Tackling Alzheimer's Disease
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-01-18/tackling-alzheimers-disease
Alzheimer’s disease affects nearly five million Americans a year. But that number is expected to triple in coming years as our population ages. The cost of treating sufferers is also predicted to rise – to $1 trillion by 2050. For many years, Alzheimer's struggled to achieve the funding levels of more prominent diseases. And breakthroughs have been few and far in between. Now, the White House has brought together a team of experts to develop a national plan of action for the illness. Join us to discuss what the new plan will mean for sufferers, their families and the medical community.
Guests
Robert Egge
vice president of public policy at the Alzheimer’s Association
Dr. Scott Turner
professor of neurology and Director of the Memory Disorders Program at Georgetown University Medical Center
Deborah Rubenstein
director of consultation, care management and counseling, Iona Senior Services
Howard Koh
Assistant Secretary for Health, Department of Health and Human Services
Comments
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My husband was diagnose with alzheimer when he was only 58 yrs.and I am taking care of him at home for almost i2yrs now.I have read before that high colesterol must have something to do with it and I think its true because when I start changing the diet of my husband it lowers his colesterol and I notice he become responsive if you told him something he will do what you told to do unlike before that you can even communicate with him.and also about stimulation I think its helps too bcause he response to music so everytime he hears it.I am really hoping and praying that they can discover a cure for this illness because this will affect the coming generation of peaople.My experience with my husband I don't want the next generation will experience it.It is hard and divastating not onlay to the family but to the person affected.I love my husband so much that I can not put him in carehome.IT is better that I am the one taking care of him.
Excellent show, as usual, Diane. In all of the discussion and confirmation of the extreme mental, emotional, and financial toll being a long-term caregiver causes, why was there no mention of the need for responsible long-term care planning? I am puzzled by this. Why do only 3% of us own long-term care insurance (LTCi)? It's a common mis-conception that LTCi is expensive, it is just not. LTCi costs a pittance compared to the cost of forfeiting one's career or exhausting savings to pay for care. Why does the human personality resist pro-active planning and instead choose to wait for highly probable, expensive, stressful long-term care events to occur? While NPR did cover LTCi and LTC planning very well last year, there is too little coverage of the responsible actions Americans must take to protect themselves and their families from the high risk of needing LTC we all face.www.honeyleveen.com
As someone who's been a fulltime caregiver for almost a year now, for a family member with severe Alzheimer's, I'm hoping that this project will be given the resources and seriousness it needs and deserves. As recently as two years ago, I had no idea how devastating this disease can be, and how much care a person at this stage requires. To project what will be needed for adequate care if the numbers continue to increase as predicted for the next 10-20 years, is almost overwhelming. Until I gave up my job to take on this caregiving, I worked for several years in a program providing emergency housing to homeless families with children. Early in his presidency, President George W. Bush made a vow to end homelessness in 10 years, and states and local governments scurried around trying to jump through all the hoops set in place. It's now 2012 and not only has homelessness not become a thing of the past, the rise in the number of homeless families has been dramatic, especially when the foreclosure crisis was added into the mix. Please do not let this Alzheimer's project become another bureaucratic, political football. The country cannot afford for that to happen.
Hello wv_picker, I hope you find this TEDxIowaCity video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc featuring Dr. Terry Wahls share her journey to heal her shrinking brain and mitigate her MS. Dr. Wahls indicated that people with Parkinson's share a similar brain shrinking phenomenon.
All the best
Thank you for the wonderful show. Cures for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other diseases are obtainable. A huge delay in finding cures is government funding of the NIH. Private industry cannot compare to what the government can do, and finding cures for diseases that are killing you and your loved ones is NOT a democratic/republican issue. If terrorists were killing us at the rates these diseases are, we'd be funding a major war to fight them. Unfortunately, government is not fighting these diseases enough, because we are not insisting that they do. Scientists need grants to fund their research and move the science forward. Labs of highly trained, competent scientists are closing down DAILY due to lack of funding. NIH paylines are low, and the cost of science is increasing. We need to fund the scientists so that they can figure out the maze of the brain. While there will be many dead ends (which is why we need so many scientists working on these diseases!), breakthroughs will certainly occur. But first we have to recognize that there is absolutely NO need to be dying of these diseases, and that the quicker we fund the scientists, the quicker the cures will be found. Contact your Congressional Representative today.