Fight Against Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease: A Patient Survival: A Guide Based On Medical Research

Boy have times changed! When I was a young boy, we would be pretty keen about what you'd say to your grandparents or even the elderly at large. They were sharp, astute, and keen. From my grandfather playing golf till he was 94, riding his bicycle a few miles a week in his late eighties to my grandmother who was overly serious about bridge and could answer almost all of Alex Trebek's questions in Jeopardy. Was my memory tainted about the elderly? After having countless conversations with patients over the years, I found out my memories are not as tainted as I had thought. Most of us have memories of people over 70 who were "with it", "sharp", "present". I remember my grandfather taking apart a radio on his workbench when he was over 75 years of age, mumbling about how they didn't make things like they used to. Over the last 30 years, things have changed dramatically. It can be very tough when I find patients struggling for words, drop a conversation mid dialogue, can't seem to remember important portions of their case history. I once was surprised by a client who forgot he had a double spiral fracture of his left femur and I wondered, HOW!. This year I had a client forget they had a bout with cancer until the third visit! Just because something has become common place doesn't mean it is normal. When I grew up, the statistics on all sorts of diseases were far less than today. From cancer to autism, you can check any study you want and all of the numbers have gone nothing but up, decade after decade."It's in the genes", as a common answer patients whip out when something is wrong. There is some truth here. There are things we can't control when we are adults: our height, our eye color, our skin color, and so on. However, there are dozens of things we can control. The below will be an example of what we can do even though we're bound by our DNA.Our DNA is much like a farm field. Well that farm may be fixed by location and access to water, but we can choose what kind of seed to plant, how to take care of it, whether to fertilize it, whether to prevent weed growth and insects from attacking it, how and when we plant & harvest, and many other attributes associated with taking care of that seed we put in our fixed ground that we own.We cannot change is the ground we have. We are not allowed to sell or trade but we can work the land differently to produce a different bushel yield of whichever crop our soil is best in adequate for. Our body is much like that field and while we cannot change our DNA; however, our DNA is responsive to what we eat, drink, rest, sleep, stresses and a host of factors we can change. More importantly what we do not put in our bodies can be immensely helpful. It would make sense to any layperson that anyone who would eat chips, candy bars, soda, high carb high processed food, premade food would produce one type of body compared to a person who never ate any of those and ate fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, meat raise off the land and eat locally grown foods. Now it is simple to type this metaphor but we have to fight our nature. I can have a desire to eat sweets, speed when I drive, and a dozen other things that make me "feel" great. But alas, I get in trouble. So I have to put away my desires and behave. But seriously, if we learn to control our desires, we can be healthier. No patient has said: "I never knew that!", but so many didn't know where to start or what to do. So, the following chapters are opportunities to help your body fight back.The purpose of this book is straight forward: reduce or stop a few things that are increasing your statistics of getting dementia and Alzheimer's Disease. Start incorporating some subjects/topics that can help your body reduce your current and future statistics. The author would think that it would be great to do this BEFORE you have symptoms. That's it.