It will be the first of many. I am currently working on having the first annual "Purple Dignity" dinner to help raise money and awareness to fight back with Alzheimer's.
Check it out!!!
www.purpledignity.com
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Julianne Moore Grapples With Alzheimer’s in ‘Still Alice’....
In “Still Alice,” Julianne Moore plays a 50-year-old professor of linguistics at Columbia University, who while jogging on campus one day finds herself baffled about where she is. That and other symptoms of memory loss lead to a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. The drama takes a painstakingly realistic approach as Alice tries to cling to her identity. If she can’t use words, who is she? It also charts the sometimes devastating effect on her family. Kristen Stewart plays her youngest child; their fraught relationship is particularly tested.
Ms. Moore is likely to get Oscar recognition; Alec Baldwin also plays an important part as Alice’s husband. (He also acted husband to last year’s best- actress Oscar winner, Cate Blanchett, in “Blue Jasmine.”) He plays a good man, yet far from the heroic husband who might be expected in a film about a disease. He has his own ambitions, and doesn’t want life to just come to a halt for the family.
“This is a man who clearly feels that if he keeps moving forward he can slow down or even sidestep what’s happening to his wife,” Mr., Baldwin said via email. “I think in the end he is just afraid and makes his decisions from that place.”
Although the film is based on a novel, by Lisa Genova, its realism was informed by its writing-directing team of Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland (“Quinceanera” in 2006).
Mr. Westmoreland is the husband of Mr. Glatzer, who was diagnosed with the motor neuron disease ALS in 2011. While his physical deterioration was different from the fictional Alice’s mental loss of faculties, both conditions cause irreversible declines. Mr. Glatzer co-directed the film from his wheelchair, able to type out messages with only one finger.
And just as the film sounds more unrelentingly grim than it is, there was humor during production. “Richard’s condition is obviously heartbreaking, but it also led to some funny moments on the set,” Mr. Baldwin said. At times, Mr. Glatzer would clarify Mr. Westmoreland’s direction to the actors. “One day, I blurted out, ‘Oh great! I’m working with a tandem directing team and the guy with the good notes has ALS’, and everyone laughed,” Mr. Baldwin said. The film plays one week in New York, then hits theaters again starting Jan. 16.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
B. Smith, former model stricken with Alzheimer’s get lost.
 |
| Alzheimer’s-stricken ex-model B. Smith. |
Alzheimer’s-stricken ex-model B. Smith traveled more than 50 miles — from the top of Manhattan to the tip of Staten Island — after vanishing earlier this week, her husband has revealed.
The pioneering celebrity, 65, was found Wednesday at the La Parisienne Coffee House on Seventh Ave. a day after she went missing while heading out to the Hamptons. “Just for the record, here’s what B experienced, so there are no rumors,” husband Dan Gasby wrote on Facebook.
Gasby went on to describe her mysterious journey:
Smith, after traveling to Midtown from the Hamptons, walked north to Harlem. At some point, she turned around and headed back south, marching all the way to the Staten Island Ferry.
She took the ferry to Staten Island, hopped on a bus and eventually made her way back to the terminal.
After returning to Manhattan, she walked all the way to La Parisienne near W. 57th St. “where a friend happened to see her,” Gasby wrote.
Smith, one of the first African-American models to grace the cover of Mademoiselle, had last been seen about 8 p.m. Tuesday getting off the Hampton Jitney in Southampton.
Her husband called the cops after he learned she had inexplicably hopped off the bus before the Sag Harbor stop. It isn’t known how Smith got to Manhattan from the Hamptons.
A frantic search was launched.
Smith, whose first name is Barbara, was located after she was spotted eating at La Parisienne with an older woman.
In June, Smith spoke candidly about her struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.
You do try to hide it from everybody,” she told CBS News.
Smith — despite not being able to recall the date, month or year — remained hopeful about her prognosis.
“I think the future’s going to be fine,” she said. “I’m going to do my best to make it work out for me, and for as many people that I can possibly help, too.”
Smith couldn’t be reached Friday.
Following her modeling career, she jumped into the restaurant business, opening her first B. Smith restaurant in the city in 1986. She launched two others in the year that followed.
The tireless Smith was also the host of “B. Smith With Style,” a nationally syndicated talk show that aired in the mid-1990s on NBC 4 New York and on NBC affiliates across the country.
