Learn the warning signs for Alzheimer's disease

As many as 5.3 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s destroys brain cells, causing memory loss and problems with thinking and behavior severe enough to affect work, lifelong hobbies or social life. Alzheimer’s gets worse over time, and it is fatal. Today it is the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States.

How do you recognize the warning signs for this disease? The Alzheimer’s Association has prepared a list of common symptoms. If you make several marks on the list below, the person who has the symptoms should see a physician for a complete examination. Some of these symptoms may also apply to other forms of dementia:

1. Recent memory loss that affects job skills: It’s normal to lose keys, to misplace a list or to forget a phone number – as long as you find the keys or the list or remember the phone number later. People who have dementia may forget things more often and not remember them later.
2. Difficulty performing familiar tasks: You may have burned a dinner or forgot the popcorn in the microwave. Busy people can be distracted from time to time. People with Alzheimer’s disease could prepare a meal and forget not only to serve it but that they prepared it.
3. Problems with language: Everyone has trouble finding the right word sometimes, but a person who has Alzheimer’s disease may forget simple words or substitute inappropriate words to form an incomprehensible sentence.
4. Disorientation of time and place: If you’ve ever forgotten the day of the week, your age or your destination, you know that if you concentrate you find the solution immediately. Alzheimer’s disease may prevent people from remembering where they are, how they got there or how to get home. Sometimes, an Alzheimer’s patient may not know he or she is lost.
5. Poor or decreased judgment: People with Alzheimer’s disease may forget about a child under their care or dress inappropriately, such as wearing an overcoat on a hot day or wearing several shirts or blouses at one time.
6. Problems with abstract thinking: You may never be able to balance your checkbook, but you usually do not forget what numbers mean and how to use them. Alzheimer’s disease can prevent a person from remembering what numbers mean and what needs to be done with them.
7. Misplacing things: While you still may not find your keys, you usually do not put an iron in the freezer or a necklace in the sugar bowl. Alzheimer’s disease can make a person forgetful, and it also can push a person to make inappropriate choices.
8. Changes in mood or behavior: Sadness and moodiness can be a part of life. A person with Alzheimer’s disease, however, can experience rapid and extreme mood swings for no apparent reason.
9. Changes in personality: As people age, their personalities often change depending upon experiences and beliefs. A person with Alzheimer’s disease can change personality drastically and seemingly without warning, becoming fearful, suspicious or confused.
10. Loss of initiative: You’ve probably experienced depression in your lifetime, where you cannot become enthused about anything. Usually, with help or with a more positive attitude, these moods can dissipate. A person with Alzheimer’s however, may become very passive for long periods of time and require cues or prompting to become involved.

If you feel you or a loved one is exhibiting these signs, check with the Alzheimer’s Association to learn more about this disease. No two people experience Alzheimer’s disease or aging in the same way, so make sure that your perceptions are correct before you become overly concerned or depressed about your findings. A doctor also can help dispel or confirm your personal diagnosis and help you to plan ahead if you do have this disease.

Caregivers come in all genders, ages and races - and, they all have rights.

Do you provide care for elderly or terminally ill individuals? You might volunteer for a hospice or you may be tending a loved one at home. In any situation where care is provided for a person’s physical or emotional needs, the caregiver may often feel overwhelmed and need help as well.

It’s difficult to pinpoint the origin of the caregiver’s “Bill of Rights,” but one copy of the list below was discovered in the book, Care for the Caregiver, sponsored by Parke-Davis and focused on Alzheimer’s Disease. This book, published in 1994, also provided information to caregivers about the disease and the theories behind its development.

We doubt that the list below originated with that book, but the point is that the Caregiver’s Bill of Rights has been around for at least two decades. Now, it is provided to readers across the Web on various hospice and caregiver sites. Some sites advocate that caregivers also join a support group – especially adult children who care for parents – to help face grief and to deal with stress. Support always is a great idea, no matter if you’re a caregiver at home or in a hospice.

