Alzheimer's Treatment Mooted

aminorex writes "Enbrel (etanercept) has been immediately, markedly, and consistently effective in all Alzheimer's patients, according to a report in Science Daily. The original research article is available online at the Journal of Neuroinflammation web site. "We can see cognitive and behavioral improvement in a patient with established dementia within minutes of therapeutic intervention" comments one Journal editor." "All Alzheimer's patients" may be over-optimistic, but according to the article, though the research it concerns has been heavily focused on a single patient, "many other patients with mild to severe Alzheimer's received the treatment and all have shown sustained and marked improvement."

Comments

Alzheimer's and growing old

[LithiumX]

For all the medical problems society obsesses over treatments for (cancer, aids, and other popular areas), Alzheimer's (and senility in general) is the one that scares me the most. I would rather die in pain, with my mind intact, than slowly forget who I am.

My paternal grandmother died before Alzheimer's was well recognized, but in retrospect it's pretty likely to be the cause of her condition. My grandfather, having seen his wife forget who he was, was always far more afraid of going down that same path than he was of his own approaching end - and I can easily see his point.

The worst part about growing old isn't physical frailty... it's the slow breakdown of cognitive power. Of course, as a 33-year-old I can say this with absolute authority. The worst part of *that* is that it doesn't wait to start until you're old, either. I'm sure most of you have noticed changes over the years, and not all of them good.

Here's a question that's been on my mind lately. How would most of you rate changes to how your mind has worked over the years? Have you noticed your reflexes aren't what they were when you were a teenager? Looking at any older writings of yours, have you ever had the feeling that your imagination may have grown more refined, but also lost some of it's raw power at some point? Regardless of the cognitive rewards of time and experience, are there any earlier capabilities that you feel you may have lost some grip on, or even noticed more clearly in younger coworkers or relatives than you used to?

In my case, for example, I've noticed that in a video game, I just don't react to unexpected situations quite as fast or well as I used to. I remember charging into a room in Doom, blasting everything I saw and dodging almost every shot - whereas lately I tend to get hit more often - I don't do the duck-and-dodge like I did in my teens and early 20's. On the other hand, I'm much more calculating in every move I make, and find it easier to manipulate computer opponents than it used to be - even with all the advances in AI. I don't have the raw speed and reaction time that I used to, but the intellectual component comes more readily and with virtually no effort compared to before.

What do you younger guys think of the minds of older coworkers? What about any of you in your 30's and 40's, in dealing with people younger or older than you on an intellectual level? And of the most interest to me, how do you geezers (I know there's some who come here - maybe even a handful) relate to us 30-somethings? Do we seem like slightly inexperienced versions of your peers? Or do we seem like idiot children with fast reflexes but weak comprehension?

Re:Alzheimer's and growing old

[another_twilight]

From personal experience I tend to 'learn' a response to certain situations (patterns of AI in games for eg). The first few instances are all reaction, but as time goes on it starts to become stimulus-response. I suspect that as you get older you accumulate a larger set experiences from which you can draw - simultaneously giving you a greater depth and refinement to your response, but requiring less and less pure reaction.

What you don't use, you lose. I dare say that just as physical fitness, which used to be so easy in our 20s now requires more effort to maintain, so too mental flexibility, responsiveness and reaction.

Anecdotally, I have not yet observed a degredation in raw reaction (late 30s), but I have been fairly agressive in making sure to constantly find things that require that I use/exercise this. Try learning a new physical activity/sport (and then another in a year or so). Find new ways to play games - yes, you can out-think your AI opponent, so how about playing with pistol/s only? No save/restores?.

It may be that the comparison to physical fitness/conditioning is a poor one and it is simply a matter of maintaining a 'familiarity' with novelty so that my brain doesn't insist on trying to find a learned response to use in every situation. Perhaps it will all catch up with me shortly, and/or my self-perception is more distorted than I have allowed. YMMV.

Re:How about a study with n1?

[Otter]

Also, this is a widely prescribed drug! It seems unlikely that it has massive, instantaneous effects on cognitive function that no one has noticed before.

As with the miraculous improvement in solar power efficiency in the next story, I'd love for this to work out but am not holding my breath.