In April, after closing her restaurants, Smith and Gasby sold their Central Park West apartment for nearly $6 million and moved east to Sag Harbor.
In his Thursday Facebook post, Smith’s husband said he’s determined to help steer her through the crippling neurological disorder.
Monday, December 1, 2014
Midlife Diabetes Linked to Memory Problems Later
Blood sugar disorder associated with 19 percent greater decline in thinking skills, study reports
MONDAY, Dec. 1, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- A midlife diagnosis of diabetes or prediabetes may raise the risk of memory and thinking problems over the next 20 years, new research suggests.
Having diabetes in midlife was linked with a 19 percent greater decline in memory and thinking (cognitive) skills over 20 years, according to the new study.
"What we saw was, people with prediabetes, diabetes and poorly controlled diabetes had the higher risks of cognitive decline. The people with the worse cognitive decline were those with poorly controlled diabetes," said study researcher Elizabeth Selvin, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
However, the study authors acknowledged that this study was only able to find an association between diabetes and prediabetes and an increased risk of memory and thinking problems later in life. It wasn't able to determine if the blood sugar disorders were the actual cause of the memory and thinking issues.
Findings from the study are published in the Dec. 2 Annals of Internal Medicine. It was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
About 21 million U.S. adults have diabetes, according to background information in the study. In type 2 diabetes, the body doesn't use the hormone insulin effectively. Insulin helps get the sugars from foods into the body's cells to be used for energy. Type 2 diabetes is a risk factor for heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, blindness and kidney disease, according to the study.
Diabetes has also been linked with dementia risk, but how diabetes relates to earlier declines in memory and thinking is less well known, the study authors wrote.
"We know that cognitive decline occurs five to seven years before dementia. Our goal was to look at how diabetes might be contributing," Selvin said.
The new research followed more than 13,000 middle-aged adults over 20 years. They came from four states: Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi and North Carolina. At the start of the study -- 1990 to 1992 -- the study volunteers were 48 to 67 years old.
Selvin and her colleagues evaluated the study participants' memory and thinking abilities at three different visits over the years. The researchers also had data on whether the volunteers had diabetes or prediabetes, as well as their blood sugar levels at various times in the study.
The researchers measured declines in thinking and memory on a continuum, so it's difficult to give exact measures of the decline linked to the diabetes, Selvin said. But, on average, a 60-year-old who has diabetes has cognitive decline on par with a healthy 65-year-old who is aging normally, according to the researchers.
The study also found that memory and thinking decline was greater for people with prediabetes compared to people with normal blood sugar levels. And, people with diabetes who had higher blood sugar levels (measured as an HbA1C of more than 7 percent) had an even greater risk than those who had lower average blood sugar levels. (HbA1C is a measurement that estimates average blood sugar levels over two to three months, according to the American Diabetes Association.)
The researchers also noted that people who had diabetes for a longer time had more significant memory and thinking problems later in life.
Exactly why the two are linked is unclear, Selvin said. But it could be related to common effects on the blood vessel, she said. Diabetes-related damage to blood vessels may also trigger cognitive changes.
"The study is consistent with other literature we have seen," said Heather Snyder, director of medical and scientific operations for the Alzheimer's Association. Snyder reviewed the study's findings.
Those with diabetes appear to be at greater risk of cognitive problems, she said, but added, "not everyone with diabetes goes on to develop greater cognitive decline."
The findings demonstrate another good reason to try to prevent diabetes, Selvin said. Losing excess weight, eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly can help prevent type 2 diabetes, she noted.
More information
To learn more about the stages of Alzheimer's disease, visit the Alzheimer's Association.
SOURCES: Elizabeth Selvin, Ph.D., M.P.H., associate professor of epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Md.; Heather Snyder, Ph.D., director medical and scientific operations, Alzheimer's Association; Dec. 2, 2014, Annals of Internal Medicine
Friday, November 14, 2014
Autopsy: Robin Williams had Lewy body dementia
The hallucination-causing disease may have contributed to his decision to commit suicide
According to his official autopsy, actor and comedian Robin Williams had a disease called Lewy body dementia (LBD), which may have contributed to his decision to kill himself.
People with LBD have dementia and often appear disoriented. According to ABC News, Williams had displayed odd behavior in his final days — notably, he kept several watches in a sock and was “concerned about keeping the watches safe.”
