This online book outlines the public service project

dedicated to ending Alzheimer’s by the end of 2012

The Trustees of the Internet Broadcasting Association – iBA – www.ibaglobal.com

Offer the population information and a call to action regarding:

• The new understanding of how Alzheimer’s disease can be prevented.
• Easy population memory fitness testing at BrainLane - the population can establish their normal memory fitness, and monitor for decrement (reduction) in their ability to form short term memories.
• The FDA approved treatments that slow the disease process if administered properly and in the earliest possible stages of memory loss detection.
• The technologies that allow doctors and researchers to image the living brain and detect any disease progress or treatment response.
• The clinical documented reversal/alteration of the disease process – the first in a 100 year research and treatment development effort – recorded from the autopsy of a participant from the Alzheimer’s Vaccine Treatment development effort.

www.ibaglobal.com

About the Author and the Alzheimer’s LifePlan

Whatever your concerns regarding the Alzheimer’s disease process, I congratulate you on reading this book and pursuing a personal Alzheimer’s prevention program. I’m about to introduce you to my family, dating back to my earliest collection of memories – captured on 8mm movie film – of my farm, grandparents and America as I first experienced it. The Alzheimer’s disease process was in its heyday then. Millions of people were being affected by it, and there wasn’t one effective treatment or even an understanding of what the disease was.

Through a series of career and personal life adventures, I was called upon to head up a new industry, Internet Broadcasting and one of the first networks of operation put into business, was an electronic medical record management service for Psychiatrists clinics and neurological research projects. Within that online enterprise – there was a short term memory and learning performance testing service – allowing a doctor to administer a short, video game like test and establish an individual’s memory fitness. The same test could be used to monitor and track an individual’s recovery from stroke, head trauma or ailment development. It was also an effective mild cognitive impairment (MCI) screening platform – the early signature of the Alzheimer’s disease process. This whole memory testing platform fascinated me, both because the Internet Broadcasting aspect of it promised to give the population access to an easy way to monitor this vital health sign – but also because it looked like the first method of helping the population monitor for Alzheimer’s in it’s early stages.

I petitioned the Internet Broadcasting Board of Trustees to fund a population and mental health Internet Broadcasting network channel – and operate a population testing center for ten years – as a part of a task force project to end Alzheimer’s. Upon their approval, the End Alzheimer’s 2012 Task Force was organized and to this day operates as the home of the Alzheimer’s LifePlan (www.endalzheimers.com).

This book is an overview collection of recollections, interviews and introduction to the resulting public service project that is now in position to usher in new understanding and the eventual ending of Alzheimer’s as we know it. All of the individual’s involved in this project now truly believe that the human brain and body can be nurtured to the extent that most of Alzheimer’s can be prevented. That alone is reason to promote personal Alzheimer’s lifestyle programs to the populations. The Alzheimer’s LifePlan, as an online service, can assist the millions of senior citizens who are uncomfortable with surfing the Internet – but have access to care centers, community centers, or family members who are affiliated into the iBHealth Network’s Alzheimer’s LifePlan web page spaces. And that education, access and service delivery - in a nutshell is the driving force behind the Alzheimer’s LifePlan.

You, and your family members are welcome here, and I know I am speaking on behalf of all the dedicated doctors, researchers and care givers who work daily on ending the Alzheimer’s disease phenomena – we face a disease of the mind, and the mind has enough intelligence to win the confrontation. Read on in good health.

Paul D. Costa
Executive Director
Alzheimer’s LifePlan  
 

The Alzheimer’s LifePlan

Summary Chapter

Youth is usually a collection of memories. These memories are formed by our brains in a seamless manner – meaning we don’t “think” about it – it just happens. Throughout our lives, our brain matures and continues the memory forming process. When we get old, we assume that forgetting memories or it being more difficult to form memories is “normal”.

Such was the case in my family’s background. Our family lived on an 18 acre farm, on the outskirts of Roseville California. My father was a Veterinarian and there was never a shortage of things, animals, fantasy activity going around my sister, mother and father.

In the day-to-day living, we were quite content and self-contained. Dad’s veterinary hospital was along side the main highway that ran between Roseville and Sacramento – also on the edge of our property – so all he had for a commute was a quarter mile walk up or down the hill.

I felt like a prince, living with my King Tony, my Queen Edith and my sister the necessary princess, Carmela.

My first memories of leaving the farm are of summer time trips to Wisconsin aboard the California Zephyr, what a ride! On one very special trip, my mother, sister and I rode the Zephyr to Detroit and watched a brand new Plymouth Cranbrook four door sedan roll of the assembly line – I learned to drive a stick shift and have my first accident in that car years later.  We drove the car to Whitehall Wisconsin to visit my mom’s parents, brothers and sisters.

Visiting the farm that my mother grew up on, was an adventure into the past. The massive farm house never had running water, electricity was added in the late 1930’s, and everywhere I would go, I would see remains of a past dynasty. The family land at one time was a whole valley, a thriving dairy, and agriculture and farm equipment maintenance center – now falling into ruin and completely obsolete.

Another stark difference was the crowd. My mother’s family was large and had grown bigger over the years. There were layers of cousins and networks of aunts and uncles that were exciting just to come in contact with.

Grandma and Grandpa had a rich life, raising a large family of wonderful people and running the family enterprise successfully. They lived on the family’s farm until they were in their eighties, then sold the farm and bought a duplex in town, closer to their children.

Grandma Ann died when she was eight two. She had lost most of her ability to form recent memories. They didn’t call it Alzheimer’s in those days, and there is no way of knowing if Alzheimer’s was the cause of her dementia. When she died, she could not recall the day this picture was taken or who the people were in the picture were. She had even forgotten taking a drive in a 1953 Plymouth with a grandson on her lap.

The drives home would take us to Dad’s side of the family. This brought a whole new set of experiences, as some of Dad’s brothers and sisters lived in metropolitan areas like Denver, others lived very close to the land in Colorado, New Mexico and Southern California.

Dad’s mother had passed away when he was a boy. But, I did get to see my Dad’s father on these trips. Unfortunately I didn’t get to know him very well. My earliest childhood memory of my father’s father visiting us includes his wandering off; going to sleep in the back seat of a car he thought was ours. No one called it Alzheimer’s in those days, but, I’m sure it was.  Grandpa passed when he was eight-two, leaving a large family of wonderful people.

Mom and Dad always made sure my sister and I were aware of the world around us. Even when we lived in those years of isolation on the farm, we would drive to the mountains or San Francisco and experiences everything from wildlife to night life.

