Phillip Toledano: days with my father

Not everyone has a father they love and admire as much as Phillip Toledano did his, but most of us can still appreciate the bond between these two men and the beauty of the images and the prose found in the photo essay days with my father. I was moved to tears.

A Parent's Wish

The Wooden Bowl story in my last post is a good message/parable for children to consider as their parents age, a reminder that their day, too, will come. A Parent's Wish presents a similar message in a heartrending slideshow accompanied by the music of Josh Groban. A good friend sent me this today.

Watch, reflect, and share.

Nun brains may help unlock secrets of Alzheimer's

clipped from www.cnn.com Two decades ago, Sister Treanor and 677 other members of the School Sisters of Notre Dame granted a young researcher's request to test them each year The mission: Tracking the progression of Alzheimer's disease and other age-related brain disorders The 61 surviving nuns recently completed their last round of intellectual and physical tests for the Nun Study, one of the world's most comprehensive neurological research projects One final sacrifice remains: When they die, their brains will be taken for further study, joining a collection of hundreds of other brains donated by the the nuns who died before them Snowdon's work already has produced interesting results, including a finding that people who challenge themselves intellectually can apparently delay or prevent the onset of Alzheimer's symptoms About half the nuns in the study developed Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia before they died, about similar to the general population It's such a cool study

Nun Study -- valuable research into aging. And it's also okay with the Pope!

Alzheimer's memory loss faster among well-educated

clipped from www.reuters.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Having more years of formal education delays the memory loss linked to Alzheimer's disease, but once the condition begins to take hold, better-educated people decline more rapidly, researchers said on Monday.

Their study, published in the journal Neurology, tracked memory loss in a group of elderly people from New York City's Bronx borough before they were diagnosed with Alzheimer's or another form of old-age dementia.

Every year of education delayed the accelerated memory decline that precedes dementia by about 2-1/2 months, according to the researchers at Yeshiva University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

But once this memory loss began, the rate of decline unfolded 4 percent more quickly for each additional year of education, the researchers said.

Someone with 16 years of schooling might experience memory decline 50 percent more quickly than another person with just four years education, based on the findings.

As one of my fellow clippers, pokkets, astutely observed, increasing one's level of education is "Holding the water back until the dam breaks, rather than letting it trickle down the drain." Which I find to be a comfort, of sorts--I'll fight it but should it happen to me anyway it will proceed more quickly and be over. I hope.

1 in 7 Americans Age 71 & Older Has Dementia: NIH study

clipped from www.nia.nih.gov A new analysis suggests that about 3.4 million Americans age 71 and older—one in seven people in that age group—have dementia, and 2.4 million of them have Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The study, supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is the latest in a series of analyses attempting to assess the prevalence of dementia and AD, the most common form of dementia. Published online this week in Neuroepidemiology, the study is the first to estimate rates of dementia and AD using a nationally representative sample of older adults across the United States The study highlights the nationwide reach of dementia, which affects not only those with the disease, but their families and communities as well. NIA experts point out, the numbers of people with dementia, and Alzheimer’s specifically, will certainly increase until ways to delay the progression or prevent the dementia are found. Advancing age is the most common known risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease

As this affects not only those with dementia, but their families and communities as well, we need to get busy and find ways to delay progression or prevent dementia--ways other than increasing our chances of dying young via promoting & provoking war, ignoring malnutrition and stressing our children to the point of suicide...

Study: Vision to linked mental decline in seniors

clipped from bodyandhealth.canada.com Problems seeing things close-up can speed up the rate of mental decline in the elderly, a study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society indicates Researchers examined the link between vision and level of mental functioning in 2,140 Mexican-American adults over the age of 65. What they found was that seniors who had problems with near vision (but not with distance) showed the steepest decline in mental functioning over a 7-year period The exact reason for the link between near vision and rate of mental decline is unclear, but the researchers speculate that not being able to see things close up affects the level of brain activity by decreasing both active and passive visual stimulation. Keeping your brain active through activities such as reading or doing crosswords, and even by passively processing visual information, increases nerve activity in the brain and has been shown in studies to have a preventative effect against dementia and Alzheimer's disease

Good news for the nearsighted, but not so good for those who are farsighted. Guess we'll all have to try hard to stay mentally active. Fortunately I find that clipping and writing remarks & comments is mentally stimulating! (for me, anyway)