Health & Wellness

This video is Part 1 of a two-part interview with several staff members at LIAF, the Long Island Alzheimer's Foundation. If someone you love is suffering from dementia, hopefully you will find these videos to be interesting and educational.
 
We are fortunate in that modern medicine has done much to increase the life span of so many of us. Babyboomers and older seniors can now live active, productive lives well into our 80's and even our 90's. However, along with the miracles of modern medicine comes an increase in certain diseases that are more prevalent in older people. Consequently, there is an increase in seniors suffering from dementia. Alzheimer's disease, one form of dementia, is a progressive, degenerative disorder that attacks the brain's nerve cells, or neurons, resulting in loss of memory, thinking and language skills, and behavioral changes.
 
These neurons, which produce the brain chemical, or neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, break connections with other nerve cells and ultimately die. For example, short-term memory fails when Alzheimer's disease first destroys nerve cells in the hippocampus, and language skills and judgment decline when neurons die in the cerebral cortex.
 
wo types of abnormal lesions clog the brains of Alzheimer's sufferers: Beta-amyloid plaques-sticky clumps of protein fragments and cellular material that form outside and around neurons; and neurofibrillary tangles-insoluble twisted fibers composed largely of the protein, tau, that build up inside nerve cells. Although these structures are hallmarks of the disease, scientists are unclear whether they cause it or a byproduct of it.
 
Alzheimer's disease is not a normal part of aging.
 
Origin of the term Alzheimer's disease dates back to 1906 when Dr. Alois Alzheimer, a German physician presented a case history before a medical meeting of a 51-year-old female patient who suffered from a rare brain disorder. His autopsy of the patient's brain identified the plaques and tangles that today characterize Alzheimer's disease.
 
The Long Island Alzheimer's Foundation (LIAF) is one organization doing a great job working with those suffering from Alzheimer's disease and their families. LIAF is located in Port Washington, Long Island. If someone you know is suffering from dementia, contact the Department of Aging in your area and find out if there are local organizations that can help not only dementia patients, but their families as well to cope with the difficulties of the disease.
 
For more information contact:
Long Island Alzheimer's Foundation = http://www.liaf.org/en?Itemid=1
(516)767-6856