Saga Six

So both "Jake" and DH have had birthdays recently. Both are 73! Both couples were going to go to Disneyland's Magic Kingdom in Orlando this week, but it is just too cold here in Florida. My wise husband suggested we postpone it. I love having the day off and so does "Sally". We enjoyed having a birthday breakfast with "Sally and Jake" two weeks ago to celebrate Jake's birthday. We celebrated DH's b.d. with a cake after church yesterday.

The Memory Walk I participated in last month has raised $61,000 plus.

The diabetic medicine Metformin can help prevent dementia according to Alzheimer's Weekly and more tests are being conducted to confirm this. My husband takes Metformin and we now get it free at Publix.

Geriatric Care Manager Carole Larkin of Dallas Texas writes on the Importance of Socialization in The Alzheimer's Reading Room. This has made such a difference for me when I realized this. Before that I had been withdrawing slowly from my husband. He is so much happier when we just act like a normal couple. Love him!

Socialization is easier to accomplish than exercise, however. Sally and I have a plan to go walking in January around a track and then DH and Jake can walk together also and stop when they want to. Hope January has mild days when our husbands will agree to walk.

Caregivers have 6 simple suggestions at Johns Hopkins Health Alerts. We have covered these tips in a different format on this blog, but the tip I have been neglecting is my health. I realize that when we are older we forget to get enough liquids--I haven't been getting enough water. Then I wake up in the middle of the night with leg cramps because I didn't get enough water, or the liquid I consumed was mainly coffee. So I got sick last week and am still taking antibiotics for the respiratory infection. Urgent Care gave me prescriptions for four medicines recently (antibiotics, strong pain, cough and alergies,) and two of them made me vomit. Never got the allergies meds as the helpful drugist at Walmart suggested I could get an over the counter med if I determined I needed it. In my 66 years I have never been diagnoised for allergies, however, but you never know! I am just taking the antibotics now.

Dr. Charles DeCarli, Neurologist/ Alzheimer's Director at the University of California at  Davis has an informative  Update on Vascular Dementia. Now this hour long video is informative if you are a doctor. :)  I tried to follow it, but had difficulty. As a layman I received two insights from it, however. 1) People start out with Vascular Dementia and end up with Alzheimer's. He pictures a landscape rectangle with a diagonal line to illustrate the concept with mainly V. Dem. on the left for an earlier age growing to mainly ALZ on the right for maybe ten years later. 2) V. Dem. patients have trouble with sequential directions, like how to use the remote control, etc. Yep, true of my husband, but he has been trained to use them, regresses, and then gets up to speed again. He loves using his GPS, but needs help inputting a new address. I say train and retrain them while they can learn.

Soy may not be as good for you as we thought. A report from Dr. Mercola:

Myth: Phytoestrogens in soy foods can enhance mental ability.
Truth: A recent study found that women with the highest levels of estrogen in their blood had the lowest levels of cognitive function; In Japanese Americans tofu consumption in mid-life is associated with the occurrence of Alzheimer's disease in later life.