“The dementia usually leads to significant cognitive impairment that interferes with everyday life,” said Angela Taylor, programming director of the Lewy Body Dementia Association in an interview with ABC News. Still, symptoms are hard to spot. “If you didn’t know them you may not realize anything is wrong.”
LBD is fairly common, with 1.3 million people suffering from the illness in the United States, although it largely remains undiagnosed since it shares symptoms with better-known diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Biologically, the disease stems from abnormal proLBD, the deposits spread throughout the brain, including to the cerebral cortex (responsible for problem solving and perception). The main symptom is progressive dementia, although people with the disease may also experience complicated visual hallucinations that could include smells and sounds, trouble sleeping, changes in attention and symptoms generally associated with Parkinson’s disease (which Williams also had).
tein deposits in the brain stem where they stop the production of dopamine. In
Typically, patients are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease first, and then LBD symptoms begin to appear. An examination of Williams’ brain revealed that it had undergone changes associated with Alzheimer’s, in addition to Parkinson’s and LBD.
“Though his death is terribly sad,” Taylor said, “it’s a good opportunity to inform people about this disease and the importance of early diagnosis.”
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
PURPLE
 |
| Finishing my speech on the "Purple" Queen Mary 11-8-2014 |
 |
| Platform Award for Alzheimer's Woman of Achievement Queen Mary 11-9-2014 |
 |
| Receiving a check for $500 for 1st place for speech. Thank you Vegan Therapy |
I am thrilled I didn't do this... I put a lot of thought into how I would capture the moments, the words the feelings about what I am going to do and what I am currently doing with my Alzheimer's work, and as I lay in bed one night it came to me... "PURPLE". This is the title of my speech and you will see why. Enjoy. I am happy to say I won overall platform and I won overall speech, bringing home $500.00 cash from Vegan Therapy for my platform project "Remember My Photo". https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vegan-Therapy/455406477876775
All I can say is look out world. I am changing it one day at a time and I am a voice that is being heard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX3KiMAe7EQ&feature=youtu.be
 |
| Showing off my "Platform" Board for Alzheimer's Remember My Photo |
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Honor a Caregiver Today
November is National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month and National Caregiver Month. In the United States, there are more than 15 million Alzheimer's and dementia caregivers. We want to send these exceptional people a big “thank you” for everything they do. Honor them by sharing your tribute message!
http://www.alz.org/care/honor-caregiver.asp?WT.mc_id=enews2014_11_05&utm_source=enews-aff-20&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=enews-2014-11-05
http://www.alz.org/care/honor-caregiver.asp?WT.mc_id=enews2014_11_05&utm_source=enews-aff-20&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=enews-2014-11-05
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Glen Campbel's-A Farewell to His Fans and Himself
On the Road With Alzheimer’s in ‘I’ll Be Me’
From the very first scene, “I’ll Be Me”signals that it is not going to be
a conventional documentary about a celebrity, in this case the country-pop
singer and guitarist Glen Campbell. As Mr. Campbell sits in a darkened room
watching home movies of his younger self, he asks his wife, Kim, “Who is that?”
“It’s you, honey,” she replies, “it’s a movie about you,” to
which he, still puzzled, replies: “No kidding? I’ll be me.”
In 2011, Mr. Campbell, then 75, revealed that he had Alzheimer’s
disease and announced a series of farewell concerts for that fall. So “Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me,” opening Oct.
24, was conceived as a behind-the-scenes record both of that final tour and of
the difficult struggle of Mr. Campbell and his family against an incurable
disease that afflicts more than five million Americans.
“The more we learned about Alzheimer’s, the more we wanted to
shine a light on it and the more we became aware of the potential of this movie
to be a catalyst for change,” said Mrs. Campbell, a former Radio City Music
Hall dancer who met the singer on a blind date in 1981. “It turned into
something bigger than we had imagined.”
The original plan, said the film’s director, James Keach, was to follow Mr.
Campbell on what was envisioned as a five-week tour. But that undertaking grew
into 151 shows over 15 months, and Mr. Keach, operating with a very small crew,
continued to tag along, even when the Campbells were at his doctor’s office or
at home with family or friends.