When I was a boy, this was my family and we didn’t worry about Alzheimer’s disease.

We left the farm and moved to the city, each of us growing to maturity. The family changed as we kids went to school, the military, then into careers and growing families of our own. The years were kind to mom and dad; they are still in love and spend their mornings, afternoons and nights together.

They have both outlived all of their brothers and sisters, and both lived longer than any of their parents. They are in their mid eighties and in relatively good health. As their age group has a fifty per cent chance of developing the Alzheimer’s disease process, and those odds increase each year they live – they are obviously concerned that they could be developing the early signs of Alzheimer’s – each time one of them forgets a name or misplaces their keys.

Mom starts everyday with Bible study and inspirational reading. She still does the household chores and cooking. She exercises everyday, takes multi-vitamins and a blood pressure control drug. Her diet is low-fat, high fiber and moderate carbohydrate. Her weight has been stable for the past five years and overall she is in good health. Mom is 84 and still very active. She drives, shops, walks, exercises, prays and meditates her days away, also taking care of Dad.

Dad is also in overall good health. He gets a lot of exercise gardening, walking, shopping, and maintains a busy schedule of meetings and social functions. Dad’s diet is low-fat, high fiber, lots of fruits and vegetables and an occasional chunk of filet minion. Dad used to do daily exercises, but has stopped that in the past few years. His blood pressure was high several years ago, and he has been on a regulatory program which seems to be working. Dad also takes multi-vitamins, some supplements and feels that they are essential.

My sister now lives within a mile of where our original farm was in a retirement community. Mom and Dad enjoy having them nearby.

While my family was aging and collecting back in the Roseville area, I was working around the world in the television, motion picture and finally the Internet Broadcasting Network industries.

In 2000, I became the Chairman of the Internet Broadcasting Association and was determined to use Internet Broadcasting anyway I could.

I never suspected then, that any of my family’s concerns about Alzheimer’s disease would play a part in my career – certainly not to the degree and manner to which it has.  

Enter the Internet Broadcasting Health Network   

One of the sub network operations I manage, iBHealth.net, is an online service platform – a system that clinics, doctor’s offices, hospitals and research projects all utilize for a number of functions.  The overall operation is managed by Mr. Ron C. Peck, who has an extensive career history in Nuclear Medicine. Ron does not hold back his enthusiasm for integrating powerful iBusiness like platforms in the service of clinics, hospitals, research projects or mass communications.

One group utilizes an online business administration service where each of their employees has their personal Personnel payroll and employee records, another uses online scheduling, marketing and sales force automation/selling – basically iBusiness. Another group uses computers and hand held devices to gather medical information about patients and/or participants in from clinics or medical research projects. The group that specifically services psychiatrists, mental health clinics and neurological disease research projects would introduce me to the leading alertness and short-term memory testing group – Bowles-Langley technologies (www.bowles-langley.com) of Alameda California.

The first time Dr. Ted Langley and Henry Bowles presented their short-term memory testing platform to the Cognitive Engineers at the Internet Broadcasting Network – it was presented as a clinical tool that doctors were using in Alzheimer’s diagnosis and treatment development research projects. The test was designed in part by Dr. J. Wesson Ashford, MD, PhD. who also manages a popular Alzheimer’s resource center www.Medafile.com.

I remember questioning the accuracy and value of testing the short term memory and Dr. Ashford convincing me that the clinical version of the test was not only an effective screening test for mild cognitive impairment (MCI – the early signature of the Alzheimer’s Disease process), he had evidence that if administered in advance of any MCI symptoms, he could with high probability now project the likelihood of the disease developing in the tested individual’s future.

Then I took my first test. I put the cursor over the “Take the Test” text, depressed the left tab on the mouse, to tell the computer to load in 26 images into a pre-programmed presentation. The presentation would present 26 images, some repeating within the presentation. If I had not seen the image in this test, I was to do nothing. If the image was a repeat – I was to depress the space bar.

After the test is loaded into the computer, the system displays an “OK”, and all I have to do is depress the spacebar to start the test.

The computer based test has specifically been designed so a nurse, family member or friend who is comfortable with online environments or Internet browsers. As most of the baby boomer and over 70 generation are not yet connected to the Internet (although as of 2002, they are the fastest growing group of Internet Browsers new-users).

As soon as I depressed the spacebar, the first image popped unto the screen.

As 26 images appeared, I did the best I could to identify if I had seen each of them after the first time the image would have appeared.  After the past image fades, a few moments later, a screen with my score and data fields appears.

What just happened here?

My interaction with the testing system, allowed the machines to document my time of reaction, my ability to remember a sequence of recent events, and accurately access if my brain was functioning on a “normal” level of memory fitness. All and all, somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 pieces of information – specifically evaluating the memory portions of my brain – were recorded.

The individual test results are indeed a form of “snapshot” of my brain’s memory fitness at the precise moments I was taking the test.

Not bad for the first test. 96.15% is a good score, not perfect. A single score has little clinical value. So it is recommended that I take the test a half a dozen times over the next month or so.

In order to document the history of an individual’s test scores, an area of the Internet Broadcasting Network that would keep the data and present it in a graphic form was designed presenting a bar graph that displays the most resent test taken at the end of a row of results. The intention being that an individual would take the test a number of times, establishing their baseline memory fitness, then return regularly to re-test. Each time they re-tested themselves, they could complete the test and return to their historical record and see how the test they just completed compared to their normal rating. If there was a reduction, or lower score, they should take the test a gain. If scoring was consistently lower than the baseline, they should consult with Dr. Ashford, or their care giver (doctor).

Looking at the test results from “guests” who have taken the test in its public area, one can see that results can and will vary. Because these are quite often the first efforts, individuals can easily make a mistake or be getting used to the actual conducting of the test. These are additional reasons why the test should be taken several times, usually disregarding the first few tests, before the results can be considered part of the individual’s “normal”.

The test was completed in its online formats and made available to a number of clinics, care centers and individuals through the networks memory fitness, psychiatric clinic and neurological research support center – BrainLane Since 2001, the system has proven itself to be consistent and reliable, giving those who use if a most affordable means to establish a baseline rating of their memory fitness and monitor memory fitness going forward.  

