It’s very common for people who have dementia to wander off on their own.

When that happens, frantic family members have to search for them, and call the police if they can’t find them.

But there’s now another option.

Technology — in the form of shoes that have GPS tracking — is beginning to revolutionize how caretakers keep tabs on their loved ones who sometimes wander.

Joann Johnston, whose husband, Bill Johnston, has Alzheimer’s disease, said the shoes give her peace of mind. “When I lost him, you, you kind of panic,” she said.

“I had been leaving him and going to the bank and say, ‘OK, go in, drink your tea and wait for me, and I will come back.’ And he would do that,” Joann Johnston explained. “(But one time) I spent a little longer in the grocery store and got back maybe 45 minutes later, and I looked in McDonald’s and he wasn’t there. I opened the bathroom door and hollered ‘Bill.’ No answer.”

Bill Johnston, who is 83 years old, had wandered away toward a main highway.

Joan Johnston recalled, “I looked over — was looking all around the parking lots and the shopping center, across the street from McDonald’s I saw him. … He couldn’t remember when I would be back. When I wasn’t there the he said — ‘Well where is she? I’ll just walk home.”‘

She picked him up and brought him home.

Bill Johnston is one of an estimated 5.3 million Americans who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, and wandering is one of the most common symptoms.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, many will wander at least once during the progression of the disease, and many, three or more times which, Quijano noted, can make shoes loaded with GPS technology a literal life-saver, and ease the burden often placed on primary care-takers.

Andrew Carle, executive in residence of senior housing at George Mason University, saw a need to curb wandering and reached out to a California company that makes shoes with GPS systems. They partnered on a model for the elderly.

“(Primary caretakers are) afraid to even turn their back on their loved ones for two or three minutes or even to go to the bathroom for a few minutes, because they’re afraid when they come out, they may be gone,” Carle said. “And this technology can really help them and gives them a chance of locating them.”

Seeking ways to control Bill Johnston’s wandering, Joan Johnston and son Alan Johnston were led to George Mason University and Carle, who offered them a pair of shoes to test.

“We discussed it and we decided to try these shoes out on him,” Alan Johnston said. “And (we) thought this would be a good match and kind of went from there.”

A computer programmer, Alan Johnston takes care of the technological side of things for his parents.

“The shoes give you more control,” Alan Johnston said. “My mom can call me immediately and I can give her immediate feedback on his location.”

Carle said, “We’re trying to maximize the odds that they’re going to have this technology on them and the best location is to put it in shoes.”

Joan and Bill Johnston hope it will make their lives easier. The philosophy Joan lives by? “You take it day-by-day and moment-by-moment and try not to plan too far ahead,” she said. “I don’t plan more than a day ahead of time. And you take it, today.”

Carle also worked closely with a company in New Jersey Aetrex, on the shoe.

The GPS shoes can be ordered now here.

SOURCE: CBS NEWS

Alzheimer’s disease spreads in a predictable pattern like an infection, going from one brain cell to another along linked circuits known as synapses, researchers say.

The findings, published in the online journal PloS One, suggest that blocking the process early on may keep the disease from spreading.

Brain effect: This computer graphic shows a slice of the brain of an Alzheimer patient (left) compared with a normal brain (right). The Alzheimer’s brain is considerably shrunken

‘This is a phenomenon that is increasingly recognised and potentially very important,’ said Dr Samuel Gandy, of the Mount Sinai Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center in New York.

‘If we understood this process, we could potentially arrest progression at an early stage.’

Imaging studies in people have suggested that Alzheimer’s spreads from region to region in the brain rather than popping up spontaneously in different areas, but the evidence was not strong enough to say for sure.

‘Everyone talks about Alzheimer’s ‘spreading’, but there really has not been a standard theory,’ study authors Dr Karen Duff and Dr Scott Small from the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, said.

‘In the past, we have asked many of our colleagues in the field of Alzheimer’s research what they mean when they say ‘spread’. Most think that the disease just pops up in different areas of the brain over time, not that the disease actively jumps from one area to the next,’ they said.

‘Our findings show for the first time that the latter might be true.’

More than five million Americans and 465,000 people in the UK suffer from Alzheimer’s, a brain disease that causes dementia.

Despite costly efforts, no drug has been found that can keep the disease from progressing.

There is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s, which is a progressive condition and most common in people over 65

For their study, the team used mice that were genetically engineered to accumulate deposits of tau in a key memory center of the brain known as the entorhinal cortex, which is where that toxic protein starts to deposit in people.

Their aim was to map the progression of tau, an abnormal protein that forms tangles of protein fibers in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.

