Revista Scientific American Mayo 2020. Inglés

Revista Scientific American Mayo 2020. Inglés

ISSN: 0036-8733

Descripción

The Human Toll of Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s took my wife’s memory and her life and tortured our family. There was nothing we or medicine could do to stop it

I have learned that when someone you love has Alzheimer’s, he or she is not the only one facing memory issues. Do we remember the bright, sunny person full of life and creativity, or do we remember the person who no longer recognizes us, who lies in a bed in a nursing home, gasping for air? Do we remember the lover with whom we could share our body, our thoughts and our adventures or the person who cannot finish a sentence or find the bathroom? How do we live with the fact that the individual actually died years before his or her body stopped? The ghastliness of Alzheimer’s seems to push out everything else. I am finding it hard to remember ordinary life with Carol before Alzheimer’s.

Five Types of Research, Underexplored until Recently, Could Produce Alzheimer’s Treatments
Research into the brain’s protein-disposal systems, electrical activity and three other areas looks promising

No fundamental obstacle prevents us from developing an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. Other troubles of human nature, such as violence, greed and intolerance, have a bewildering variety of daunting causes and uncertainties. But Alzheimer’s, at its core, is a problem of cell biology whose solution should be well within our reach. There is a fairly good chance that the scientific community might already have an unrecognized treatment stored away in a laboratory freezer among numerous vials of chemicals. And major insights may now reside, waiting to be noticed, in big databases or registries of clinical records, neuropsychological profiles, brain-imaging studies, biological markers in blood and spinal fluid, genomes, protein analyses, neuron recordings, or animal and cell culture models.