“It was daunting, the idea of doing it, because how do you make
something that is entertaining about a man with Alzheimer’s?” said Mr. Keach,
who has directed episodes of numerous television shows and was also the
co-producer of “Walk the Line,” the 2005 biopic about
Johnny Cash. “In some ways, it’s more difficult than having a scripted movie,
because there you have your structure figured out. In this case, you go from
Stage 2 to Stage 4 or 5 of Alzheimer’s, and you have to be true to that.”
Mrs. Campbell also had a camera and shot events at home. The
film does not emphasize moments that may be painful or embarrassing to watch,
but neither does it flinch from them: Mr. Campbell is shown erupting in rage as
his dementia worsens, and one discussion in his doctor’s office focuses on the
singer’s difficulty in finding the toilet in hotel rooms and his own bedroom,
which leads him to urinate in wastebaskets.
Mr. Keach said that one of the lessons he learned from “Walk the Line” focus groups that saw
Johnny Cash consuming drugs was that “a little bit goes a long way” in showing
such frailties. For her part, Mrs. Campbell said she trusted Mr. Keach to “edit
and tailor the film to protect Glen’s dignity” while at the same time “telling
the truth about this disease.”
In documentaries that get in so close to their subjects’ lives,
especially those unable to fend for themselves, the moral issue of informed
consent often arises. But in Mr. Campbell’s case, “he not only had the
capacity, he had the desire” to have his situation documented, Mr. Keach said.
Mrs. Campbell added: “In the early stages of this disease, your
short-term memory begins to falter, but you are still cognizant of what is
going on and can still make decisions. Glen was fully aware of his diagnosis
and what we were attempting to do.”
(Last month, Mr. Campbell and his management were sued by
a Los Angeles-based media production company, which accused him of reneging on
an agreement to make the documentary with it. In a statement issued last week,
a lawyer for the film’s producers, Lisa Callif, said they do not “have any
personal knowledge of the allegations set forth in the complaint.”)
The film has numerous concert sequences showing the highs and
lows of Mr. Campbell’s performances as well as the compassion of audiences that
knew they were getting their last glimpse of him. At the beginning of the tour,
Mr. Campbell is still playing guitar fluidly, though often struggling to
remember lyrics, but by the last show, in Napa, Calif., on Nov. 30, 2012, even
his dexterity is suffering.
“It was almost like a game of roulette,” said Ashley Campbell,
the singer’s youngest daughter, now 27, who played keyboards and banjo in the
tour band, which also included her brothers Shannon and Cal. “You’d have a
great show and then a difficult show, and you’d start to wonder, ‘Oh no, is
this getting towards the end?’ ”
Mr. Campbell has been a part of the American musical landscape
for so long that it is easy to forget that he has played many roles. As the
country music stars Blake Shelton, Brad Paisley and Keith Urban note in the
film, he was instrumental in bringing their genre into the pop mainstream in
the late 1960s, but before that, he was a session musician on dozens of Top 10
pop hits and even toured as a member of the Beach Boys.
“He had this overall musicality, and was born with an
encyclopedic knowledge of keys,” said the songwriter Jimmy Webb, a friend since 1967 who wrote “By
The Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman” and other hits for Mr. Campbell.
“He’d take a scrap of paper and turn it into an arrangement, and did so many
times for the Beach Boys and the Mamas and the Papas. He was more entertaining
to work with than almost anyone because of the childish excitement he brought
to that process.”
Films about musicians struggling with adversity, “Searching for Sugar Man” and “20 Feet
from Stardom,” have won the Oscar in the feature documentary category the last
two years. “I’ll Be Me” is already getting some Oscar buzz, but Mr. Keach said
his film “is not a music doc, it’s about a man battling a disease and going out
on the stage every night not knowing where he is.”
But the film also offers a broader examination of Alzheimer’s
impact on society. In one particularly emotional scene, Ashley Campbell testifies before Congress about her
father beginning to forget who she is, and in another, Mr. and Mrs. Campbell
visit the House minority leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, and
push for more funding for Alzheimer’s research.
The film represents an important educational opportunity, said
Dr. Ronald C. Petersen of the Mayo Clinic,
who diagnosed Mr. Campbell’s disease and is also chairman of a nationalAlzheimer’s
advisory council. “One of our biggest struggles is still getting
people to acknowledge this disease,” he added. “So we need to embrace this and
say he didn’t do anything wrong in his life to bring this on, that this can
happen to virtually anyone.”