The team analysed the brains of the mice periodically over a period of 22 months to see how the disease progressed.

They found that as the mice aged, the abnormal human tau spread along a linked pathway, traveling from the entorhinal cortex to the hippocampus to the neocortex, areas of the brain needed to form and store memories.

That pattern closely follows the progression of Alzheimer’s as it passes through various stages in people, Dr Duff said.

The team also saw signs that tau moved from brain cell to brain cell across synapses, connection points that allow nerve cells to communicate.

The researchers think those findings suggest new strategies for diagnosing and treating Alzheimer’s disease.

‘First, it would suggest that imaging tools that can detect entorhinal cortex dysfunction will be particularly helpful in diagnosing the earliest stages of the disease,’ they said.

‘More importantly, it might suggest ways of improving treatment.

‘The implication of our study is that if it were possible to ‘treat’ Alzheimer’s when it was first detected in the entorhinal cortex, this would prevent spread,’ they said.

They likened the approach to treating cancer early, when it is still in one spot, and not waiting until it has spread.

The study may bring a new focus to diagnostics and treatments that focus on tau, rather than amyloid, the protein that causes plaques to form in the brain.

Current imaging agents used with PET scanners can identify amyloid deposits in the brain, but not tau.

Most late-stage Alzheimer’s drugs, including Eli Lilly and Co’s solanezumab, and Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer’s bapineuzumab, take aim at amyloid, which accumulates silently 15 to 20 years before signs of dementia appear.

Admission

• Is there a waiting period for admittance?
• What are the admission requirements?

Fees and financing

• Are fees competitive?
• Have fees increased significantly in the past few years?
• Is the fee structure easy to understand?
• What are the billing, payment, and credit policies?
• Are there different costs for various levels or categories of services?
• Are the billing and accounting procedures understandable?
• Does the nursing home reveal what services are covered in the quoted fee and what services are extra?
• What governmental financing options are accepted (such as Medicare, Medicaid, Medicare Supplemental Insurance, Supplemental Security Income, and others)?
• When may a contract be terminated? What is the refund policy?

Needs assessment

• Is there a written plan for the care of each resident?
• What is the procedure for assessing a potential resident’s need for services? Are those needs reassessed periodically?

Professional staff

• Do the nurses, social workers, and administrators have geriatric experience and/or education?
• Are staff members available to meet scheduled and unscheduled needs?
• Do staff members seem to genuinely enjoy working with the residents?
• Do staff members treat residents as individuals?
• Is staff available to assist residents who experience memory, orientation, or judgment losses?
• Does a doctor or nurse visit the resident regularly to provide medical checkups?
• Do residents appear happy and comfortable?
• Do residents, other visitors, and volunteers speak favorably about the nursing home?
• Are residents clean and adequately dressed?
• Are the rights of residents clearly posted?

Facility design

• Do you like the appearance of the building and its surroundings?
• Is the decor attractive and home-like?
• Is the floor plan easy to follow?
• Do doorways, hallways, and rooms accommodate wheelchairs and walkers?
• Are elevators available?
• Are handrails available?
• Are shelves easy to reach?
• Are carpets secured and floors made of a non-skid material?
• Is there good natural and artificial lighting?
• Is the residence clean, odor free, and appropriately heated/cooled?

Medication and health care

• What is the policy regarding storage of medication and assistance with medication?
• Is self-administration of medication allowed?
• Who coordinates visits from a physical, occupational, or speech therapist if needed?

Services

• Is staff available to provide 24-hour assistance with activities of daily living, if needed? Daily activities include:
• Dressing
• Eating
• Mobility
• Hygiene and grooming
• Bathing, toileting, and incontinence
• Using the telephone

Room features

• Are rooms for single and double occupancy available?
• Is a 24-hour emergency response system accessible from the room?
• Are bathrooms private? Do they accommodate wheelchairs and walkers?
• Can residents bring their own furnishings? What may they bring?
• Do all rooms have a telephone? How is billing handled for long-distance calls?

SOURCE: WebMD

GREAT FALLS, VA.— When doctors told Carol Blackwell that her husband — her best friend and the love of her life — had Alzheimer’s disease, they assured her “a cure was just around the corner.”

Bob Blackwell was 64, recently retired from the CIA as an analyst on the former Soviet Union and Europe and still functioning normally. “He was brilliant then.”

That was five years ago.

“Here we are, and there’s no cure and no promise of a cure,” Carol says, sitting in her family room, eyes wet with tears.

