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.
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| 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
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