Can't Remember Blog | Sue Halpern

The Blog has moved

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:36:58 -0400

The Can't Remember blog has been picked up by Psychology Today. You can read it here.

Anti-psychotic Drugs and Dementia

Mon, 26 May 2008 16:53:30 -0400

A study just out in the Archives of Internal Medicine provides evidence for what some doctors have suspected for a long time--that anti-psychotic medicines (like Haldol) given to patients with dementia result in a higher rate of hospitalization and death than for those who are not given these drugs. You can read a good summary of the research here. It turns out that 17% of patients with dementia are given antipsychotics to control their behavior upon admission to a nursing home. Adverse effects, such as falls because of dizziness and pneumonia (associated with dry mouth) occurred within a month.

Flurizan: Could this be the beginning of the end of AD?

Thu, 22 May 2008 13:54:06 -0400

The drug company that is testing a new Alzheimer's drug, Flurizan, today signed an agreement for European distribution and marketing with a Danish pharmaceutical company. This is an interesting development because Flurizan is one of only a handful of drugs coming down the pipeline that have made it through the final phase of FDA testing. Results from those clinical trials are expected in June. Reading between the lines, it seems possible to assume that the European pharma folks know something that the rest of us don't. The reason why Flurizan is promising is that it aims to reduce the amount of toxic beta amyloid that pervades an AD brain and kills off neurons and strangles synapses. The participants in the trial are all in the early stages of AD, which is the only time a drug like this could be effective. Combined with the new diagnostic methods I write about in the book, which can see AD in the blood or the cerebral spinal fluid nine years before symptoms, Flurizan, if it proves to be effective, could have us all clamoring to be tested as early as possible.

Here is a link to an article in The Street about the pharma deal (that suggests that the Danes only have anecdotal evidence.)

Here is a discussion board for people who have family members enrolled in the clinical trial.

Library Journal review of Can't Remember: May 15, 2008

Sun, 18 May 2008 10:50:36 -0400

Halpern, Sue. Can't Remember What I Forgot: The Good News from the Front Lines of Memory Research. Harmony: Crown. May 2008. c.272p. index. ISBN 978-0-307-40674-3. $24. SCI

Halpern's three-year inquiry into research on memory, aging, and Alzheimer's disease is an investigation of modern brain science rendered in creative nonfiction. Halpern gets to know a prominent neuroscientist, subjects herself to multiple tests (from paper-and-pencil tests to nuclear brain imaging), visits businesses involved in the quixotic race for memory-fixing drugs, and attends the Memory Olympics. She explains in plain English what science has discovered about learning and memory, what is currently agreed to improve memory, and what remains to be seen. No self-help book writer, Halpern has published four well-received books (e.g., Four Wings and a Prayer; Migrations to Solitude) and written for the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and Slate magazine; she is frank and funny about her own fears and memory lapses and gently debunks memory-boosting fads, leaving the reader with few suggestions of what the ordinary person can do. Her book documents (with references) the great strides that have been made and holds out hope for real treatments for Alzheimer's and age-related memory loss. Educational, fabulously well written, and on a hot topic. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries. [Halpern is married to nature writer Bill McKibben—Ed.]—Nancy Fontaine, Dartmouth Coll. Lib., Hanover, NH

Sandra Day O'Connor, Alzheimer's caregiver

Thu, 15 May 2008 19:44:17 -0400

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor testified on May 14th to the Senate Special Committee on Aging about her experience as a caregiver of a family member--her husband John--with AD. O'Connor, who is a member of the Alzheimer Study Group, was on the Hill to urge lawmakers to devote more money to AD research. The key sound bite: Alzheimer's is a family disease.

Stay in School

Sun, 11 May 2008 12:15:31 -0400

A new study, just out, in the June 2008 issue of the Journal of Aging and Health, of more than 7000 people over 7 years further champions the notion that education and dementia are connected. The researchers from the Institut Nationald'Etudes Démographiques, the University of Pennsylvania and USC found that high school grads can expect to live 2.5 years more without serious memory loss than those with fewer than 12 years of education.

Notably, the researchers also find that better educated people die sooner

after severe loss of cognitive ability, including the effects of

Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and dementia. Why? "These findings are consistent with the idea that those with more education may process tasks more efficiently or use other compensatory

mechanisms that delay cognitive impairment or delay our ability to detect

impairment," explained USC Davis School of Gerontology professor Eileen

Crimmins, corresponding author of the study.

Of course, with cognitive reserve, it's always been a chicken and egg question: do people with more education do better in the long run because they were more cognitively able to begin with, hence their greater education, or is education itself protective? The answer isn't clear yet, but while we're waiting, stay in school.

Bill Clinton's "madness"

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:49:26 -0400

The bloggosphere is alive with speculation that Bill Clinton's recent blow-ups and unstatesmanlike behavior are a consequence of his bypass surgery four years ago. Is there any merit to this? The jury is out. On one hand, it's not really clear that this behavior is abberant (though it seems to be). On the other, studies of bypass patients, most notably one a few years ago that was done at Duke, showed that half of those who had undergone bypass surgery had memory and thinking problems right after surgery, problems that were still evident five years later.

Belly Fat and Dementia

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:26:31 -0400

From an article published last week in Neurology, new that people with higher than normal belly fat are more likely to develop dementia, based on over 1000 people, ages 73-87, who had been followed since they were in their forties.

Among their findings:

- Participants with normal body weight and high belly measurements were 89 percent more likely to have dementia.

- Overweight people were 82 percent more likely if they had a low belly measurement, but more than twice as likely if they had a high belly measurement.

- Obese people were 81 percent more likely if they had a low belly measurement, but more than three times as likely if they had a high measurement.

So the question is, what is it about belly fat, specifically, aside from obesity or being less dramatically overweight that contributes to dementia? I'm guessing, based on new work coming out of Columbia University, that the connection is going to be high glucose levels.

More Early Reviews

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:27:30 -0400

Publishers Weekly, 3/17/08.

Can’t Remember What I Forgot: The Good News from the Front Lines of Memory Research
Sue Halpern. Harmony, $24 (272p) ISBN 978-0-307-40674-3
Novelist and science writer Halpern (Four Wings and a Prayer) wades bravely into the morass of modern memory research to sort the truth from a wide assortment of “hyperbole and promises and platitudes.” The news is mixed: most of us won’t develop Alzheimer’s, but everyone will suffer some memory loss. After describing the different types of memory, Halpern gamely undertakes a series of brain scans used to reveal brain damage and tries diagnostic tests that measure memory through the ability to recall words, images and smells. Researchers have identified a gene closely linked with Alzheimer’s, but drugs to treat or prevent memory loss are still far from reality, Halpern reveals, adding that for many companies, the effectiveness of a remedy is measured only by how quickly it moves off the shelves. Armed with a mix of hope and healthy skepticism, the author also examines claims that eating chocolate (among other things) or solving puzzles can improve brain function. “So much of who we know ourselves to be comes from what we remember,” Halpern writes, and her timely book offers a vivid, often amusing introduction to a science that touches us all. (May)