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New Alzheimers 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 Alzheimers patients.
If a person has Alzheimers disease, its 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
(24,578 posts)which can devastate the caretakers as well as the patient. I hope this treatment will be successful.
Tracer
(2,769 posts)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
(35,015 posts)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
(20,981 posts)a sad blessing.
spinbaby
(15,090 posts)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.