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I'm looking forward to seeing this Nova special, "Can Alzheimers be stopped?". Airing April 13, 2016 at 9 pm on PBS

They usually do very intelligent, informative documentaries.

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Hi Jeanne, I agree, just saying that anything that can help, however minute it may appear to be, certainly helps. I saw that with my mom first hand as well as her PCP. My hope is to to use every collective avenue, led by these medical discoveries over time, to help us going forward.
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Seeing a program like this helps make it clear that the cause is complex and organic. Using coconut oil, eating tumeric , doing mind games, keeping socially active -- dozens of things may be helpful in some small ways. But it is naive to think we can cure a condition that has been building up in the brain for twenty years or more, and that probably involves a mutated gene, by changing some aspect of our loved one's lifestyle.
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Maybe profit should not be the deciding factor in the development (or non development) of drugs that prevent catastrophic illness. Perhaps there are some things that should simply be provided in the name of public safety, kind of like our military... The our tax dollars fund a great deal of private drug development, in some cases I think these drugs should not be profit driven.
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I caught most of this and I was too struck that the decay seems to start 20 years before the onset of symptoms. Scary. It is very expensive, wow, and made me wonder will anyone be able to pay for it in order to benefit when it's made available to the general public. I've seen other specials that incorporate how lifestyle affects this (such as India and the use of tumeric to keep the rates down), but I thought this was well done and really gave me insight into just how involved and overwhelming this whole process is in reality.

I was also sad at the end that Bonnie's husband had died and her daughter had to move in. I thought did caregiver stress kill him or did something else happen. They never said but it made me wonder.
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Our local NPR station had an interview with the director. Program is called think and available on podcast.
April 12, 2016
An End To Alzheimer's

[2016-04-12 12:00:00] Alzheimer's disease afflicts more than 40 million people worldwide – a brain condition that's puzzled neuroscientists for decades. This hour, we'll talk about major drug trials and new research that could hold the key to unlocking how the disease works with Sarah Holt. She's the director of the NOVA documentary "Can Alzheimer's Be Stopped?" which airs Wednesday night at 9 on KERA-TV. About 32 minutes long. Google npr.org/podcasts/510036/kera-s-think
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This was a good show, filmed over the course of a few years. I think it will be available for online viewing, too0.

Some of the key points (in my mind)
Alzheimer's shows up in brains about 20 years before symptoms start. (I've heard that this is true of other forms of dementia as well.)

Alzheimer's (all dementias) is extremely complex, involving two kinds of protein and a genetic connection.

So far there is no drug that has aimed at the cause of the symptoms. Hundreds of drugs have been developed and have not made it out of testing.

Researching and testing drugs is EXPENSIVE! And the chance of failure is high. (What do you think that says about the cost of any drug that does make it to market?)

There are some promising drugs that may make it to market by 2020.
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Setting up the DVR ..thanks
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I got to remember to watch this, it is one on of our three PBS stations here in the Washington DC area.... hopefully Congress will be watching, too.

Now I hope I don't get side tracked by some political stuff that might be on and I forget :P
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Bumping this up so nobody forgets :)
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Yep....just checked local schedule and this program will run here (Metro Detroit PBS, channel 56.1) as Trying indicated.
Both NOVA and Frontline (also PBS) are excellent scientific/political/investigative documentary PBS programs.
Thanks, Trying...for the "heads-up!"
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ME TOO!
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Thank you, I'll look for it!
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Thanks for the heads up. NOVA programs are from what I've seen exactly as you described - high quality, researched well, and addressing multiple issues.
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