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Family, friends may spot early dementia best
Health Day News
When it comes to the onset of early Alzheimer’s disease, a person’s family and close friends are better able to spot the initial signs of trouble than traditional screening by doctors, new research suggests.
The finding, reported online in the journal Brain, is based on the apparent accuracy of observations gathered from family and friends in response to a carefully designed dementia questionnaire that is available in several languages and is already in use in clinics worldwide.
Called Ascertain Dementia 8 (or AD8), the questionnaire is designed to draw out observations on someone’s judgment, activity levels, learning capacity, forgetfulness, repetitiveness and overall thinking skills.
Answers given by family and friends to the questionnaire, which can be completed in two minutes, appear to correlate accurately with biological indicators of Alzheimer’s disease more often than standard physician testing, the researchers found.
via Family Friends Seem Best at Spotting Early Dementia – MSN Health & Fitness – Alzheimer’s Disease.
Posted on September 30, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Alzheimer's, Caregiving, Dementia | Tags: Alzheimer's disease, Caregiving, Dementia
Down syndrome & autism dual diagnosis
DownsDaily.com
Up until just a few years ago, it was thought that a person with Down syndrome could not have autism. Well that perspective has changed dramatically.
Just a few years ago…less than 10 years ago, the mother a child with Down syndrome would simply be told that her child had Down syndrome with a severe cognitive impairment.
They would make no effort to find out the cause of the supposed cognitive impairment.
A mother might be told, ” This is part of what happens with ‘low-functioning’ Down syndrome”.
We now know that this is not true.
It turns out that children with Down syndrome are even more pre-disposed to have autism spectrum disorder than the rest of the population.
via Down Syndrome & Autism Dual Diagnosis.
Posted on September 30, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism, Down Syndrome |
Riders with autism, Down syndrome take comfort, confidence on horseback
Los Angeles Times
Children with autism and people with Down syndrome were among the competitors in Sunday’s Kiwanis Equestrian Competition for Special Athletes. Most began riding horses in therapeutic riding programs. Read the LA Times story about the daylong event for riders and their families:
Cathy Sulsona lives in a world where everyone looks down on her in her electric wheelchair. Sometimes passersby look right past her, or have trouble decoding her slurred voice. They see only the cerebral palsy.
But when she climbs on her quarter horse, she rises above them.
“I feel normal,” Sulsona, 43, of Riverside said as she sat next to her horse at Hansen Dam equestrian center. “I’m not looked down on.”
via Disabled riders take comfort, confidence on horseback – latimes.com.
Posted on September 27, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism, Caregiving, Down Syndrome | Tags: animals, Autism, California, Down Syndrome, horses
Police study wandering of Alzheimer’s, dementia patients for search and rescue
Modesto Bee
Steven Williams, a San Francisco firefighter who lives in Oakland, Calif., had just finished a 24-hour shift when he returned home and told his mother’s caretaker she could take the rest of the day off.
His 88-year-old mother, Katherine Oppenheimer, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and requires constant supervision. Still, Williams thought he could get away with a 15-minute nap.
He awoke to find that she had wandered out of the home. “It was one of the scariest experiences I’ve ever had,” he said. “I would rather run into a burning building than go through that again.”
This time, Williams’ harrowing moment ended well. He found his mother quickly, a few floors up in the same apartment building where she lives. But like a growing number of families coping with the devastating effects of Alzheimer’s disease, he fears a repeat episode.
In 1980, about 2.8 million Americans had Alzheimer’s disease – the most common form of dementia. But with longer life expectancies and advanced treatment for other diseases such as cancer, that figure has nearly doubled in 2010, to 5.3 million, according to Elizabeth Edgerly, a chief program officer with the Alzheimer’s Association, a national advocacy group.
In all, 42 percent of people 85 and older will get Alzheimer’s, Edgerly said.To deal with the increasing numbers, police agencies are training officers how to search for wanderers.
“The ability to recognize dementia has improved over the last 20 years,” said Rick Kovar, emergency services manager for the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office. “The science behind searching for people with Alzheimer’s has become efficient and scientific.”
via Path of dementia less of a mystery – Family – Modbee.com.
Posted on September 24, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Alzheimer's, Caregiving, Dementia | Tags: Alzheimer's, Dementia, police, Wandering
EARLI Study – Research into early causes of autism
EARLI Study.org
EARLI is a network of research sites that will enroll and follow 1,200 mothers of children with autism at the start of another pregnancy and document the newborn child’s development through three years of age. The EARLI Study will examine possible environmental risk factors for autism and study whether there is any interplay between environmental factors and genetic susceptibility.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 1 in every 110 children has an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Autism is the fastest growing developmental disability in the country; however, little is known about what causes it.
