Dementia / Alzheimer's

Keeping in touch with friends often requires effort and attention, especially if distance or divergent interests threaten to separate you. What happens, then, when a friend is diagnosed with dementia? Is it possible, and preferable, to continue the friendship, especially as your friend’s cognitive abilities decline? According to new research…

The headlines tell the story: There has been a continuous failure of research efforts to find treatments to effectively combat Alzheimer’s. Millions of dollars and untold hours of research have yet to yield any real treatments to genuinely combat Alzheimer’s once a patient is afflicted. But researchers are not without…

We usually associate smoking marijuana with an altered state of mind and even forgetfulness. But what if, in fact, it could have the opposite affect? A recent study by researchers at the University of Bonn are shining a new light on the benefits of THC (the active ingredient in cannabis)…

You may know her as the writer who penned the best selling novel, Still Alice, about a Harvard linguist who develops Alzheimer’s at a young age, and for which actress Julianne Moore won the Academy Award in the movie version of the novel. However, Lisa Genova, the writer of this novel,…

We all know that our voices tend to go high and our language becomes “sing-songy” when we talk to babies. But did you know that a similar behavior often happens when we speak to seniors, especially those who are cognitively impaired? Such language is known as “elderspeak,” which includes slow…

As the day draws to a close, and the sun begins to set, it’s not uncommon for many of us to begin to feel tired. But for certain seniors, fatigue at the end of the day is just one aspect of a larger set of symptoms collectively known as “sundowning.”…