Alzheimer's of Central Alabama

Serving people with Alzheimer’s, caregivers and professionals in central Alabama through education, caregiver services and research grants.

ACA’s Weekly Email February 24, 2023

Mark your calendar:

  • Ales & Tails, ACA Jr. Board event, at Cahaba Brewery, March 25.  Help raise money for ACA’s Lindy Harrell Pre-Doctoral Scholars Program in Alzheimer’s Research at UAB.  https://alzca.org/ales/
  • ACA’s Garden Art Party, May 6, at the Fennec.  Live & silent auction to benefit ACA’s service programs for low- income families living with Alzheimer’s. alzca.org/gap

Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration is starting a Caregivers Support Group (for FTD and related dementias), second Tuesdays of the month (March 14), at 6:30, Vestavia Hills United Methodist Church, 2061 Kentucky Ave, contact Amber Guy: itsamberguy@gmail.com

Discovery United Methodist Church is offering an 8 week series, Aged to Perfection, Tuesday evenings, starting March 14, at 6:30.  Topics include:  coping with loss, finding care away from home, Medicaid & VA benefits, end of life planning, legal issues, coping & understanding dementia, home modifications and healthy aging.  5487 Stadium Trace Parkway, Hoover.  www.discoveryumc.org.

Lunch & Learn:  Compassionate Communication with Dr. Renee Harmon, March 21, 10:30 – 1:30. Presented by Founders Place, a respite ministry at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church, in collaboration with Alzheimer’s of Central Alabama and Mountain Brook Baptist Church.  Dr. Renée Brown Harmon, author of Surfing the Waves of Alzheimer’s: Principles of Caregiving That Kept Me Upright, will help us deepen our connections with our loved ones living with dementia. Mountain Brook Baptist Church, 3631 Montevallo Road, 
Birmingham.  Cost: $20. To register: https://saintlukes.shelbynextchms.com/…/1b73fc32-8fba… or call 704.779.2579.

Alzheimer’s News:

The month of Valentine’s Day is drawing to a close, but it’s never to late to learn more about the connection between health heart and a healthy brain.  Cleveland Clinic expert Leslie Cho, MD, answers questions about heart-healthy/brain healthy lifestyle.  A Q&A With Dr. Leslie Cho of Cleveland Clinic (thewomensalzheimersmovement.org)

AFA’s Teen Alzheimer’s Awareness Scholarship is for college-bound high school seniors who have been impacted by Alzheimer’s disease.  Submit an essay (1,500 word maximum) or  video (no more than 4 minutes long) describing the impact of Alzheimer’s or dementia.  The grand prize winner receives $5,000, with additional prizes awarded to runners-up. Deadline for entries is 5 pm ET, April 1. Alzheimer’s Foundation of America | AFA’s Teen Alzheimer’s Awareness Scholarship (alzfdn.org)

Dementia Action Alliance has developed the first of its kind comprehensive book for people living with dementia,  Pathways to Well-Being with Dementia: A Manual of Help, Hope and Inspiration can be purchased for $28.50 plus shipping  or download for free at https://daanow.org/pathways-to-well-being-with-dementia/.

Lucidity in Dementia: UsAgainstAlzheimers’A-List program surveyed caregivers about lucidity in dementia in their loved ones. More than 60% of caregivers reported witnessing lucid episodes.  Learn about the impact on caregivers who witness lucid episodes, whether they view these episodes positive, and if they made decisions based on these experiences. Check out A-LIST Pulse of the Community.

More and more researchers are looking at voice as a biomarker, a way to detect various diseases including Alzheimer’s. Worldwide, Alzheimer’s cases are successfully detected just 48% of the time, according to the World Health Organization. Higher-income countries achieve a 54% diagnostic rate, while low- and middle-income countries are only identifying 24% of Alzheimer’s cases.  Researchers hope to close that gap by developing a tool that can detect Alzheimer’s early — when the effects may be too subtle for a physician to notice.  Researchers used the AI behind ChatGPT (which has grabbed headlines for writing believable term papers and passing bar exams) to analyze speech, and the system correctly identified Alzheimer’s patients 80% of the time.  The researchers used GPT-3 to analyze audio clips of people describing a picture and found Alzheimer’s patients often repeated themselves, strayed from describing the picture’s contents, didn’t finish thoughts, and referred to objects vaguely as a “thing” or “something.”  ChatGPT’s AI Could Help Catch Alzheimer’s Early (medscape.com)

While recent studies have suggested a decrease in the incidence of clinical dementia in the United States, there does not seem to have been a corresponding reduction in neurodegenerative pathologies, a new study shows. The study found that resilience to Alzheimer’s pathology is characterized by individuals having no clinical symptoms of dementia despite having significant pathology that would be expected to be associated with such symptoms.  Certain factors can predispose to this resilience like education — the idea of ‘use it or lose it.’ But resilience can also be negatively affected by other psychological, biological, or behavioral factors such as anxiety.  The study results support the growing appreciation that cognitive resilience is a preventative strategy against dementia.  If we cannot change the pathology, perhaps we can figure out how we might change resilience. Changes in Alzheimer’s Pathology Don’t Match Clinical Trends (medscape.com)

Many adult children have complicated relationships with their aging parents, especially when there’s a history of conflict.  If you’re struggling with making decisions about caring for parents who didn’t care for you, it’s important to know that you’re not alone.  Caring for Parents Who Didn’t Care for You: 5 Ways to Handle the Situation – DailyCaring

A new study says we can slow the pace at which we age by 2% to 3% if we lower the number of calories we eat by 25%. That may seem like a little benefit for a large cut in calories. But experts say it’s actually a pretty big deal. Cutting Calories Could Slow the Pace of Aging: Study (medscape.com)

How strong your grip is, and how quickly you can walk, may be indicators of how likely you are to suffer from the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease.  One study, found that in people showing early signs of Alzheimer’s disease, hand strength and walking speed were correlated with brain volume. The weaker their muscle strength, and the slower they walked, the smaller the size of key areas of the brain, including the hippocampus, a brain region critical for memory. .  What Do These Things Have to Do With Alzheimer’s? | Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation (alzinfo.org)

March Webinars from Alabama Lifespan Respite: https://alabamarespite.org/events2/

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