She is Bob’s primary caregiver, and the last couple of months have been “tough,” she says. There are days when Bob doesn’t know she’s his wife. “I’ve been through a lot of grieving,” she says. “I know it’s too late for a cure for Bob, the disease has moved into too many parts of his brain, but I’m praying for my children and grandchildren. We have to find a cure.”

Carol will be paying close attention to government meetings today and Wednesday in Washington where Health and Human Services officials are gathering with other medical experts to discuss the framework for the first national plan to fight the disease. The No. 1 goal stated in the early draft of the National Alzheimer’s Project Act is to prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s by 2025. Although the funding levels have not been determined, disease experts compare the multi-agency federal approach of NAPA to the wars on heart disease and cancer.

Alzheimer’s, which is a form of dementia that causes progressive loss of intellectual and social skills, is the only disease among the top killers for which there is no prevention, cure or treatment that will slow its progression.

“I think the potential impact of this plan is huge,” says Ron Petersen, chairman of the NAPA non-federal advisory council and director of the Mayo Clinic’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.

“Given the economic problems, it’s a bit of a challenge, but this is our chance to make a bold statement.”

President Barack Obama signed NAPA into law last January. Experts have spent a year formulating the framework for the plan, and the final draft is due later this month or early February.

Source: APP.com

Date: Friday June 8, 2012
Time: 9:00am to 2:00pm

Hosted by:
Shore Meadows Rehabilitation & Nursing Center,
231 Warner Street Toms River NJ

Presented by Keynote Speaker

Dr. Joshua Shua-Haim MD FACP AGSF CMD
Professor of Medicine

FREE Educational & Informative Symposium
Back by Popular Demand!

Alzheimer’s Disease:
The Disease With Two Victims
With Dr. Joshua Shua-Haim, Professor of Medicine

• Shore Meadows Rehabilitation & Nursing Center,
231Warner Road, Toms River, NJ

Providing Free Respite Care for your loved one during the event
with pre-registration 732-942-0800

Limited Seating Call for Reservation

Telephone: 732-657-3757

The Alzheimer’s Academy Presented by

The Haven at Shorrock Gardens Care Center
National Memory Screening Day November 17, 2011
Free Memory Screenings 9:00am until 1:00PM and Presentation 1:00PM

Join us at The Haven at Shorrock Gardens Care Center on
Thursday, Nov 17^th for Free Memory Screenings
9:00am until 1:00p

Dr. Joshua Shua-Haim MD FACP AGSF CMD Professor of Medicine-UMDNJ-RWJ

1:00pm FREE Educational & Informative Forum:
The Latest Treatments & Advances In Alzheimer’s Disease
With Dr. Joshua Shua-Haim, Professor of Medicine

 The Haven at Shorrock Gardens Care Center
75 Old Toms River Road, Brick NJ

Please RSVP to 732-451-1000 ext. 510

~

In Dr. Shua-Haim’s capacity as one of the most experienced authorities on Alzheimer’s disease (AD), he was instrumental in the formulation of the C-ADAT (Caregiver’s – Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Tool).  The C-ADAT organizes a large amount of information using accepted assessment tools into a one-page table.  It builds upon the work of Barry Riesberg, M.D., who along with other prominent researchers in the study of AD, developed a global deterioration scale (GDS), which describes the deterioration of function in patients with AD according to performance standards.  Also designed as a functional assessment tool for patients with AD by Dr. Riesberg, et al., the FAST staging describes the functional staging of AD as though it was a reversal of the normal development of the individual from infancy through adulthood.  To formulate the C-ADAT table, Dr. Shua-Haim incorporated these two functional assessment tools for AD along with two other tools that assess daily activities and function of the elderly patient, in general.

Dr. Shua-Haim developed this invaluable tool in response to healthcare professionals’ and family members’ desire to understand the many facets of Alzheimer’s disease.  The C-ADAT table organizes and condenses all of the research into a format that can be easily understood and utilized by anyone who provides care to a patient with AD.  Additionally, in 2003, Dr. Shua-Haim, Dr. Lee and Juanita Smith conducted a study to validate a modified version of the C-ADAT tool.  Dr. Shua-Haim shares this modified version with all of the caregivers who bring their loved ones to MAGA for treatment.  The modified C-ADAT incorporates cognitive, functional, behavioral, prognostic and therapeutic information on patients with AD.  It is a great asset for geriatric professionals and family caregivers in order to better comprehend the nature and progression of Alzheimer’s disease.  After becoming familiar with the modified C-ADAT, many caregivers find the job of handling those with AD to be more manageable and far less stressful.

Click on the form below to download pdf of the Assessment Tool.