The Internet Broadcasting Health network and the BrainLane memory fitness and mental health industry support center presently offer the memory testing and electronic medical record management services in a wide range of offering. Individuals can open an account where their personal testing records are stored in a secure online account. Families can open folder accounts where younger members can assist older members in establishing their memory fitness records and regular testing. Of equal interest, is the addition of the memory fitness testing in day-to-day clinical electronic medical records – making a patient’s memory fitness rating accessible to the doctor or care giver who is monitoring the other vital signs of the patient. What started out as an experiment in Internet Broadcasting evolved into a unique and highly valued medical examination toolbox, in this case allowing the patient and the care giver to interactively monitor a patient’s memory fitness.

Work is now being done that will open the world’s first interactive memory gym. That’s right! The BrainLane.net operation is all ready capable of conducting global online memory fitness Olympics as well as operating a 24 hour 7 day a week memory building and exercising channel. There is all ready a growing competitive activity called, mind sports, where the world champion can recall the playing cards in 18 decks of cards without error – now that is memory fitness!

Dr. Ashford continued to refine the testing with an eye towards the clinical usages and the potential values the memory testing would have in Alzheimer’s treatment development monitoring – where actual Alzheimer’s patients (some who could have had brain scans) would take throttled tests (adjusted in image number, time of image exposure, and assistance level if needed).

Turns Out Dr. Ashford Wrote the Book on Alzheimer’s Prevention

I also found that Dr. Ashford was professing Alzheimer’s disease prevention – even publishing papers which outlined his “Top Ten Alzheimer’s Prevention Treatments”, to hundreds of thousands of people who visited his web page – www.medafile.com.  So, almost by accident, I became associated with the leading short-term memory and learning performance testing specialists, one of the leading researchers and medical doctors (J.Wesson Ashford is an MD and a Ph.D.) who stands firmly behind his treatment programs of healthy lifestyle habits. Dr. Ashford professes that following his top ten treatment programs can reduce an individual’s chances of developing the Alzheimer’s disease process between 60-90%. To my ears, anything that will cut 10% of this disease out is worth pursuing – so I did.

I interrogated Dr. Ashford at great length, regarding each point of his “Top Ten Treatment” program. He readily gave me substantial scientific research which supported his summary claims. While we were talking, we mutually arrived at the  conclusion that an aggressive mass communication program, aimed at informing the population about these simple lifestyle habit treatments, accompanied by an equally aggressive program to introduce individuals to the values of memory fitness testing – could be the foundation of a public service project – that ultimately supported the end of Alzheimer’s disease.

There is a complete and detailed description of Dr. Ashford’s treatment program at his online Alzheimer’s resource center, www.medafile.com, but I will include the unedited full discussion that Dr. Ashford presents on that site:

Top10alz.doc  2/13/02 

THE TOP TEN TREATMENTS

(under development)

FOR PREVENTING ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE

J. Wesson Ashford, M.D., Ph.D.

DISCUSSION 

The field of Alzheimer’s disease is rapidly uncovering information for the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease.  While much discussion about cause is still speculative, there is mounting evidence to support several ideas about how Alzheimer’s disease develops.  Though there is never enough evidence to prove any scientific theory, there is frequently enough evidence to discuss a particular idea with patients and to make practical recommendations.  In the field of Alzheimer’s disease, there are several such issues that can now be brought to the clinic setting.  There are some recommendations based on current experience with treating Alzheimer patients or the associations between Alzheimer’s disease and other dementing disorders.  Other suggestions are based on scientific hypotheses with only preliminary evidence. 

1)     Take your blood pressure regularly and be sure that the systolic pressure is always less than 130.  This recommendation is based on the association between stroke and Alzheimer’s disease and several articles relating high blood pressure to poor memory and a higher incidence of Alzheimer’s disease, particularly in association with certain genes.  There is also some evidence that patients taking diuretics for their elevated blood pressure get less Alzheimer’s disease.  So keep track of your blood pressure and, if necessary, make sure that it is well treated. 

2)     Watch your cholesterol; if your cholesterol is elevated, get treated with “statin” drugs and be sure your cholesterol is fully controlled.  First, cholesterol levels are related to arteriosclerotic vascular disease, which is in turn related to heart disease and stroke.  So, this is a good idea in any case.  There is recent evidence that that cholesterol plays an important role in memory in the brain and is controlled by Apolipoprotein E, which may be associated with 50% of the Alzheimer risk.  Two recent studies have suggested that individuals taking “statin” drugs are less likely to get Alzheimer’s disease.  While these findings cannot be considered to warrant prescription without cholesterol elevation, clearly these data give individuals with elevated cholesterol have another reason to take their prescribed medications.  There has been one epidemiological study associating animal fat intake with Alzheimer risk across many different countries, but this study is not convincing enough to ask everyone to take all animal fat out of their diet.  But, if the fatty chemicals in your blood are not good, you should discuss modification of your diet with your physician. 

3)     Exercise your body and mind regularly.  There are many studies extolling the virtues of exercise.  While there are no specific links between exercise and Alzheimer’s disease, there are links between exercise and health and cognition.  People can get smarter by exercising.  So, there is a logical recommendation to exercise to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.  But, beyond this, there are recent theories linking insulin to Alzheimer’s disease.  The blood insulin level peaks about an hour after you eat.  If you exercise about 30 minutes after you eat, even if just walking for about 15 minutes (that’s after each meal), you might reduce your peak insulin level and leave the insulin-degrading enzyme to do its other task of breaking down the harmful beta-amyloid that forms fibrils in the brains of Alzheimer patients.  There are also several studies linking education to delayed onset of Alzheimer’s disease and some recent evidence suggesting that keeping your mind active can also delay onset.  Though all of these studies can be criticized in various ways, it makes sense to stay in school as long as possible and continue seeking intellectual stimulation throughout your life. 

4)     Wear your seat belt; wear a helmet when you are riding a bicycle or participating in any activity where you might hit your head.  There have been many reports of a relationship between head injury and Alzheimer’s disease.  While head trauma probably accounts for less than 5% of the cases of Alzheimer’s disease, safety can help to reduce this factor. 

5)     If you have diabetes, make sure that your blood sugar is optimally controlled.  One of the greatest advances in medicine has been the ability to control diabetes.  Patients with diabetes have a tendency to get vascular disease, and this disease can injure the brain.  While there is not clear relation between diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, patients who have had blood sugars that have gone too high or too low may lose memory and be at greater risk for suffering from dementia. 