The EARLI Study is an important research study trying to change that. If you have a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder and are currently pregnant or may become pregnant again in the future, you have a unique opportunity to help researchers better understand the causes of autism so that we can one day more effectively treat or prevent this challenging disorder.
via EARLI Study – Research Into Early Causes of Autism | EARLI Study.
Posted on September 23, 2010 | 1 Comment | Category: Autism | Tags: Autism, children with Autism, research, siblings
Film moves Kate Winslet to start autism charity
Press Association
Kate Winslet has founded a charity to help people with autism after a conversation with her daughter made her realize the daily difficulties they face.
The Oscar-winning actress narrated the documentary A Mother’s Courage: Talking Back to Autism, which tells of an Icelandic mother’s fight to find a way for her non-verbal 10-year-old son to communicate.
Winslet founded The Golden Hat Foundation after watching the film with her nine-year-old daughter Mia.
“After watching the film A Mother’s Courage with my daughter one day, she turned to me and asked, ‘What if I wasn’t able to talk to you mummy?’,” she said.
“As I thought about what that meant, for a mother not to be able to talk with her own child, I realised that I had to lend my voice to raise awareness of this rapidly increasing disorder.”
via The Press Association: Film moves Winslet to start charity.
Posted on September 23, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism | Tags: Autism, celebrities, fundraising
An autism sibling writes
my.hsj.org
Here’s a nice piece written by an autism sibling for her Massachusetts high school newspaper. As she concludes: “People with autism face enough obstacles and shouldn’t have to deal with the ignorance of people as well.”
It’s always hard to live with small children in the house, but I don’t think people really know the difficulties until they have a child or a sibling with a disability. My brother, Jakob O’Hare, is twelve years old, and he has autism. I think he was diagnosed with autism when he was three.
When you look at him, you see a normal happy kid; it’s just his mind that doesn’t move as fast as everyone else’s. It’s sometimes hard to understand what he is trying to say, but once you’re around him for a little bit, you start to catch on to how he pronounces things.
Triton Voice – Triton Regional High School – Living With Autism.
Posted on September 21, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism | Tags: Autism, children with with autism, Massachusetts, school, siblings
World Alzheimer’s Day is September 21
The Augusta Chronicle
World Alzheimer’s Day — Tuesday, Sep. 21 — is the only day of the year that unites people around the globe in the dementia movement. If you are reading this you are part of the movement! But don’t stop reading yet — take time to process the following numbers.
The number of people with Alzheimer’s disease or a dementia worldwide is 35 million. It is expected to nearly double every 20 years, to 65.7 million in 2030 and 115.4 million in 2050. Nearly 5.3 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, and that number is expected to be over 16 million by 2050.
Chances are you know someone with this devastating disease that is progressive, fatal and robs a person of their ability to remember and reason. Perhaps you are one of the 200,000 Georgians who lives with this disease, or one of the nearly 11 million Americans providing care for someone with Alzheimer’s. Perhaps you are a woman that has reached age 55, and has a 1-in-6 chance of developing Alzheimer’s in her lifetime.
via Alzheimer’s, dementia sufferers face challenges — and you can help | The Augusta Chronicle.
Posted on September 20, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Alzheimer's, Dementia | Tags: Alzheimer's, Dementia
Moving to a new state to get autism coverage
CNN
Twenty-three states have enacted laws that mandate coverage of ABA treatment for children with autism. Families with autistic children who live in states that don’t require coverage for Applied Behavioral Analysis sometimes find it’s worth it to move.
(CNN) — Before Wendy Radcliff agreed to marry Scott Finn, she made it clear they would have to live in her home state of West Virginia.
Politically active, Radcliff loved West Virginia and wanted to spend her life there, helping to make it a better place. The couple married, had a son, Max, and built their life together in Radcliff’s hometown of Charleston.
Then, just before his second birthday, Max was diagnosed with autism.
Radcliff had insurance — good insurance, she says — through West Virginia’s Public Employees Insurance Agency, which she received through her work for the state. But although PEIA paid for the autism diagnosis, it would not pay for the prescribed treatment — applied behavior analysis, or ABA. There are a similar models that go by different names, but ABA is by far the best-known.
Posted on September 20, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism |
Down syndrome actor is star at Toronto fest
Today Show
Toronto is crawling with the movie stars you’d expect to see here, from Kevin Spacey to Colin Firth to Marion Cotillard. But there’s always room in the festival for a genuinely new face, and nobody at TIFF 2010 exhibits that quite as dramatically as Evan Sneider.
Sneider, a 31-year-old actor with Down syndrome, is the star of “Girlfriend,” the sweet, beguiling and at times wrenching feature debut from writer-director Justin Lerner about a small-town young man with Down who romantically pursues a single mom.
via Down syndrome actor is star at Toronto fest – Entertainment – Movies – TODAYshow.com.
Posted on September 17, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Down Syndrome | Tags: Canada, Down Syndrome, movie
