According to Danilo Tagle, program director of neurogenetics at the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, "It really is going against the central grain of what we know, and it actually may lead to something more promising," In short, the study's findings indicate that prior to the amyloidal plaguing of the brain and subsequent cell deterioration that has been well documented that the mice showed evidence of cell cycling six-months before any amyloid plaques showed up.
Additionally, the study indicated that these neurons had extra chromosomes, which is another sign that the cells had begun to divide. Furthermore, the activity was seen in the cortex and hippocampus regions of the brain, which are most implicated in Alzheimer's.
In the meantime, the battle and the fight rage on. Questions outnumber the answers. In the meantime, families suffer. It appears questionable if the Alzheimer victim suffers. Experts say that the brain of an Alzheimer's patient keeps them in a state of unawareness. Perhaps this is so in the later stages, but not in the moderate or less so stages.
It is true that families must find a new, more tolerant, less confrontational manner of talking to one's parent with Alzheimer's. Many individuals with Alzheimer's may also have a tendency to be paranoid, confused, agitated, angry, volatile, combative, and more, which makes coping that much more difficult.
The biggest fear for the children of parent's with Alzheimer's, or suspected Alzheimer's, is: am I destined to get Alzheimer's? Without a doubt this question is at the crux of our fear. For the most part, one form of Alzheimer's is more likely to be familial, the other, not so. Adding more fear to this is a recent study of twins which offers new credence to the concept of hereditary aspects. In a study of 1200 sets of twins, 392 were later diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
The pragmatic view according to one physician who said, "It's tremendously important that people actually, while they still have a capacity to understand what's going on, sort out what's going to happen to them, and that is an inevitable progression in dementing diseases; at some point or other you will lose your understanding of reality and your legal capacity to sign a will, sign a check, to make decisions about your quality of life or whether you should have an operation, somebody else will have to do that for you."
Clearly, Alzheimer's is a disease many of us will have to reckon with"
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