Click to Download pdf form

Aug. 3, 2011 — A new blood test for Alzheimer’s disease is 96% accurate at identifying the disease and can perhaps detect it even before symptoms such as memory loss appear, says the test’s developer.

”This is a simple test that has high accuracy and can be run from a single drop of blood,” says Robert Nagele, PhD, a professor of medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey School of Osteopathic Medicine. He is also founder of Durin Technologies Inc., the company that is developing the test.

The research results on the new test are published online in PLoS ONE.

His test is one of numerous such tests under study, says Heather Snyder, PhD, a spokesperson for the Alzheimer’s Association, who reviewed the research results. “Many labs are looking at this. They are all in the very preliminary, very early stages. We all know we need an accurate, relatively noninvasive way to diagnose Alzheimer’s.”

Last month at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, Australian researchers reported good results for another blood test for Alzheimer’s under development. It works by determining the amount of amyloid plaque, associated with the disease, in people’s brains.

An estimated 5.4 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.

Doctors use brain imaging, evaluation of behavior, psychiatric tests, and other means to diagnose the disease. None are highly accurate, and some are costly and not practical to use on a widespread basis, experts say.

The only definitive way to diagnose the disease is by direct examination of brain tissue after the patient dies.

New Blood Test for Alzheimer’s: How It Works

Nagele’s test looks for antibodies in the blood specific to the disease. Alzheimer’s is believed to start up to 10 years or so before symptoms are noticeable.

Before symptoms occur, these brain changes are under way, he tells WebMD. “Brain cells die and when they die, they pop, they explode, like a water balloon breaking.”

The contents of those dying cells spill partially back into the blood. “Your body makes antibodies against the cell debris,” he says. “We believe that happens so it can facilitate the cleanup of the cell debris.”

The researchers found thousands of these antibodies. “Many of these are related to the presence of the disease,” Nagele says.

Nagele’s team looked at blood samples from 50 people with Alzheimer’s disease and 40 without. They also looked at blood samples from 30 breast cancer patients and 29 with Parkinson’s disease, to be sure the test could be specific for Alzheimer’s.

“Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s are very close in terms of their pathology,” Nagele says. “Neurons are dying in both cases.”

He wanted to see if the test could tell Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s apart.

Overall, the tests identified 96% of those with Alzheimer’s correctly. It correctly identified 92.5% of those who didn’t have Alzheimer’s.

In the process, Nagele narrowed down the list of antibody biomarkers needed to detect Alzheimer’s disease to 10.

The hope is to detect the disease before symptoms appear, but Nagele stresses his team has not yet done that.

If all goes well, he is hopeful the test could be available within a year. Costs are difficult to estimate, but it could be about $200, he tells WebMD.

New Blood Test for Alzheimer’s: Perspective

Snyder calls the report exciting but also had many caveats. “I would call it preliminary,” she says of Nagele’s research. “It’s a small study and a small sample.”

As research on blood and other tests for Alzheimer’s progresses, Snyder says, the measures must be standardized so people get the same results regardless of where the test is performed.

That has been an issue, for instance, in some cerebral spinal fluid tests, also being studied to detect Alzheimer’s. “What we have seen, at least in cerebral spinal fluid [tests], is that it hasn’t held up across different labs,” she says.

She acknowledges some people may not want to know if the disease is in their future, but says knowing early has many advantages. “They can plan for their financial future, as well as their care,” she says. “They can participate in clinical trials. When we do have therapeutic options available, the ultimate goal would be intervention.”

Falls May Indicate Earliest Stages of Alzheimer’s and Need for Further Evaluation

- Also, Preliminary Results on a Possible New “Eye Test” for Alzheimer’s –

PARIS, July 17, 2011 – Falls are more common among individuals with the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s, according to a study presented at the Alzheimer’s Association® International Conference 2011 (AAIC 2011). The study measured the rate of falls among cognitively healthy older adults with and without preclinical Alzheimer’s – as measured by amyloid imaging using positron emission tomography (PET) with Pittsburgh compound B (PiB) – and found twice the risk of falls for people with higher levels of PiB on their scan.

In older adults, falls contribute to increased disability, premature nursing home placement and
injury-related mortality. There are also higher health care costs associated with falls – more than $19 billion could be attributed to the direct medical costs of falls in 2000. Older adults with Alzheimer’s may be at higher risk for falls because of balance and gait disorders and problems with visual and spatial perception that are caused by the disease.

“Understanding the traditional hallmarks of Alzheimer’s, including cognitive impairment and memory loss, are important; however, these study results also illustrate the significance of understanding that, in some people, changes in gait and balance may appear before cognitive impairment,” said Maria Carrillo, PhD, Alzheimer’s Association Senior Director of Medical and Scientific Relations.