6)     Consult your doctor about treatment for your arthritis pain.  There have been several studies indicating that arthritis patients who take NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) have a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease.  A recent study (t’Veldt et al., 2001, New England Journal of Medicine) suggested that arthritis patients who had taken NSAIDs for over 3 years had an 80% reduction in their risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease.  Because the risks of these drugs (especially internal bleeding) are so great, they cannot be recommended for routine prevention.  However, if you have arthritis, you should seek the advice of your doctor for treatment.  Of additional great interest is another suggestion (from the lab of E. Koo), that only certain NSAIDs may prevent the development of a toxic protein in the brain that may be a specific cause of Alzheimer’s disease (beta-amyloid-1-42).  The particular NSAIDs identified with this benefit so far are ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil), sulindac (Clinoril), and indomethacin (Indocin).  Indomethacin may be the most potent, and one study suggested that this drug does slow down the course of Alzheimer’s disease.  Ibuprofen is most readily available.  However, a good recommendation for pain patients at this time is for sulindac because it is the most easily administered and has the least side effects. 

7)     Take your vitamins.  There is little reason not to take supplemental vitamins after you turn 50 years of age, and they might even help if you have some transient deficiency in your diet (see Willett & Stampfer, 2001, New England Journal of Medicine).  There is general support to take extra supplements of Vitamin E (400 international units) and Vitamin C (500 milligrams) together (once per day for prevention, twice per day if memory problems are present, and three times per day if Alzheimer’s disease is diagnosed).  These recommendations are based on the oxidation/free-radical theory of aging and Alzheimer’s disease and one large study which suggested that Vitamin E delayed specific end-points for Alzheimer patients by as much as 6 months.  Though the free-radical theory of Alzheimer’s disease has not been shown to be causal and the Vitamin E study has not been replicated, this “neuroprotective regimen” has become a common treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and taken by many as a preventive. 

B12 and folate have also been advocated as brain protective agents.  B12 recommendations are complicated by the issue of intestinal uptake by intrinsic factor.  The RDA for folate is 400 mcg per day, but this dose can be increased to 1 mg per day if memory difficulty is a concern and B12 levels are not low.  Recent correlation between elevated homocysteine levels and Alzheimer’s disease (Sheshadri et al., 2002, New England Journal of Medicine) brings a focus on this substance and the associated intake of B12 (which is inadequate with a “vegan” diet) and folate.  B12 and folate supplementation can keep homocysteine levels in check.  Alcohol and caffeine intake and tobacco use increase homocysteine. 

8)     Discuss sex-hormone replacement therapy with your physician.  There are general recommendations to post-menopausal women to take hormone replacement therapy to reduce the risk of heart disease and improve life in a variety of ways.  There is also some evidence that these hormones might reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.  However, one study has suggested that the treatment of female Alzheimer patients with hormone replacement therapy may have more risk than benefit.  The issue of sex-hormones is of interest because these chemicals seem to enhance the function of many brain cells.  This leads to another question, which is, would sex-hormone replacement help elderly males as well? 

9)     If you have difficulty getting to sleep, consider trying 6 milligrams of melatonin at bedtime.  Melatonin is a natural substance produced by the pineal gland in the brain.  This substance is produced only in the dark and may help to initiate and sustain sleep.  As you get older, the brain produces less melatonin, and older people sleep less.  Sleep is good for the body and brain in any case and may help to keep Alzheimer pathology from developing.  There is only scant scientific evidence that melatonin helps sleep, but there are many patients and their family members that claim that it helps a great deal.  A big problem is that melatonin is a health food, not regulated by the FDA, so potency is not monitored.  Also, it may help sleep only in those individuals with a significant melatonin deficiency.  However, melatonin is an excellent anti-oxidant and some recent laboratory evidence has suggested that melatonin may prevent the formation of toxic amyloid fibrils in the brain, and these fibrils may be the primary cause of Alzheimer’s disease. 

10) If you have significant difficulty with your memory, talk to your doctor about cholinesterase inhibitors.  Several drugs from this class, including tacrine (Cognex), donepezil (Aricept), rivastigmine (Exelon), and galantamine (Reminyl), have been approved by the FDA for treating Alzheimer patients with mild dementia.  While the primary evidence suggests that these drugs have only a modest benefit on cognition, there have been several studies that have suggested that these drugs may slow down the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.  Note that these studies are only suggestive, not conclusive, but many physicians agree with this suggestion based on their own observations.  Importantly, if these drugs can slow Alzheimer progression, then they may have their biggest advantage very early in the disease course.  While doctors are not prescribing these drugs for preventing Alzheimer’s disease, many physicians are prescribing these drugs beneficially for patients with mild memory problems.  It is possible that these drugs may become a central part of preventive therapy for Alzheimer’s disease in the future.  

There are several treatments in addition to those listed above that have been recommended for Alzheimer’s disease as treatment or preventive agents.  At this point, there is not enough data to make more explicit recommendations.  For example, a recent review of Ginkgo Biloba suggested that the recommendations for this substance “remain ambiguous” (Sommer & shatzberg, 2002, Psychiatric Annals).  Co-enzyme Q-10 has also been recommended without wide support.  There is not enough evidence that aluminum is associated with Alzheimer’s disease to recommend throwing out your aluminum pots, but you probably shouldn’t cook tomato sauce in them.  Tobacco was shown in some studies to protect against Alzheimer’s disease, but later analyses have suggested that it is not preventive.  Alcohol in very low quantities may protect against heart disease and has been suggested to protect against Alzheimer’s disease as well, but anything more than minimal use is not wise. 

Several studies are exploring potential new preventions and treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.  The “amyloid vaccine” is one of the most interesting, but the development of this treatment has suffered a recent setback because some of the volunteers trying the treatment developed brain inflammation.  Also, there may be specific drugs now available that might slow Alzheimer pathology.  For example, lithium and valproic acid, two drugs used to treat manic-depression, may inhibit a brain enzyme (glycogen-synthase-kinase-3-beta), which could prevent the development of neurofibrillary tangles, a late Alzheimer pathology. 

Many patients with Alzheimer’s disease, including those in very early phases, have problems with depression and paranoid ideas.  These symptoms can and should be treated. 

Another critical question in Alzheimer’s disease, especially if early treatment can slow progression and delay dementia, is early recognition.  Screening tests to be used routinely in doctors’ offices for patients over 60 years of age are now being developed and may help many patients to get help sooner. 

At this time, there are many genes being uncovered that appear to be associated with Alzheimer’s disease.  In the future, it is likely that specific individuals will be told not only what their risk is for developing Alzheimer’s disease, but also how they can modify their life to prevent it completely.  There are so many indications that Alzheimer’s disease might be prevented that there is hope mounting that we may be able to end this disease in the near future.

