Posts Tagged ‘alzheimer’s’
Free Public Lecture – Alzheimer disease: good days, bad days
The Canadian Coalition for Seniors Mental Health (CCSMH) is holding their 4th National conference on September 27-28 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. 
As part of this event, Dr. Kenneth Rockwood will be giving his annual Kathryn Allen Weldon Public Lecture on Alzheimer’s disease.
This year’s topic is “Why do people with Alzheimer’s disease have good days and bad days?”
Date: September 27,2010
Time: 5:30pm Reception, 6:00pm Lecture
Place: Atlantic Ballroom, Westin Nova Scotia Hotel, 1181 Hollis St, Halifax NS
All are welcome – this is a free, public lecture.
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Is there value in preventative measures for Alzheimer’s disease?
A recent report by a panel of experts from the US National Institutes of Health has cast some doubt on the usefulness of a healthy diet, crossword puzzles and regular exercise in terms of delaying or reducing the severity of Alzheimer’s disease. 
As the CBC reported, the panel expressed their doubt thus:
“We wish we could tell people that taking a pill or doing a puzzle every day would prevent this terrible disease, but current evidence doesn’t support this,” said Dr. Martha Daviglus, conference panel chair and professor of preventive medicine and medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago. The panel, however, said the public needs to understand such strategies are at best only loosely associated with an improved outcome. The cause-and-effect relationship, if any, is unclear, Daviglus said.
CAKEns contacted Dr. Kenneth Rockwood, a leading researcher into dementia who currently holds the Kathryn Allen Weldon Chair in Alzheimer’s research at Dalhousie University here in Nova Scotia, for comment on this. His response:
There is a problem with these sorts of recommendations, which rely on “the evidence”. The evidence is biased towards pharmacological interventions, which outnumber non-pharmacological interventions by hundreds to one. So if the experts want to wait until there are multi-hundred person randomized controlled trials before daring to recommend exercise as a useful strategy in AD, we will wait a long time. More valuable, it seems to me, are data from cohort studies, in which people who exercise and have AD can be compared against those who do not exercise, and have AD. Although the design of a study like this means that we can never know for sure if exercise would work in people who take it up because they have AD, the data do allow some insight. (There are also elaborate reasons why we cannot know for sure from a randomized trial if the patient in front of us will benefit either, but that is another matter.)
Our analysis of data from the Canadian Study of Health and Aging suggests that there are cognitive benefits to exercise, even in people with dementia. The open access reference for this work is: Middleton LE, Mitnitski A, Fallah N, Kirkland SA, Rockwood K.Changes in cognition and mortality in relation to exercise in late life: a population based study. PLoS One. 2008 Sep 1;3(9):e3124.
You can read the full report form the National Institutes of Health panel here.
Rising Tide – new report on dementia issued by Alzheimer Society of Canada
The Alzheimer Society of Canada has released Rising Tide: the Impact of Dementia on Canadian Society, This is the final report of an Alzheimer Society project funded by Pfizer Canada, Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and RX&D. 
Currently in Canada, there are 103,700 new cases of dementia every year, or 1 every 5 minutes. This report suggests that by 2038, this will have risen to 257,800 new cases per year, or 1 every 2 minutes.
David Harvey, Principal Spokesperson for the Rising Tide project says “If nothing changes, this sharp increase in the number of people living with dementia will mean that by 2038, the total costs associated with dementia will reach $153 billion a year. This amounts to a massive cumulative total of $872 billion over this 30-year period.”
You can read the Alzheimer Society’s press release here, a summary of Rising Tide here and download the full report here.
Alzheimer Society of Nova Scotia hosts annual corporate luncheon.
The Alzheimer Society of Nova Scotia (ASNS) will host its annual corporate luncheon on December 3. 2009 at the Halifax Marriott Harbourfront. This year’s guest speaker is Micheal Decter.
“Mr. Decter is President and Chief Executive Officer of the investment management firm, LDIC Inc. where his primary focus is value investing in individual companies. He is a Harvard trained economist and author of three financial books, Michael Decter’s Million Dollar Strategy, The DRIP Strategy and his latest, Ten Good Reasons to Invest in Canada.
