My story is similiar to Alanna's bravely shared below. Only now do I recall the "Alzheimer's Association" purple hued room as I listened to my father's voice on the other end of the phone. The dining room in our rented bungalow was painted a vibrant purple. Just beginning our married life together, my husband originally committed to paint the room a subtle color but over time it became our favorite characteristic of the small home.
My dad was speaking quite matter of factly and if not for the atypical nature of an unprecedented call there was nothing out of the ordinary--at first. He slowly described my mother's adulturous affair with a neighbor across the street. He cited a rational argument of her gazing across the street (through dysfunctional malformed corneas but not a point in his argument) and her ultimate betrayal. So began my family journey with Alzheimer's Disease. Not unlike Auguste Deter, the first patient given the eponymous diagnosis of Alzheimer's. Her accusation of extra-marital affairs and screaming down the halls of their turn of the 19th century flat looking for the object of her husband's imagined infidelity mirrors a common delusion.
My dad was speaking quite matter of factly and if not for the atypical nature of an unprecedented call there was nothing out of the ordinary--at first. He slowly described my mother's adulturous affair with a neighbor across the street. He cited a rational argument of her gazing across the street (through dysfunctional malformed corneas but not a point in his argument) and her ultimate betrayal. So began my family journey with Alzheimer's Disease. Not unlike Auguste Deter, the first patient given the eponymous diagnosis of Alzheimer's. Her accusation of extra-marital affairs and screaming down the halls of their turn of the 19th century flat looking for the object of her husband's imagined infidelity mirrors a common delusion.
I stand firm in a belief that prevention will be the only option. A preventable but not curable disease. There is no established biologic footprint of Alzheimer's Disease--and it isn't for lack of trying. What we do know is that there are plaques, neurofibril tangles, cognitive dysfunction, inflammation, markers of senescence but nothing specific to Alzheimer's Disease. All or none of these physical findings can be present in the absence or presence of diminished cognitive abilities. Changes in tau and amyloid are also identified in other degenerative processes in the brain. We do not know the identity of specific modulating factors that trigger clinical expression of dementia or Alzheimer's Disease. Normal brain aging involves changes in mitochondria, metabolic factors, inflammation, neuronal dysfunction, and other age dependent alterations. The problem with early detection or pre-alzheimer's disease prodromal stages? Lengthening of fear and shortening of joy associated with living a full and meaningful life...
