The race to find a treatment for dementia | Four Corners

Dementia is one of our greatest fears as we reach older age. Despite decades of research, scientists are yet to find an effective treatment - including for dementia’s most common form, Alzheimer’s disease. Subscribe: ab.co/3yqPOZ5
Health expert Dr Norman Swan investigates the long and controversial search for an Alzheimer’s drug, and the science behind current theories of treatment. Is it heading in the right direction?
And while the world waits for a cure, can lifestyle choices help delay the onset of dementia?
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[@margotroth]

This was excellent. As someone who cared for an elderly relative with dementia while in my late 20s with young children its hard to see that we have not made much progress with treatment. But great progress is made by documentaries like this, sharing the hopes and joys and sadness with the public. Some of us will someday will be part of the community of dementia sufferers. Thank you sharing this.

[@Moxie-JT]

I think the best model is Alzheimer's as "Type 3 Diabetes".... as in Type 2 diabetes, where hyperinsulinemia, caused by a diet of constant carbohydrates, creates "insulin resistance," resulting in a lipid plaquing that develops on coronary arteries, in visceral fat, on corneas, on the gums of teeth, and elsewhere. This can be prevented and even reversed in some cases by switching from using glucose and fructose for energy to using KETONES for energy. The brain, heart, and other organs thrive with ketones. This is the diet our ancestors ate for 6 million years evolving us from apes to humans. Please research the science ...lots of videos here on KZbin to convince you of these exciting findings.

[@carolblair2845]

I went Carnivore about 9 months ago at 76 years old… big difference! Betcha it will all come down to “you are what you eat “ for the most part….including all the crap drug they want you to live on!

[@kvk1960]

This is terrifying for people like me with no children or family or close friends nearby to keep an eye on me as I age. Who will give a sh*t? All I can do is try to stave off the inevitable by myself through exercise, eating well, having assistance measures in place at home, a good walker and cane by the door, and a keen interest in life and a curiosity constantly challenged to keep the grey cells busy as long as possible. This will be bigger than any covid stuff once the boomers truly age out.

[@annphillips3698]

Brilliant will do Ann. Cornwall UK

[@ronandjodimiller456]

You’re courageous admitting your need for help, and for following through with treatment. You’ve taken a stand for your life and sharing the need for self-care. We are so proud of you for sharing this with hopes that someone else might be helped and for not allowing depressions battles to be in vain. Thank you to your doctor and team to allow your procedure to be documented and how they explain things. Love you so much bro. Keep on keeping on.❤

[@ingridakerblom7577]

To care for someone with dementia is impossible to do alone & It shouldn't be possible.. YOU NEED THE SUPPORT. or it will eat also you alive..

[@jasondrummond9451]

@@ingridakerblom7577 In Canada - there is NO support. At least not in British Columbia, on Vancouver Island.

[@ingridakerblom7577]

@@jasondrummond9451 sadly people who hasent been around it & experienced it, dosent understand & dosent care.. The people making the descisions about servicehomes, staffing levels etc have no clue about HOW you give proper care..

[@yvonnekneeshaw2784]

This was very interesting. Dementia is the broad term. Picture an umbrella with word “dementia” above it and underneath are the various types of dementia. Like Lewy body, Alzhiemers, vascular, fronto temporal, etc. Ideas presented to change the way dementia is being treated sounds like progress. My Dad had vascular and Mom has Alzhiemers. Very difficult time when both had it together at same time. The care giver absolutely needs support too. Thank u for this presentation.

[@teaorcoffee2039]

My mother is 98 years old but her memory is still very good, Alhamdulillah. The therapy is to frequently read the Qur'an and pray five times a day, as well as pray tahajjud. Also often pray "O Allah, give my mother health so that she can still worship you and don't give my mother a forgetful and senile attitude so that she will remember you".

[@kathrynmellick641]

Grateful to see strong encouragement about lifestyle and other non medical strategies to prevent and manage these and many other conditions. I wish this emphasis would be reflected by the medical profession and allied health! We really need a more proactive culture around health and well-being please.

[@cassieoz1702]

But don't demonise the caregivers who can't cope. All these lovely benign folks living with dementia. The cranky, intolerant, combative ones clearly didn't volunteer to be interviewed. My husband has very mild impairment but he's become almost impossible to live with.

[@kerriecu2]

I feel for you. As a nurse in a major, hospital I see many patients with dementia coming with other problems or for surgery. They are often extremely difficult to look after properly due to their challenging behaviours. Sometimes uncooperative, aggressive or even extremely passive. Many don’t sleep well at night, or experience what we call ‘sundowners’. I often wonder how their caregivers manage at home, and definitely wouldn’t demonise them. 🙏🏻

[@gretahelphrey7842]

I agree. Caregivers struggle to provide care 24/7 often with no respite and,sadly, too often cut off from the social support and connections that would keep them healthy and strong. Dementia often claims two victims (at least) when the caregiver succumbs to loneliness and exhaustion. The extended family may want to be of more help (or not), but most have their own responsibilities (work, children…) and can’t help. I do hope we find a cure for dementia but, in the meantime, we need to recognize its social/cultural dimensions and not sacrifice caregivers’ lives. We need to build communities around caregivers and dementia sufferers. We need more than just a medical model of dementia. My heart goes out to you as you care for your husband.

[@verah619]

Several types of dementia...most common is Alzheimer... Mum had "senile dementia"..."lived" with it for ten long years....💞 Wouldn't wish any type of dementia on anyone... Horrible... I could get it too...or SVD (small vessel disease) in my brain or colon cancer could..or...? 🙏

[@jeffestrada6857]

As usual Four Corners is the best!! 👍

[@BRUSHYSURFING]

Good job Dr Norman Swan and all the participants. thank you to all. Well told story.