At first glance, these “treatments” seemed to echo many of the basic lifestyle habits suggested by doctors and anti-disease programs. None of them seem to be difficult to assimilate into a normal lifestyle routine. Dr. Ashford is adamant that there is enough evidence in each area to merit adopting these lifestyle habits. In the near future, he is certain, researchers will complete reviewing the substantial data being accumulated and issue treatment bulletins which qualify the amount of good these treatments do. But, there isn’t much argument against adopting the healthy lifestyle habits right now.

(Continuing with the Alzheimer's LifePlan Book)

Dr. Ashford’s Treatment Program Matched My Parent’s Lifestyle Habits

As there had been dementia and I suspected Alzheimer’s in my family lines, I spoke with my parents and asked what their thoughts and concerns were regarding their personal Alzheimer’s or dementia conditions. I spoke with them individually first. Both had serious concerns about the other’s memory fitness, and suspected that there had all ready been memory loss – perhaps the beginning of Alzheimer’s.

As individuals they both worried a little about themselves, but each believed they had lived a live of general disease prevention. Mutually, they felt their lifestyles were nurturing their body’s health, not a disease process. That made sense to me, as I have many memories of my mother reading articles on health and nutrition as the family would drive in the car. I remembered mom and dad doing exercises – even remembering them doing exercises with Jack LaLanne’s television program. 

I asked my parents if they would mind volunteering in a public service project, one that would track people in their age group, who lived by the lifestyle recommendations of Dr. Ashford. They were not interested at first, but agreed to meet with Dr. Ashford and hear what he had to say. I knew they would at least be interested in that.

My parents are quite used to being involved in my professional work. They have appeared in countless of my amateur movies, commercials and corporate films. As a Producer, I live in fear that my family will all join the Screen Actor’s Guild and charge me for back wages!

After the interview, Dr. Ashford and my parents agreed that they were both doing a good job of self-administering their personal anti-Alzheimer’s prevention programs and they would consider enrolling in the BrainLane/BLT memory fitness testing program. So, by default, my parents became the first members of the Alzheimer’s LifePlan Public Service Project – only we weren’t calling it that at the time.

Moving From the Clinical Memory Fitness Testing To My Sister’s House

Both of my parents are well educated and proficient in the technologies of their times, dad a Veterinarian and mom a school teacher.  But their times did not include the computer or online connections. Our goal was to assist people like my parents who lived without computers and/or connection to online services, and the solution was closer to home than we could have imagined.

My sister and brother-in-law are both very competent computer and online browser users. They also have mom and dad over regularly. So, the stage was set for younger, online family members to assist older, non-computer literate family members into the online memory fitness testing center.

We programmed the memory fitness testing center to work like an online club. We took a section of the BrainLane online short term memory and learning performance electronic medical record platform – the one used in research projects and mental health clinics – and made it function as an individual’s personal testing account. The plan was to create personal accounts where an individual could access the test through any online browser, opening access to millions of people who are visiting public libraries or Internet Cafes.

A short and easy to follow tutorial was programmed into a lobby area of the BrainLane service center. My brother-in-law has had a career of working for IBM in the area of system integration; he was very helpful in “smoothing” the tutorial’s flow and understanding. In the end, the tutorial became an online documentary video and web page channel, showing him “train” my mother and father to take their own memory tests and establish their personal testing accounts – empowering them to monitor their memory fitness going forward.

It worked! Both mom and dad were situated in front of the computer that had a test loaded into it. There was the “OK” on the screen, and my brother-in-law instructed them to depress the spacebar when they wanted to start the test. He repeated the instructions, “When you want to start, depress the space bar. An image will appear, don’t do anything. If you see an image repeat – show again – depress the space bar. If the image is not a repeat, don’t do anything and a new image will appear in three seconds.”

They understood the first time through, both scoring 96.15%, meaning they missed one image, on their first tests. They each took three more tests in their first session and that introduced them to the concept of establishing their personal baseline or test result history.

It was incredible to watch my parents learn something that was so technical. The mere fact that they were successful in working with a computer gave them a certain exuberance that I hadn’t seen in them for years.  Another interesting thing to note was that they had fun taking the test and challenged each other. And the thing I can’t put a value on was the look of relief they had after scoring 100% three times in a row – a clear indication that they have strong cognitive reasoning and short term memory functions.

So, in their mid-eighties, my parents finally had a new peace of mind regarding their personal health. They had really been testing their lifestyle habits against the statistical odds that face them. Their age group is developing Alzheimer’s at a rate of 50% a year. Doctors like J Wesson Ashford, are telling them that their group – the group living an anti-disease lifestyle, are developing Alzheimer’s at a much lower rate. The question is immediately raised – are my parents the living and scientific proof that Alzheimer’s can be prevented through healthy lifestyle habits? And that takes us to the Alzheimer’s LifePlan.

The Concept of Ending Alzheimer’s

After this first round of Alzheimer’s research and development of the memory testing services, it seemed possible to organize a mass communication campaign that would educate people while introducing them to tools they could use to develop their personal Alzheimer’s management programs.

Doctors and researchers have evidence that simple treatments and healthy lifestyle habits will greatly reduce the incident of Alzheimer’s in our society. We also know that memory fitness testing is an effective way to establish an individual’s normal ability to form short term memories. How hard would it be to develop a population based public service project that would promote prevention and memory testing?

Next to impossible.

Why?

Because the project would be starting at ground zero. There would be no access to the population and no archive of historical evidence/promotion to attract credibility or attention to the new findings or memory testing services.

That realization prompted me to approach those organizations providing the most support and information regarding Alzheimer’s disease. I was amazed to see they had no comfort in mentioning that healthy lifestyles could prevent the disease from developing, or, that they could even prolong the health of the individuals. The reasons they gave for this was that the research community had not posted conclusive evidence that healthy diet, nutritional, physical and mental exercise would be effective as an Alzheimer’s prevention platform. They agreed there was mounting evidence, but were hesitant to even mention the research that was going on.

The medical doctors in their clinics were even more doubtful regarding any “natural” treatment being effective against Alzheimer’s. This was sad but understandable. For over 100 years, the doctors have had to deal with the patients of this disease – and they have not had one drug or “cure” to assist them that altered the pathology of the disease in any way. Instead, they have had to fend off a thousand “hopes” or “cures” that proved to be false, and that has made them suspicious of all promise.

In fact, there are now three or four FDA drugs that do slow the disease process – prolonging the victim’s memory fitness for a time. These drugs are not universally understood by the medical doctors, and the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are very hard to diagnose (especially if the patient has no memory fitness testing record). Another cold truth about these drugs is that they are most effective if they are administered in the earliest stages of the disease – the precise time that usually goes undetected by doctors.