Sony Pictures Classics plans to release another movie this year
that should also raise Alzheimer’s awareness, the fictional feature “Still Alice.” Based on Lisa Genova’s
best-selling 2007 novel of the same name, that film stars Julianne Moore as a
linguistics professor with early-onset Alzheimer’s.
“I’ll Be Me” features former President Bill Clinton talking
about Mr. Campbell, a fellow Arkansan, and his courage in becoming a public
face of Alzheimer’s. In addition, Bruce Springsteen, Chad Smith of the Red Hot
Chili Peppers, Mr. Paisley and the country singer Kathy Mattea weigh in,
talking about family members who suffer from the disease.
Mr. Webb also appears in the film, but he said has not yet seen
it and is not sure when, or even if, he will. “It’s too personal, to be frank,
too painful,” he said.
“In a very real sense, Glen the artist, the virtuoso and true
master of so many aspects of musicality, in many ways that Glen is gone,” he
added. “And I say that as a caress and not as a dismissal. The sense of loss is
so complete that it’s difficult for me to find the words.”
By spring of this year, the disease had advanced to the point
that Mr. Campbell moved into what his wife described as a “memory care
community,” a long-term care and treatment facility near Nashville. She visits
him daily, she said, but his musical skills and awareness are now so eroded
that he is sometimes not even conscious of songs being played around him.
If he’s handed a guitar, “sometimes a melody will come out,” she
said, “but often it’s very dissonant and doesn’t make sense.” She continued:
“But our son Shannon was with him just the other day, and Glen just sounded out
the melody for ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix.’ So I do think that music is
still the most deeply embedded thing in him, and it’s a delight when it comes
back.”
Mr. Webb added: “It’s a curious feeling, difficult and poignant,
when you reach that tipping point in the relationship where a person no longer
recognizes you. I think that’s very difficult. I really wish I could go over
and see him and play some songs. Really.”
Monday, October 27, 2014
Honoring Carmine
 |
| Carmine Depiano 10-10-2014 |
What is unique and beautiful about Carmine is that he is
sharing his story openly. He is one of the 5 million American’s living with Alzheimer’s.
Not only did Carmine speak openly in front of
several hundred people that came out to do the Alzheimer’s walk he is letting
me share his story and photograph him.
When he spoke on stage he made many cry. There wasn't a dry eye anywhere around as his words rang home to a lot of people sitting
in the audience and I was one of them.
I asked Carmine’s wife if they would be interested in being
featured on my blog. She said “Ask Carmine, I am sure he would do it.” When Carmine
came off the stage, I asked him and he said yes. I gave him my card.
Not knowing if I would hear from him I was delighted when he
called me a few days later to schedule our first interview at his house with
him and his wife. He asked when I answered the call if I knew who is was. I
said “Yes, Hi Carmine I know this is you”. He laughed. He wanted to make sure I
knew it was him.
I came over to his house on a Friday after work. I was
greeted by two large dogs named: Blue & Rainy who
were really good and beyond friendly.
 |
| (Carmine Depiano talks on the phone during our interview.) |
We sat in the dining room at his house and I shared with them why I wanted
to photograph him and share his story.
Carmine is a 68 year old gentleman. He was diagnosed February of 2014 with early on-set Alzheimer's. Him and his lovely wife Suzan have been married for over 40 years. They have two sons and two grand kids. They live on there own with no help or assistants. Suzan works part time at the Washoe County Jail as a dental assistant.
Carmine is a retired Vet from the Air force where he was a weapons loader. He served over-seas in Germany. After serving for his country for three years and seven months he was honorable discharged. He spent the rest of his working career in the Trucking industry working several aspects of the trucking industry from dispatcher to supervisor. Him and his wife came to Sparks, Nevada nine years ago and it is now where they reside and call home.
Carmine joined the Alzheimer's walk after he saw and ad on tv. He felt it was something he needed to become part of after learning of his diagnosis.
 |
| (Carmine with Blue & Rainy) |
Carmine said he came home angry and mad. "I was given a death sentence." and then he recalls a statement that rang true, "Well get over it we are all gone die." He was the first to be diagnosed in his family.
Carmine still drives right now. He is okay on the wide open road, but has difficulty driving in town. Because his wife works part time, she is not always there to help him. Her biggest worry is Carmine falling. Right now he falls about once a month. Last year Carmine took a fall in June of 2013 that was so bad he broke his jaw, some teeth and his shoulder.
 |
| (Carmine and his wife Suzan) |
 |
| Carmine & Suzan |
Monday, October 20, 2014
Hilarity For Charity- 3rd Annual Prom Night!!!!
