Quote:
Originally Posted by B767drvr
Are you sure it's Alzheimer's and not "Mad Cow" disease?
>>5 - 13% of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) cases that go to autopsy at university medical centers is actually misdiagnosed sporadic CJD (ref: Manuelidis, J. Pathology 1989), alarming since AD is so common and on the rise.
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Read "Brain Trust" if you're a meat eater and want a good scare.  |
Pouring rain here again (but better than snow) so maybe a good scary book about meat would be appropriate. Thanks.
Alzheimers or Dementia with Alzheimers is a long road and often called "The Long Goodbye" . Very sad for the family watching the loved one slowly decline. It's not funny at all, believe me......to be the caregiver or even watching from the sidelines. But, it takes awhile.......sometimes even a decade or more. In hindsight, though, I wouldn't change a moment of the journey with my mother, as it gave me a crash course in what aging is all about, as we met so many other families with parents (and some of them with inlaw parents at the same time as their own) taking this "Long Goodbye" journey along with us.
If no one has ever had to care for their aging parents, they are truly blessed. We had my mom from age 83 to age 91......
The first thing that goes is their short term memory, while their long term memory is retained. Their confusion , at first, may be mistaken for a "senior moment"......but it progresses, as mentioned elsewhere.
Mad Cow, on the other hand, happens and progresses very quickly. I've seen videos of patients suffering through that and it is truly gruesome........much worse than Alzheimers. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Symptoms of Mad Cow /Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
Mayo Clinic Staff:
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is marked by rapid mental deterioration, usually within a few months. Initial signs and symptoms of CJD typically include:
Personality changes
Anxiety
Depression
Memory loss
Impaired thinking
Blurred vision
Insomnia
Difficulty speaking
Difficulty swallowing
Sudden, jerky movements
As the disease progresses, mental symptoms worsen. Most people eventually lapse into a coma. Heart failure, respiratory failure, pneumonia or other infections are generally the cause of death. The disease usually runs its course in about seven months, although a few people may live up to one or two years after diagnosis.
In people with the rarer vCJD, psychiatric symptoms may be more prominent in the beginning, with dementia — the loss of the ability to think, reason and remember — developing later in the course of the illness. In addition, this variant affects people at a younger age than classic CJD does, and appears to have a slightly longer duration — 12 to 14 months.