So, we became a small band of renegade crusaders. Our investigation disclosed valuable information that was not well circulated within the Alzheimer’s family. We wanted to make a difference and decided our efforts would at least bring new hope and enthusiasm to the very individuals who need to know about Alzheimer’s – you.

The members of the original End Alzheimer’s 2012 Task Force convened in late 2001 and reviewed all of what was known about the disease process, the medical and care giving industries, the research and treatment development efforts, and the estimated amounts of money that would be needed to end Alzheimer’s; developing what is now the Alzheimer’s LifePlan Public Service Project.

The Alzheimer’s LifePlan Public Service Project is really a mass communication campaign. Information about the disease process, the technologies used to diagnoses or analyze and treat, as well as the development of treatment platforms must all be presentable to the population. I promoted that if prevention was the best and most valid of treatment platforms for the disease process – the best “cure” would be well a well informed population. Of equal importance was that the population will not adopt something into their personal lifestyle habits if it doesn’t make sense to them or they don’t understand the alternatives of not adopting healthy lifestyles. And lastly, the research and effective treatments being developed need funding as well as promotion. The populations and doctors need to move in harmony towards applying the best treatments to the patient in the best of timing. 

The three pillars of the Alzheimer’s LifePlan were formulated to be:

1. Prevention – Healthy lifestyle habits are the most effective treatment an individual can self-administer to reduce their chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
2. Memory Fitness Monitoring – Establishing the normal memory fitness of an individual can be an effective way to monitor for any decrement of short term memory formation.
3. Treatment – Effective detection and aggressive adoption of lifestyle habits and the FDA approved drugs will slow the disease process. As more effective treatments are developed they must be rushed to those who show the early stages of the disease. There is evidence that treatment will be greatly improved in the next three to five years, and any individual that can prolong their health for that period of time may have access to treatment that arrests or reverses the disease altogether.

With these pillars defined, it became a matter of researching for the most advanced neurological technology and  Alzheimer’s treatment development laboratories available; and, gathe3ring from them the current information regarding progress towards the ending of Alzheimer’s.

Being Able To Document Absolute Developments of Brain Conditions

Dr. Alzheimer used a technological marvel of his day, the microscope, to document that the plaques and tangles of the disease process polluted the memory sections of the brain.

In another area of the Internet Broadcasting Network operations, high quality microscopic imaging, from MRI, CAT, and resonant imaging was being shared by doctors and research specialists who needed to view brain scans – some in real time, as operations, or treatment strategies were being developed by doctors.  

Some of the transmissions and imaging I was monitoring were coming from the UCLA School of Medicine Neuroscience Imaging Laboratory, headed by Dr. Paul Thompson, PhD. Dr. Thompson, has pushed the envelop in brain imaging as he captures hundreds of living brain snapshots – in exquisite detail. It is possible to track a brain’s functions, as well as any response it has to a treatment or ailment. Such was the case when I visited Dr. Thompson at the UCLA Neuroscience Imaging Laboratory.

Dr. Thompson had just finished producing hundreds of brain scan images from a group of Alzheimer’s patients – over an eighteen month period.  With the help of sgi Silicon Graphic SuperComputer platforms – composites of sequential brain images could be produced as animations. In this case the resulting production has become the first documentary of the Alzheimer’s disease process, showing at the cellular level, how the disease process selectively destroys the areas of the brain where short term memory, then progressing into other related areas, in a wave of destruction.

Putting works like that of Dr. Thompson’s and Dr. Ashford’s together, it soon becomes apparent that the technology and skills to identify or monitor the health of a brain is within grasp. Dr. Ashford, can in the clinic, administer a simple set of memory tests, similar to playing a simple video-game, and capture over 200,000 pieces of information about a patient’s ability to form memories – memory fitness.

While the 200,000 pieces of information are miniscule compared to the millions of pieces of data captured and formed into a brain image by Dr. Thompson’s sgi Supercomputers – they are capable of illustrating the same things. There is also a very high probability that both mental exploration methods are accurate.

If the patient is healthy, and has no problem forming memories, there is a high probability that their brain’s short-term memory making areas – if they were scanned and imaged – would appear as normal and healthy. The BrainLane.net test can be conducted in a person’s home, or at a public computer with an Internet browser. Dr. Thompson’s imaging process is expensive and to date only available at a few centers. The effective integration of the two technologies would make it possible for the population to “screen” themselves for memory problems, then making the brain imaging a precise diagnosis tool. Consequentially in the Alzheimer’s process, once scanned, memory testing can give an accurate assessment regarding disease progress or treatment response. This is true because the disease process is relentless and consistent with itself – only being altered by treatment.  

In the clinical environment, there is a dilemma concerning the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease.  Almost everyone over the age of 60 experiences brief memory lapses, perhaps even substantial reduction in memory forming capacity. This doesn’t mean they are developing mild cognitive impairment – the early signature of the Alzheimer’s disease process. Far from it. Reduction in memory fitness can occur from a variety of reasons. 

If an individual is under a lot of stress or depressed; or suffering from an allergic reaction to medication or drugs – their memory performance can be greatly reduced. Fatigue and sleep deprivation are also quite capable of reducing an individual’s memory fitness.  Individuals undergoing bypass surgery, where their blood is circulated through an artificial pump – can loose 30-40% of their short-term memory in recovery – raising the issue if their short term memory fitness testing shouldn’t be part of their dismissal qualifications from the hospital.

From a practical point of view, there may be 10% of people over the age of 60 that are developing the Alzheimer’s disease process. With the average brain scan costing $800 to perform – there would be an expense of $ 800,000 to scan 1000 patients. Meaning the cost of diagnosis for the 100 individuals having any form of memory issue would be $8,000 an incident.

Work is now being done to calibrate the results of the memory fitness test to those of universal brain scans. We hope to develop an inexpensive brain imaging technology where consistent patterns of memory loss – resulting from consistent disease process pathology – would produce a consistent pattern of short term memory loss. Such a system w9ould allow researchers to monitor treatment response in an individual on a daily basis – saving thousands of dollars of detailed imaging expense. Conversely, brain imaging can confirm there has been treatment response or disease progress and supply exquisite documentation of what is happening within a living brain.

Dr. Thompson’s work presents the population with the first animation – captured from living brains of Alzheimer’s victims over an 18 month period – and, vividly illustrates the pathological wave of destruction that is hallmark to the Alzheimer’s disease process. In a way, Dr. Thompson’s research has updated Dr. Alzheimer’s original notebook and microscope slides holding the first documented diagnosis of the disease holding his monarch.

