[Granville-Hough] 10 May 2009 - Living With the Long Goodbye

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 07:50:25 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Living With the Long Goodbye - 10 May 2009

	Sometimes I change what I intended to report because of better 
opportunities.  Today is where I take a June message and report that the 
world is catching up and taking notice.  A four-part series will 
premiere on HBO television tonight entitled: "The Alzheimer's Project."
Tonight, the first part will be "The Memory Loss Tapes," showing how the 
conditions appears in early states.  Monday will be "Grandpa, Do You 
Know who I Am?"  Tuesday will be "Caregivers," and I do not identify 
precisely what the fourth part will be.  What seems to be the fourth 
part is a two part film Monday and Tuesday, "Momentum in Science," but I 
do not know whether that is tomorrow and next day, or the following week.
       For those living in California or who can remember 1972, Maria Shriver, 
our Governor's wife, is taking part in the project as her father, 
Sargent Shriver, founding Director of the Peace Corps, and 1972 
Vice-President candidate, was diagnosed with the disease in 2003.
	I do not know what the series will be like, but I urge each of you to 
find it tonight.  It may help us understand, and it will surely do no 
harm.  Love to all, Grampa.

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	As a former caretaker for Carol Hough and present volunteer (June 
2005)for the Alzheimer Nursing Home where Carol lived her last year, I 
get invited to the latest work of the doctors at UC Irvine and Hoag 
Hospital.  I pass the ideas on to members of my family and to friends 
who are interested.
  I went to a session today (7 June 2005.)

  To delay the onset, 1. Control hypertension, get down to 120/80.
                                     2. Lower Cholesterol, far below 200.
                                     3. Check B-12 and Homocysteine
levels.  (new to me, the homocysteine level can be part of a routine
blood test; and as I do one yearly, I will schedule it into the other
things I check)
                                     4. Eat a healthy diet.  (fish
weekly, salmon, mackeril, tuna), anti-oxidant rich foods such as
pomegranite juice, Vitamin E (no more than 400 mg daily), Vitamin C,
about 500 mg daily;, (and new to me)  include curry, which has the
yellow pigment curcumin,  a traditional food/medicine in India,
                                     5.  Keep you weight down to normal
for your height.
                                     6. Use your brain, mental exercise,
card games, read, write stories, take up interesting causes.
                                     7. Walk at least one and a half
hours weekly. Or Exercise in whatever way you like, dancing, water,
golf, tennis, shopping, etc. (Avoid any exercise or games where there is
a likelihood of a fall and head injury (Remember Carol's bathroom fall
and 21 stitch surgery to repair her scalp).
                                     8. Stay socially engaged with
family, church, friends, correspondence, e-mail, etc.
                                     9.  Treat depression.  (depression
seems to bring on all sorts of secondary problems.)

    Some of the newly developed drugs do lengthen the period between the
recognizable onset of disease and the patient's inability to get
dressed, do normal living activities, etc.  They would make a lot of
difference to the caretaker who is always pressed for time.

    Also of great interest was the two kinds of public service, free
care clinics which are available.  One type is socially oriented, more
focused on living skills , and the other had medical backup and treats
the medical side as well as the social and cognitive.  (We could have
used the facility about a mile from us; but when I took Carol to check
it, she was very negative about it; and I had the simple problem of
getting her ready to go.  I concluded the daily fight of getting her
dressed and ready would offset any benefit.)

    I also learned something new about the gunks of plaque which develop
and block the connectors of the brain.  No current brain scan will show
these gunks.
They are microscopic and can only be observed after an autopsy and the
brain tissues have been stained to disclose them.  This is the
importance of the autopsy to confirm Alzheimers and the particular kind
of Alzheimer's.

    There are some more clinics this summer which I may attend.  At our
age, we need to learn all we can while we still can.