Date: Friday October 17, 2014
Time: 6:30pm
Place: Hollywood, Palladium
Theme: Prom
Total Raised: 1 Million!!!!
Website: http://www.hilarityforcharity.org/
 |
| Red Carpet, Hilarity For Charity 10/2017 Copyright: BMW Photography |
My husband and I flew into Los Angeles on a Friday afternoon. We got checked into
our hotel that was only 2 building over from where the amazing fundraiser was
set to take place (The Hollywood Palladium). The guest star on stage lineup included: Joseph
Gordon-Levitt, Sarah Silverman, Bill Burr, Craig Robinson & The Nasty
Delicious, Kumail Nanjiani, Mayer Hawthorne and David & Leeman.
We left the hotel promptly and walked right around the corner
for the red carpet. The event was surreal to me on many levels. I was there for
a cause that is near and dear to my heart. It was both a powerful
moment for me to be a part of this amazing fundraising opportunity but also I was able to reflect on the great things I have become a part of thanks to the memory of my
grandma. How she would be beaming cheek to cheek at that moment.
 |
| Giving Maria Shriver a hug and Kiss! Copyright: BMW Photography |
 |
| Prom Night has Arrived! Copyright: BMW Photography |
The red carpet was intense. My official “First” Hollywood red
carpet and hopefully many more to come. It was all kind of a blur. I do recall
my husband pointing out that Seth Rogan was standing right in front of us. We
got to the end of the carpet and took a few funny photos with the cardboard cutout Seth Rogan. We decided to walk back on the red carpet 2 times. This
ensuring I would be seen with my crown and sash. Rob Lowe and his lovely wife
walked right behind us. Once in the Palladium, we got our wrist bands. We walked
over to a photo booth to do an old fashion prom photo together. There were plenty
of drinks and snacks to eat. We talked to the many others that were at this
event in the prior years. They expressed their joys of why they came out to
support Hilarity of Charity. For others it was also there first time at this
fundraiser. We walked into the open room
of the Palladium and I saw Maria Shriver. I went up to tell her how beautiful
she is. She hugged and kissed me. Yes I have a big smile on my face. She is an advocate for Alzheimer’s. #WIPEOUTALZ
 |
| Seth Rogan! WOOT WOOT! Copyright: BMW Photography |
 |
| Reserved for BMW Copyright: BMW Photography |
 |
| Entrance inside the Hollywood, Palladium Copyright: BMW Photography |
heading to the second floor balcony where our table
had reserved signs “Reserved for Brooke Westlake-Kelley”. We decided to
head over to the upstairs bar, and while there Seth Rogan came in. My husband
walked over and asked if we could get a photo with him, and he said “Of Course”.
We were delighted. Ate lots of food, watched an amazing group of musicians and
comedian line ups and sat at our table. The joy and sadness can truly not be
expressed at that moment, as I did end up getting emotional towards the end of
the night. To be a part of this event to raise money for Alzheimer’s was beyond
great and meaningful to me. To be there in honor of my grandma was both a great
feeling but heart breaking at the same time.
I hope I am able to go to this event in the future. At the end of the
day helping to raise money for the cause and do it with some laughter would
have made my Grandma Bev happy. That
was one of our favorite things to do together.
Laugh.
Monday, October 6, 2014
Medicine Nobel Prize goes for work on cells that form brain's GPS system
By Ben Brumfield, CNN
(CNN) -- You may know where you are and where you're going to, but do you know why you know that?
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has honored three neuroscientists, whose work is helping answer that question.
John O'Keefe, along with May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser, discovered cells that form a positioning system in the brain -- our hard-wired GPS.
Those cells mark our position, navigate where we're going and help us remember it all, so that we can repeat our trips, the Nobel Assembly said in a statement.
Alzheimer's insights
Their research could also prove useful in Alzheimer's research, because of the parts of the brain those cells lie in -- the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex.
Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, which lie in the inner core of the bottom of the brain and are responsible for memory and orientation. The entorhinal cortices share these functions and connect the hippocampi with the huge neocortex, the bulk of our gray matter.