18 months later         

In Doctor Thompson’s world there are cells arranged within the body. Healthy organs and tissues appear one way, unhealthy in another.

The SGI super computers have an endless capacity to capture, sort and process information about single cells of the body. Imaging can be of a single cell, or complete tissue structures. Imaging can be in live video, still capture or data formats.

When a sequence of images are taken, over a period of time, something like the physical changes that occur as a disease progresses are recorded in vivid detail.

The above brain image is a composite produced from 271 patients – all having the very early stages of Alzheimer’s. The below is a composite of the same brains fifteen months later – clearly showing the physical destruction that has taken place.

Evidence of Effective Treatment Development – The Alzheimer’s Vaccine

It took researchers eighty years to isolate and identify that a beta amyloid was the protein building block of the plaques polluting the brain’s memory regions in Alzheimer’s. It has taken an additional fifteen years for a group of dedicated neuroscientists to develop compounds that alter formation process of the plaque and also trigger the body’s immune system’s anti-body mechanisms.

By the mid 1990’s, researchers had developed a genetically altered mouse that developed the same a beta amyloid plaques that humans with Alzheimer’s did.  Dr. Dale Schenk, suggested that a vaccine, containing parts of the a beta amyloid, be injected into this group of mice when they were young – prior to when they would have developed the disease or plaques.

At first, Dr. Schenk’s colleagues refused to conduct the experiments because it was commonly assumed there was a blood-brain barrier, and that the body’s immunity system – specifically the antibody mechanism – was not functional in the brain. Because of previous work, Dr. Schenk knew that there would be a small penetration of the vaccine that would reach the brains of the mice. He calculated what the dosages would be and suggested that a small number of mice be given the vaccine and monitored. They injected the mice for a year, long enough to know that the plaques would have been fully formed in untreated mice. Upon examination of the injected mice, there were no plaques.

Encouraged by the animal results, Dr. Schenk’s team moved on to patients and FDA clinical trials of a compound they named AN-1792. In the second stage of an international trial, the dosage was stopped because five percent of those receiving the vaccine compound were developing brain inflammation – not an uncommon side effect in brain treatment – but a valid reason to halt dosage of an unproven compound. The dosage was halted immediately, but the gathering of research and data continues.

Now it was interesting to note that the individuals in the clinical trials were all at least middle stage Alzheimer’s victims. They were also brain imaged and the disease process was visible when they were admitted to the trials.

One participant, who had received the vaccine for over a year, died of an unrelated ailment and was autopsied by a leading neurologist, Dr. James Nichols. Dr. Nichols has performed hundreds of autopsies on Alzheimer’s victims and has now published the first clinical documentation that the plaque process of Alzheimer’s has been reversed. Dr. Nichols claims that the plaques, imaged prior to the victim taking the vaccine, were removed from the brain by treatment.

In other words, the compound injected into the patient placed a beta amyloid substance into the brain, allowing the body to dispatch antibodies that engulfed the injected compound AND the beta amyloid plaque of the disease process – triggering the body’s scavenger cells to remove the now neutralized plaque substances.  That is the theory and the image/autopsy evidence supports the conclusion that a beta immune therapy approach has produced the first documented reversal of at least one fundamental element of the disease process.

One hundred years after Dr. Alzheimer first documented the plaques of the degenerative disease process, an innovative concept of treatment has produced the first evidence that the pathology of the disease can be altered.

Realistically, it is just a matter of time and money before some form of the beta amyloid compound will be available for treatment.

Dr. Schenk speculates that immune therapy is opening new avenues of treatment development, and soon there will be a variety of compounds going into clinical trials. Each of these efforts brings the population closer to the day when people will no longer die with Alzheimer’s, but, live with it.

Now we really had something new to say to the Alzheimer’s family.

The new information, technology and treatment developments paint a picture of hope for the population. As recently as five years ago, it was true when a doctor or researcher would say, “You can’t do anything about Alzheimer’s”. Today we can say, “There is a lot you can do to prevent it, detect it and treat it”. Everything is different and calls for a new population based action plan.

And that again, brings us back to the Alzheimer’s LifePlan.

Putting It All Together……..Going To The Population

The sum of all our efforts is now an operational disease information, care giver network, community workshop network, research center, and clinical memory fitness monitoring service. We are now offering:

Annual Television Specials

The Alzheimer’s LifePlan, a one hour television special, is now available to regional television stations who wish to be the local broadcast affiliate of the project. There will be an annual special for each broadcast affiliate that includes reports from their community participants, their reports and stories of importance to their audiences. In each of the programs, the audiences will be invited to participate in the project.

Those comfortable with online transactions will be asked to join through the www.endalzheimers.com web page channel of the Internet Broadcasting Network. Other affiliates listed below will also be promoted in the television specials. 

Online Community Center Programs

Any visitor to the www.endalzheimers.com web page channel will be offered a free copy of this book, and free access to the public memory test at BrainLane. They will also be invited to join the Alzheimer’s LifePlan Public Demonstration Project. Membership in the demonstration project is free; however, there is a $10.00 a year charge for the person’s memory fitness testing account.

This group actually will function as an online community, compiling information that Dr. Ashford’s focus group and the Neurological Disease Foundation (NDF, www.n-d-f.org)  will use in research and treatment development.

Alzheimer’s Community/Recreation Center Workshop Programs

Community based organizations are encouraged to offer scheduled Alzheimer’s LifePlan workshops. These workshops consist of videos, memory fitness exercise, online memory fitness testing and Alzheimer’s prevention diet/nutrition/exercise activities. The Community Center is invited to become a local affiliate for those people in their neighborhood who enjoy group participation over television or online involvement with a project that supports their overall health.

Online Research and Treatment Development Center

The Alzheimer’s LifePlan is committed to operating an online community where researchers are free to suggest, discuss and develop theories for treatment development. In addition to the community efforts, the entire Internet Broadcasting Network value added service division is available to assist in fund raising, research project management, and of course – integration of the BrainLane memory testing services into neurological disease research.

As of 2004, the Alzheimer’s LifePlan is an official fund raising campaign of the Neurological Disease Foundation – www.n-d-f.org. The NDF is a non-profit corporation, dedicated to funding small and innovative research projects that would otherwise be overlooked in the pursuit to solve the remaining mysteries held in each disease of the mind.

So here is how the whole program should work.

