Memory restoration breakthrough

[neverwas]

sounds hopeful, if you've ever known anyone with Alzheimers, it ain't nice for them or their caregivers...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article3276098.ece

[Wilson]

"With the number of people with Alzheimer's forecast to double within a generation, we urgently need to find ways to tackle this awful disease, but research is hugely under-funded."

The surgery does sound promising. But I wonder that even if they were to give people their memory back, what about the other changes in Alzheimer's patients? So many become violent - is it because of the memory loss or something else?

That last line about Alzheimer's doubling in the next generation is terrifying.

[neverwas]

I've been around a couple of alzheimer patients, one family and one accidental.

the family member was sad but he stayed fairly good until the very end.

the other one was in a hospital that we were visiting our family member for a regular medical problem. Relative was my wife's so I stayed in the room for a bit then roamed the halls. got stopped by an old guy who wanted to talk, which I quickly found out he had alzheimers from the floor nurse. He was fairly pleasant but she warned me he could/did get violent. From what I saw, the times he got mad or violent was when he was trying to remember or string together a thought but couldn't. You could see it in his eyes, things were working on some level but he couldn't get through all the layers of his brain to come out his an intelligent response or thought. Made me cry because you could see he knwe something was wrong...

I really can't imagine what is going on in their minds. You'd like to think nothing, but I'm afraid they do know and that makes them violent... :-(

[Wilson]

In a way, I hope you're right, because that would mean that they wouldn't become violent if they could remember. Your post did remind me that the first Alzheimer's patient that I had a connection with (the father of my best friend) got violent with a particular Alzheimer's medication... the nursing home would screw up and give him the medication the family warned them not to, he would get violent and get kicked out... this happened at various nursing homes in Texas until only Rusk would take him.

My grandfather (he died last month) got um, not violent but very angry, said mean things, etc. Sometimes I think he wouldn't have said those things if he knew really who was talking to. He tried to hit a nurse in the hospital the week he died, but she touch him wrong and he was in a lot of pain.

[Carpe Diem]

My great-grandmother got really mean with Alzheimer's. It is just so hard on the family and you don't want that to be the last memories of them that you have. :(

[baby duck]

My grandmother got really mean also, but she lived for years after, so that is not my last memory of her. I really believe that the mean was because she was losing her memory, and was also easily susceptible to outside suggestions. She actually owned the property that she and my grandfather lived on, and put it up for sale in a fit of pique at him. Luckily he found out about it in time and put a stop to it. This was easily thirty years ago, and my grandfather didn't really understand what was wrong with her. It took a neighbor to tell him that she was sick before he realized that it was more than just their marriage falling apart. She used to tell everyone that she hadn't seen him for days and that there was no food in the house, when they could see that he was coming home at night and for lunch everyday. Of course, years later, his was the only voice she would respond to.

[FamilyGal]

Of course, years later, his was the only voice she would respond to.

Awwwww. That is sweet. Sad, but sweet.

[IndianSpringsGuy]

We know very little about the circuitry of memory.

My first reaction to this "breakthrough" was that our electrical system degrades over time, like a battery that needs charging, but that does not seem to be the case. It looks like we may be on the edge of discovery about something much larger and significant than fighting disease. Understanding how the brain works will open giant doors. Imagine the healthy person having an implant similar to this! So maybe the distinguishing physical mark of a super "smart" person is the strength of the "battery". Then too, and we all know that this could be in the future of mankind, there is a desire to understand the way a preson thinks (physically). Linking the wires and being able to reprogram could correct issues in teenagers and reset their direction is life. Gezz, the many things that could come out of this! Now what would this world be like if we could implant a computer-like device in our brain that is compatible with our memory cells and we could make backups of of our memory? The implications could be so vast that we could not even begin to think of what would happen to society with such capabilities.