Hope for Alzheimer's patients

[OnlinePoker]

New Alzheimer’s treatment fully restores memory function

Of the mice that received the treatment, 75 percent got their memories back.
BEC CREW
18 MAR 2015

Australian researchers have come up with a non-invasive ultrasound technology that clears the brain of neurotoxic amyloid plaques - structures that are responsible for memory loss and a decline in cognitive function in Alzheimer’s patients.

If a person has Alzheimer’s disease, it’s usually the result of a build-up of two types of lesions - amyloid plaques, and neurofibrillary tangles. Amyloid plaques sit between the neurons and end up as dense clusters of beta-amyloid molecules, a sticky type of protein that clumps together and forms plaques.

http://www.sciencealert.com/new-alzheimer-s-treatment-fully-restores-memory-function

[brer cat]

1. This is such a cruel, horrible disease

which can devastate the caretakers as well as the patient. I hope this treatment will be successful.

[Tracer]

2. If this works in humans, it would be a stunning breakthrough.

It would be too late for my sister.

Her Alzheimers is in the part of her brain that prevents her from knowing that there is anything wrong and she denies it vociferously. But her paranoia, hallucinations and memory loss has recently forced the family to place her in an Alzheimer's care unit -- at a cost of $100,000 per year.

That kind of cost will shortly be unsustainable.

Someone called Alzheimers a "slow motion catastrophe". Tragically, that is true.

[Avalux]

3. Promising! Best part, the treatment is non-invasive, no drugs with side-effects.

Just a few ultrasound waves to shake the plaque off the cells, just like shaking snow off a tree. Let's hope it works as well in people as it did in mice.

[pansypoo53219]

4. my great-aunt just died of AZ.

a sad blessing.

[spinbaby]

5. Hopeful

I have a relative in the last stages of Alzheimer's, to the point where his body is no longer working and he can't stand, use his hands, or swallow liquids. He no longer knows us in those short stretches when he's awake, but he's loudly and repeatedly clear in that he wants to die.