The Television Audience

People watch TV and see the Alzheimer’s LifePlan TV shows. The program tells a family story and then presents how the senior family members were introduced to memory fitness testing. Then, how they adopted a set of lifestyle habits that promoted their overall health – as well as greatly reduce their chances of developing the Alzheimer’s disease process. 

The program contains enough information for them to formulate their own anti-Alzheimer’s lifestyle program. It also illustrates how the audience can participate in the public service project – and be interactive with the services offered by the program and others who share their interest in reducing their chances of developing Alzheimer’s. 

The program will also identify the local broadcasting affiliate, local community centers and those clinics and care centers that also offer workshops and memory testing services within their neighborhoods.

The broadcast affiliate will also promote the local phone numbers of the Alzheimer’s LifePlan affiliates to the viewers.

For those able, the web page channel www.endalzheimers.com will allow any online visitor access to a free copy of this book, free memory fitness testing, and entrance or enrollment into the online community’s active in memory fitness, research, or treatment development.

The Online Audiences

Those who go online and visit the www.endalzheimers.com web page channel, have the opportunity to participate in the first interactive Alzheimer’s prevention, memory testing, neurological research project. Many will find this a new and exciting communal experience and learn much about the world that exists inside an Internet connected computer.

Through the Alzheimer’s LifePlan web page channel, visitors can:

• Review daily updated news/information reports.
• Obtain free copies of books, research reports, and archived materials.
• Affiliate their Community Centers, Care Centers, Clinics, or businesses into the Alzheimer’s LifePlan Care Center Network.
• Enroll in the Alzheimer’s LifePlan Online Memory Fitness Demonstration Project and actually participate/contribute valuable information to the research community.
• Monitor researchers, doctors and care giver’s progress towards ending Alzheimer’s.
• Interact with others who share a common goal of reducing their personal chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
• Identify broadcasters, Community Centers, Care Centers and resources in their neighborhood.
• Contribute in any way possible to the efforts being put forward to overcome this disease.
• Growth and development of online communities that produce programs, new forms of group activity and distribution of news, reports, industry or social events that could influence the health of the participants.
• Improved operational standards within the nursing and care giving industry as networked facilities and online services streamline the business administration and treatment support services – improving the quality of care.
• Open communication between research laboratories and doctors, pharmaceutical groups and treatment centers.
• A growing body of statistics – comparing the health of individuals active in the Alzheimer’s Lifestyle habit programs to those of the general population.

Community and Care Centers Programs

Across the country, there are thousands of Community Recreation Centers, Retirement Communities, assisted living facilities, and Alzheimer’s Nursing Homes - who need a progressive program of Alzheimer’s awareness. The Alzheimer’s LifePlan Workshop programs have been designed to integrate into any of these facilities public relations and outreach programs.

By affiliating into the Alzheimer’s LifePlan Network, any of these facilities can instantly become current with today’s Alzheimer’s situation. The formation of this network allows the care givers to function as a community, offer consistent and reliable information to the population while improving the overall standards of education, care and treatment delivery. 

The affiliate must have a meeting room and access to an online computer to provide workshop meetings to their community. Everything needed to inform, establish memory fitness testing accounts and enrollment into the national Alzheimer’s LifePlan public service projects is supplied.

Each person attending a workshop leaves with a personal Alzheimer’s LifePlan worksheet, where they can keep track of their diet, nutritional supplements, mental and physical exercise activities. They can also use the worksheet to record the results of their free memory fitness test – which they should be able to take at their workshop meetings.

The Workshop program facility has to have online computers and someone capable of assisting the visitors with their online experience. Tutorials and Train the Trainer manuals are supplied to the program administrator, giving the visitors direct support in the development of their personal Alzheimer’s LifePlan programs.

It is conceivable to form and operate an international network of care providers and truly cover the earth with effective promotion of Alzheimer’s prevention, memory fitness testing and monitoring, as well as having direct interactive communications with the leading researchers and doctors who are developing and administering those treatments that eventually will arrest the disease process, ultimately reverse the damages caused. The affiliated care centers and the people who become active there, will surly be amongst those who “Live with Alzheimer’s”, in the new day ahead.

The care center network affiliates also become the “local” representatives of the new nation forming. Actually, the existing industry supporting the four million Americans that have Alzheimer’s (2004) is a $125 Billion enterprise. This “industry” will need to alter its methods of operation if the population reduces their incident of Alzheimer’s and effective treatments allow people to live longer within the need for institutional care. The network we are proposing here can help the care giving industry to keep the services it offers relevant to the needs of the population.

The Research, Pharmaceutical, Care Giving Communities

The Alzheimer’s LifePlan and the Neurological Disease Foundation (NDF, www.n-d-f.org ) have developed a plan to unify the research community with the doctors and care givers.  The doctors involved in diagnosing, treatment strategy development and actual care giving, have been removed from the Alzheimer’s research efforts. This is unfortunate and has cost the lives of millions. The tragic truth is that general practitioners - doctors – are poorly trained in diagnosing any memory related ailments.

Simply by registering into the Alzheimer’s LifePlan NDF Research and Treatment Development forum, a doctor or care giver can participate or ease drop on the very active debates, research reports and seminars occurring at the Neurological Disease Foundations online community center – or, get involved in changing the face of Alzheimer’s care in their own practice.

Doctors and care givers, who affiliate into the network, will also have personal access to the BrainLane.net Alzheimer’s Treatment Support Memory Testing Services. Led by Doctor Ashford, this activity alone will bring affiliated practices into optimized patient memory appraisal, improved Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and effective treatment response monitoring. While improving their own practices, they will also be contributing to the body of evidence that will accumulate. Evidence that defines these healthful lifestyle habits as effective anti-Alzheimer’s treatment.

The Neurological Disease Foundation is leading the way in organizing online debates, research seminars, extended education interactive web casts where the leading researchers and treatment developments can be shared with doctors in their offices. All care givers and professionals involved in the quest to deal with Alzheimer’s are welcome to affiliate into the research sections of the Alzheimer’s LifePlan and participate at the level the desire.

The industry is not immune to improvement, and working together is the most effective way to implement change.

 And now it’s up to you…

There is a lot you can do about your personal Alzheimer’s situation.

Participate in the Alzheimer’s LifePlan.

 This document is presented into public domain with the hopes that anyone wanting to copy it, share it, or promote may do so. The content is factual to the extent that in interviews, conversations, or in images, documents, materials presented by individual's other than the author were given freely for use without limitation. The only medical views reported are those of Dr. J.Wesson Ashford and the materials supplied with permission from www.medafile.com.