“Growing scientific evidence suggests that ‘silent’ biological changes may be occurring in the brain a decade or more before we can see the outward symptoms of Alzheimer’s. According to this study, a fall by an older adult who otherwise has a low risk of falling may signal a need for diagnostic evaluation for Alzheimer’s,” continued Carrillo.

Led by Susan Stark, PhD, Assistant Professor of Occupational Therapy and Neurology at Washington University in St. Louis, the 8-month study followed 125 older adults currently enrolled in longitudinal studies of memory and aging at Washington University’s federally funded Knight Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC). All participants had PiB PET imaging and contributed samples of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Each participant was asked to record in a journal how many times they experienced a fall, which was defined as unintentional movement to the floor,

ground or an object below knee level. Some of participants had preclinical Alzheimer’s and some did not. With an average of 191 days of data collected for participants, the study found that 48 people experienced at least one fall. A positive PiB PET image resulted in a 2.7 times greater risk of a fall for each unit of increase on their PiB PET scan.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to identify a risk of increased falls related to a diagnosis of preclinical Alzheimer’s disease,” said Stark. “This finding is consistent with previous studies of mobility problems among persons with very early symptomatic Alzheimer’s or mild cognitive impairment. It suggests that higher rates of falls can occur very early in the disease process.”

“In the near future, with continued research, we will improve our ability to detect and intervene early in Alzheimer’s disease. With earlier detection, perhaps we can also lower the risk of falls, which can be disabling, expensive and even deadly in older adults,” said Carrillo. “Additional research is urgently needed, for example to further explore the connection between motor deficits and falls as possible early signals of Alzheimer’s.”

Retinal Imaging May Prove Useful In Identifying Individuals at Risk for Alzheimer’s

Another study featured at AAIC 2011 explored whether characteristics of blood vessels in the retina (the light-sensitive layer at the back of the eye) might serve as possible biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease. While most Alzheimer’s-related pathology occurs in the brain, the disease has also been reported to create changes in the eye, which is closely connected to the brain, and more easily accessible for examination in a doctor’s office.

“Today, there is no single method for detecting Alzheimer’s until the disease is well advanced. Current PET and MRI scans can detect some brain changes, but these procedures can be expensive and technically challenging, and so are impractical for testing in large populations,” said Shaun Frost, MSc, of CSIRO’s Australian e-Health Research Center.

In a small pilot study, Frost and colleagues examined retinal photographs of people with Alzheimer’s (n=13), mild cognitive impairment (n=13) and healthy participants (n=110) from the larger Australian Imaging, Biomarker and Lifestyle (AIBL) Flagship Study of Ageing. They examined a variety of parameters, including the width of retinal blood vessels.

They found that the width of certain blood vessels in the back of the eye were significantly different for people with Alzheimer’s vs. healthy controls, and that this correlated with a brain imaging benchmark indicative of Alzheimer’s disease – the deposition of amyloid plaque in the brain as measured by PET PiB imaging.

“Our studies are very preliminary, but encouraging,” said Frost. “Since amyloid plaque build up in the brain occurs years before cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer’s are evident, a non-invasive and cost-effective retinal test may hold promise as an early detection tool for the disease. We hope that, in the future, our measure could be used with blood-based tests to help doctors identify who needs further assessment with PET imaging and MRI for Alzheimer’s, but more research is needed.”

About AAIC
The Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) is the world’s largest conference of its kind, bringing together researchers from around the world to report and discuss groundbreaking research and information on the cause, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. As a part of the Alzheimer’s Association’s research program, AAIC serves as a catalyst for generating new knowledge about dementia and fostering a vital, collegial research community.

About the Alzheimer’s Association
The Alzheimer’s Association is the world’s leading voluntary health organization in Alzheimer’s care, support and research. Our mission is to eliminate Alzheimer’s through the advancement of research, to provide and enhance care and support for all affected, and to reduce the risk of dementia through the promotion of brain health. Our vision is a world without Alzheimer’s. Visit www.alz.org or call 800-272-3900.

• Susan Stark, PhD, et al. Risk of falls among older adults with Preclinical Alzheimer’s Disease. (Funders: U.S. National Institute on Aging, the Knight Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Washington University).
• Shaun Frost, MSc, et al. Retinal Vascular Parameters as Biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease. (Funders: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australian e-Health Research Centre, Preventative Health Flagship, McCusker Alzheimer’s Research Foundation, The Science and Industry Endowment Fund)

Contact:
Alzheimer’s Association
Media line: 312.335.4078
E-mail: media@alz.org

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