will help ensure coverage continues without interruption and Medicare participants can continue to get the prescriptions needed on and … Continue reading →

What is Long-Term-Care Insurance?

Long term care is the kind of care needed when someone can no longer perform everyday tasks or manage activities of daily living by themselves. Long term care is not the kind of care intended to cure, or rehabilitate a person,it’s the kind of care someone needs when suffering a chronic illness, debilitating injury, unrecoverable disability or end of life aging. Generally, long term care includes supervision someone might need because of a sever cognitive impairment such as Alzheimer’s disease. It’s care someone may need for the rest of their life. Our parents and we ourselves may face a time … Continue reading →

What Choices Are There When Someone Can’t Take Care of Themselves Any Longer?

What if your parents can’t take care of themselves when they are old? Worse, what if you can’t take care of yourself when you are old? There are many options and resources we can choose when we face caring for an aging parent or considering our own futures: Children provide care for their elderly or disabled parents in their home or in their parents home. A home-health care service can be arranged. Adult Day Care Centers Assisted-living facilities Nursing Homes. The huge problem is paying for the kind of help, we would want for our parents or for ourselves. In … Continue reading →

Eat Less To Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease?

A new lifelong study of the diet of squirrel monkeys has shown that a reduced-calorie diet may help slow the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City will be publishing their results this November in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. The researchers studied a group of squirrel monkeys for their whole lives. Some were kept on a restricted calorie diet; the rest were allowed a normal diet. The squirrel monkeys that were on the reduced calorie diet were less likely to experience changes in their brains like those that signify Alzheimer’s … Continue reading →