In Alzheimer's patients, those two brain components break down early on, causing sufferers to get lost more easily. Understanding how the brain's GPS works may help scientists in the future understand how this disorientation occurs.
The research is also important, because it pinpoints "a cellular basis for higher cognitive function," the Nobel Assembly said.
The scientists conducted their research on rats, but other research on humans indicates that we have these same cells.
Nerve cell discoveries
O'Keefe, a British neuroscientist who is also an American-born U.S. citizen, made the first discovery in 1971, when he came upon a nerve cell in the brain of a rat that was set off whenever the rat was in a particular place, the statement said.
The scientist called them "place cells."
In 2005, the Mosers, Norwegian neuroscientists, discovered yet another component.
"They identified another type of nerve cell, which they called 'grid cells,' that generate a coordinate system and allow for precise positioning and pathfinding," the statement read.
They also later figured out how place and grid cells work together to make the brain know where it is and where it's headed.
Oversimplified, one could say that the place cells mark point A and point B in the brain, and the grid cells help the brain get from point A to point B.
The prize money of 8 million Swedish kronor ($1.2 million) took an interesting split. Half went to O'Keefe and half went jointly to the Mosers, who are a couple.
It would seem to reflect the half-half nature of their discoveries.
Nobel background
Monday's ceremony at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, will be followed by the announcement of the physics prize Tuesday, the chemistry prize Wednesday and the economics prize on October 13. The prize for literature will be awarded on a date to be announced later.
The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded Friday.
Two Americans and a German shared the Nobel Prize in physiology last year. James E. Rothman and Randy W. Schekman, and German Thomas C. Sudhof were awarded the prize for discoveries of how the body's cells decide when and where to deliver the molecules they produce.
Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel created the prizes in 1895 to honor work in physics, chemistry, literature and peace. The first economics prize was awarded in 1969.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Remember My Photo: Walking to Remember
 |
| Ready for the ALZ walk 2014!!! |
I arrived at 5:45am on Saturday September 27, 2014 to the
Sparks Marina. Coffee and water in tote, and decked out in my purple sweat suit
compliments of Cindy Locke, a Facebook friend whom had made it for me as a gift
for being Mrs. Nevada International.
 |
| Checking Walkers in for the walk. |
I helped set up the registration table. Once the walkers
began to arrive I helped check them in, collected additional donations, gave
them there purple wrist band and sent them on their way to meet up with their
other team mates for the walk. I was greeted by many smiling faces. Young and
old. All walking for different people. Loved ones, family members, mothers, fathers,
bother, sisters, aunts , uncles, grandma’s, grandpa’s, and friends.
 |
| On stage with my purple flower..... |
On stage I got to represent and hold up the purple flower to
symbolize that I have lost a loved one to Alzheimer’s . The tears flowed down
my face from the moment I walked on the stage to the moment I came off the
stage. I was not alone with my tears.
There were many in the audience that cried and held their loved ones hands. It was clear to me that this disease knew no boundaries
to of discrimination. It only knew to take loved ones lives by robbing them of their
memories and then there bodies.
 |
| My Awesome Walking Team! |
My walking team joined me off stage to start our walk. We were cheered on by the UNR Cheer leaders.
I was joined for the walk with several friends from Facebook. Stephanie
Campbell and her husband Scott, there two darling daughters and her parents
joined my team. Also my mother in law
joined me on the walk..With my team we gained strength in numbers which meant
we can fight this battle together. Supporting one another and sharing each of
our stories for the reasons we walk can bring us closer and break the stigma’s
around Alzheimer’s.
 |
| My family joined me for a bit. |
 |
| Walking with my team. |
The money we raised doesn't reverse the disease yet, or
bring back the ones that we have already lost along the way, but it does make
us stronger together and I hope to one day say I was part of the Alzheimer’s
association and we together raised money and found a cure. We had a goal to
raise $500.00 to end Alzheimer’s. We raised a total of $407.00 getting to 81%
of our goal. In the Reno Sparks community the goal was $125,000.00. The
community raised $112,125.42 getting to 90% of the overall community goal.
At the end of the walk there is a hill. I was able to go on
the hill and find the purple flower that had my grandma’s name on it to take it
home with me to place in my garden. Once
the walk was complete. I checked back to see if there were any additional volunteer
items to do before going home to rest.
This had been not only a memorable experience for me but an emotional
journey.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)