Since the release of Still Alice, I've had the privilege of talking to a lot of audiences about Alzheimer's. One of the most common questions people ask me is:
"When I can't find my keys, how do I know if that's normal forgetting or a symptom of Alzheimer's?"
My quick and dirty answers are usually something like:
"Well, when you find your keys, are they on the bookcase or in the refrigerator?"
and
"We all have trouble finding where we put our keys. It's worrisome if you find your keys and then can't remember what you're supposed to do with them."
Forgetting keys, names, how to get somewhere, how to do something--How do we know when it's normal and when it's Alzheimer's?
The Alzheimer's Association has put together the 10 Warning Signs List.
They also provide this phone number if you'd like to talk to someone about your concerns: 877 IS IT ALZ
My friend Kris recently shared one of her early warning signs (warning sign #4) with me:
My biggest tell-tale sign was when I'd gone shopping with my husband, and we went to a Best Buy store. I was looking at some CDs, and my husband had gone off somewhere else, and I looked up from the CDs, and I didn’t know where I was or how I had gotten there. It's kind of hard to be in a Best Buy store and not know you’re in a Best Buy store, you know, with all the Best Buy signs everywhere. The only way I can describe it, and it’s so funny because in your book it was like this, it’s like an out of body experience.
I remember going out of the store to look at my surroundings, and I looked at the sign, but I couldn’t read that it was Best Buy. I saw the sign, but I couldn’t put together that I was at the Best Buy store. So I remember sitting down on the steps in front of the store and thinking, 'Well, I got here somehow, I’m just going to have to figure out how I got here.'
I sat there for a while and then went back in the store, and I recognized my husband. And I thought, 'OK. I got here with him, I’m still not sure where I am, but I got here with him and I’m okay because I know I can get home with him.' And I didn’t say anything to him. I just followed him out to the car, got in the car, went home, and that night I still could not remember where I had been.
I didn’t want to alarm my husband about it, so just jokingly I said to him, 'You know, I know we went out today, but I can’t remember where we went.'
He said, 'We went to Best Buy.'
And I said, 'Oh, yeah.'
How old were you?
46.
When I was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, I was relieved because now I knew there was a name to it. I know there’s no cure, and it broke my heart, but by the same token, now I knew what I was dealing with and that I wasn’t crazy.
Lisa Genova, Ph.D., author of Still Alice, www.StillAlice.com
About Lisa Genova
I have a BS in Biopsychology from Bates College and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University. Trading in my pipette for a pen, I wrote STILL ALICE, a novel about a 50-year-old Harvard professor who develops young onset Alzheimer's Disease. Coming January 6, 2009! See www.StillAlice.com. I'm also a Meisner-trained actress and love to get on stage whenever I can.
Ciorny
- 7/6/2009
ESAI's Drug KRONOS IV (four) Helps Brain's Own Stem Cells Fight Alzhemer's
- Endogenous Stem Cells Activators, Inc. (ESAI) had developed KRONOS IV (four) whose active ingredient is a generic drug presently on the market and approved by the FDA in the treatment of a certain medical condition. Our evidence shows that KRONOS IV qualifies as an off-label drug.
Alzheimer's is a disease that destroys gradually the hippocampus, the area of the brain where memory functions are stored. One of the mysteries of Alzheimer's is that in the same hippocampal area there are large amounts of stem cells that can potentially stop the disease and repair the hippocampus, except that they are dormant or inactive. ESAI has strong evidence that KRONOS IV can activate these cells and coax them through a process of neurogenesis into differentiating / transforming into active neurons, cells that can potentially repair or rebuild the damaged hippocampus.
For more info visit www.kronosiv.com
This project was supported, in part, by a grant, number 90AZ2791, from the Administration on Aging,
Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C. 20201.
Grantees undertaking projects under government sponsorship are
encouraged to express freely their findings and conclusions. Points of
view or opinions do not, therefore, necessarily represent official Administration on Aging policy.
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