As a former Deputy Minister of Health for Ontario, Michael is a leading Canadian expert on health systems and has a wealth of experience speaking around the world. He is a highly acclaimed negotiator and facilitator and has represented governments, corporations and hospitals.”
For more information on the Corporate Luncheon please call Beth Jackson, Coordinator, Community Giving for the ASNS at 422-7961 ext 228.
Social Vulnerability in Elderly People
Recent work at the Geriatric Medicine Research Unit has shed light on the link between social vulnerability and mortality. 
Dr. Melissa Andrew, a geriatrician working at the research unit, describes social vulnerability as a variety of factors that make people susceptible to illness, disease, decline in their ability to do things for themselves, or even death. The factors can include low education, low income, lack of family supports, social isolation, not being able to participate in community activities, living in a community with high unemployment and having few opportunities for socializing.
This work on social vulnerability is of vital importance as it has shown that for each additional social vulnerability factor a person had, the likelihood of death increased 5-8%. Working with data from 7000+ Canadian over the age of 65, she has also shown that the older a person is, the higher their level of social vulnerability. Click here to read the work of Dr. Andrew and her colleagues at the open journal PLoS ONE.
The research unit has invested in a series of videos to explain the importance and impact of their work in areas such as social vulnerability, dementia, and frailty. You can see all the videos here.
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Free Public Lecture – What Should We Expect of Long Term Care for People with Dementia?
This November 25th, Dr. Kenneth Rockwood, a world leader in dementia and frailty research, will give a free public lecture:
“What Should We Expect of Long Term Care for People with Dementia?”
Dr. Rockwood is a professor of medicine (geriatric medicine and neurology) and the Kathryn Allen Weldon Chair in Alzheimer Research at Dalhousie University here in Halifax, as well as the head of the Geriatric Medicine Research Unit. Dr. Rockwood has published six books and more than 250 peer-reviewed scientific publications and is currently co-editor of the 7th edition of the Brocklehurst’s Textbook of Geriatric Medicine & Gerontology. He is the principal investigator of the Canadian Dementia Knowledge Translation Network, a national, multi-centre project that aims to provide better care for people with dementia by working to put research into practice and policy.
On top of that, he’s known to always give a very engaging talk!
Date: November 25, 2009
Place: Heritage Hall, Pier 21, 1055 Marginal Road, Halifax NS
Pre-reception: 6:30pm
Talk: 7:00pm
The lecture is open to the public and all are welcome.
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Intimacy and dementia a topic at upcoming Alzheimer’s Society conference
The Alzheimer’s Society of Nova Scotia will be hosting its 20th annual conference next week, October 19-20th at the Harbourview Holiday Inn In Dartmouth, NS.It will be two days of updates and information on the latest research, adult day programs, challenging behaviours, adults at risk and more. 
One session not to miss is John O’Keefe, senior social worker from Northwood, who will be speaking on intimacy and dementia:
“The need for intimacy and human closeness does not disappear with cognitive decline. The challenges to
have ones’ intimacy needs met within this context are many and varied. From privacy to competency issues, to staff and family attitudes; caregivers are confronted with many challenges to providing an environment which supports
and promotes the appropriate expression of intimacy.”
You can see the full conference program here. There will also be a free public discussion the evening of the 19th of October. Details on this can be found here.
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Local researchers use listening skills to better understand Alzheimer’s
Researchers at the Geriatric Medicine Research Unit, here in Halifax, believe that listening to patients and their families is the key to garnering new insights into problems like Alzheimer’s disease. 
Because research is often viewed with some skepticism, or seen as something impractical or difficult to understand, they are busy making a series of short videos, describing the purpose, methods, results and possible applications of some of their recent published work - in plain English. By making their work engaging to watch and easy to understand, they hope to break down some of the traditional barriers between researchers and those who could benefit from their work.
Their first effort, explaining recent insights into how and why Alzheimer’s patients repeat themselves, is available for viewing here.