While caregivers face seemingly insurmountable obstacles at times, caregiving also can bring families and friends closer together. We hope you can use the caregiver’s Bill of Rights below to help provide a guideline for building your life in a constructive and healthy way while providing care and solace to your loved ones and patients. You have the right:

1. To take care of yourself. Caregiving is not an act of selfishness. It will give you the capability of taking better care of your loved one.
2. To seek help from others even though your loved ones may object. Only you can recognize the limits of your endurance and strength.
3. To maintain facets of your own life that do not include the person you care for, just as you would if he or she were healthy. You know that you do everything that you reasonably can for this person, and you have the right to do some things just for yourself.
4. To get angry, be depressed, and express other difficult feelings occasionally.
5. To reject any attempts by your loved one (either conscious or unconscious) to manipulate you through guilt, and/or depression.
6. To receive consideration, affection, forgiveness, and acceptance for what you do, from your loved ones, for as long as you offer these qualities in return.
7. To take pride in what you are accomplishing and to applaud the courage it has sometimes taken to meet the needs of your loved one.
8. To protect your individuality and your right to make a life for yourself that will sustain you in the time when your loved one no longer need your full-time help.
9. To expect and demand that as new strides are made in finding resources to aid physically- and mentally-impaired persons in our country, similar strides will be made towards aiding and supporting caregivers.

1. First, begin by searching for an accredited tissue or body bank. Currently, tissue banks do not need to meet accreditation standards, so an organization that seeks accreditation may be a sign of a company that promises respect for your remains and for your family’s wishes.
2. You can find accredited organizations through the American Association of Tissue Banks (AATB). Beginning in 1986, the AATB initiated a mandatory Accreditation Program for its institutional members to ensure that tissue-banking activities are performed in a professional manner in compliance with these their established standards. This group sets the ethical guidelines for the recovery of body cells and tissues in a way that is respectful to the donor and that donor’s family.
3. Another option would be to choose a local medical school or university. No matter which organization you choose, they send a packet of forms to fill out along with documentation about policies and procedures.
4. Most tissue banks want to know answers to medical questions, and some may want a complete medical history. The reason for these questions is that you can be turned down for donation. Unfortunately, people who have HIV/AIDS, a history of hepatitis B and/or C, tuberculosis and syphilis cannot donate their bodies to science. You also cannot be accepted for donation if you are obese or if a coroner has already performed an autopsy. There are no upper age limits in donation of a human body to medical science.
5. Once you decide on a tissue bank and they accept your application, you – and possibly a family member – can fill out consent forms. The organization you choose sends out a donor card at this point, so that others know that you’ve donated your body or – as an option – your organs to science.
6. Finally, let family members and loved ones know about your decision. When you donate your body to science, there is no need for family members to contact a coroner. Instead, most tissue banks inform you that – along with the authorities – they need to be contacted as soon as possible after your death so they can arrange to transport your body to the proper facility.

Questions to Ask

1. In many cases, your donation to science is free, but some tissue banks charge for body transportation fees. Under no circumstance should you expect to be paid to donate your body to science, as that is an illegal practice.
2. Some tissue banks cremate your remains and bury them at no cost to the family. Other tissue banks return cremated remains if the family desires. Time allocated for the cremation and burial options usually run from three to five weeks. With that said, some ‘projects’ that use body tissue may take from three to five years to complete. In most cases, no matter the time frame, the family usually prepares a memorial service to help the survivors to honor a death so that the time involved with the body donation doesn’t interfere with current burial traditions.
3. Cremation is the only option for remains after tissue donation, as tissue harvesting is disfiguring. You – and, in some cases, your family – must be comfortable with this option.
4. You can ask how your body (or organs) might be used. Be prepared for some unusual answers (see next section).
5. Organ donations and whole body donations are two separate programs. You, as a potential donor, must make the decision based upon the difference. With very few exceptions, a whole body donation is impossible when organs are donated. The only exception is the donation of an eye cornea, which can be donated without affecting the body donation.
6. There is no absolute security that you can avoid the cost of a burial with a body donation program. Many bodies have been rejected at death for various reasons, including death by infectious disease. So, you might want to prepare an alternate burial plan to spare your family the chore and expense.

Why Body Donation is Important

1. If you are of the mind that you want to help advance medicine, cures for cancer and neurological disorders, new treatment for Alzheimer’s, less invasive surgical methods for brain tumors and new insights into criminal investigations, then a body donation to science is up your alley. There is a major shortage of human tissue in this country, and many advancements are impeded by that shortage.
2. Surgeons also need real-life operating experiences, as do firefighters and paramedics. So, be prepared, if you ask about the future of your remains, to be presented with some unusual situations. In most cases, unfortunately, you cannot request that your body be used for a specific purpose.
3. Some of these situations include learning how bodies react to rot, crash tests for automobiles, testing for protective military equipment and other experimental techniques. Before your mind wanders too far, remember that the organization that is accredited has promised to respect your body and your family’s wishes. With that said, also remember that you cannot request a specific use for your remains.
4. No matter if you consider yourself to be charitable or stingy in life. In death, the donation of your remains to science is the ultimate altruistic act, as it allows many scientists, medical personnel and volunteers learn how to save others.