[@bobjary9382]

My mum had alzheimers . I can't express in words the sadness that this disease visits on its victims and everyone who loves them . However there is now good evidence that heroic doses of thc can restore the personality.and cognitive ability to a significant extent Not cbds, not low strength cannabis but mind bending levels of thc . I wish this was known when my mum was alive , the drugs she was given back then were not appropriate and not helpful

[@cassieoz1702]

Until we can identify the 20% (!!!) of people who will have brain bleeds, that's one hell of a risk to take. Who is paying for the care of the folks damaged by it?

[@dannymeske3821]

Thank you so much for this video!

[@PiujuqInuitArt]

Robert Lustig, John Yudkin. By the way, the chubby ladies in the film would be wise to take several months off work, fast, and get their waist to height ratio in inches less than 0.5, as well as getting their GKI down to 1.0 or less. Dementia is a slow motion emergency.

[@verah619]

Thank you, Dr Swan...💐

[@michellehitt1976]

How do they expect a person to remember all the commands.When the lady was getting the man to do the excersize with the colored plastic pieces?

[@Boop45]

It's meant to be challenging.

[@ingridakerblom7577]

My worst nightmare is my mom developing dementia.. But i think she is, at 69 she shows a lot of the early signs.. And the more time that passes, the more sure I get..

[@Edmund_Mallory_Hardgrove]

Why isn't this pointing to the idea that amyloid plaques are just a symptom of the disease and not the root cause?

[@hansolowe19]

Because the microbiome is not yet mainstream. It is a bit frustrating to see it. Give it a few years and they'll go in that direction.

[@cassieoz1702]

@@hansolowe19 far more wide-ranging than microbiome stuff. What about insulin resistance?

[@cassieoz1702]

Because this is Norman Swann clickbait ... Removing amyloid hasn't (as yet) improved functionality. Also what about the folks with amyloid/tau who truly have no loss of function, despite following them?

[@passionatesingle]

A person can have dementia with no amyloid plaques or you can have amyloid plaque on the brain and never have dementia.

[@Edmund_Mallory_Hardgrove]

@@passionatesingle We have a variable, amyloid plaque, which occurs in the brains of people with and without dementia. Logically what does that tell us?

[@joulesmm5312]

fix the food, fix the problem: some foods are causal of switcing to a protective mode that produce protein (amyloid) created in an attempt to protect the brain, there are foods that assist the brain to chelate those insults ..if you continuosly break a bone and only focus on the method of recovery but not on the method of ceasing the breakage, broken bones continue until recovery cannot be achieved ...the insults placed thru the mouth on a daily basis have produced a dramatic increase across developed nations and leading contributor to all-cause mortatlity vesus just 40 years ago, leaky gut, heme iron across the blood-brain barrier, pesticides, animal proteins and retro viruses, simple low-lying triggers...fix the food inhibit the triggers

[@teresawatts9955]

This was very good I used to set with a few lines that had it they didn't have it really bad but it's so hard to know what they used to be and what they are now I hope they get Is Curson or slow it down

[@jodiebird1551]

I thought that the large US study with the nuns demonstrated that amaloid plaques was show not to cause AD in some. What about Tau and Lewy body? What about where the changes start: gut; ear, nose or throat or liver? Or indeed the blood brain barrier.

[@mkrtichkdjanyan8972]

mold and toxins that are produced in the ear canals and nasopharynx easily penetrate the brain and cause mental impairment.

[@edwin5419]

Too late for both my grandmothers, unless somehow it's reversible.

[@PiujuqInuitArt]

Dale Bredesen David Perlmutter David Amen Thomas Seyfried Richard Johnson Mark Hyman for starters. Wish you all the best

[@HaHaroni]

Is it okay to admit that we have dietary solutions to this? Or should we continue to talk about pharmaceutical solutions?

[@cassieoz1702]

No discussion of insulin resistance

[@HaHaroni]

@@cassieoz1702 Absolutely! These people would benefit greatly by removing carbohydrates from their diet.

[@cassieoz1702]

@@HaHaroni or even adding supplemental ketones. I'm not a devotee of supplements but actually getting some fuel through to the beleaguered neurones has got to help

[@passionatesingle]

I believe it will be a combination of diet as well as some type of medication. Since many more women have dementia how many studies have been done to show what loss of estrogen does to the brain after menopause especially to women who have early onset menopause? Have studies been done on what percentage of women who are on HRT have dementia?

[@cinemiguel-visionsforinspi3462]

But why does ammoloids accummulate in the brain in the first place? Prevention should be first priority then a cure.

[@davidkruyer8048]

I am 81 years of age I noticed that people dident drink wine hardly at all before 1970 and I never came across any body who had alzheimer's before 1990 but my wife has alzheimer's and she drank wine with her dinner but did not I have found out that wine has lots of chemicals in it including anteefreez since the year 2000 it seems alzheimer's has increased to a very large extent this is just a possibility I am just a nobody as far has being an expert or an adviser I am probably wrong it was just an observation

[@lynnleigha580]

When this channel isn't spreading misinformation, they have some somewhat good videos

[@maryscott9430]

How is the plaque in the brain aneloid, related to amyloidosis? Could the trial med treat that disease too? Right now its not curable…

[@royzlatanestevez9843]

Not intending to stay around for this. "aging is a privilege" my a$$.

[@niko-laus]

in the 60 thre were some concern about mental deficiencies they blamed homogenised milk please investigate

[@mickhealy572]

too late for my mum..nano\microplastics, we breathe in, eat and drink a credit card in weight per week, cant be good to have blood permeated with toxic chemicals pumping through the brain or our other organs.. looks grim.

[@rememberingme983]

Dementia is the gradual degradation of the persona (Latin for mask) in preparation for moving on. The problem is not this natural process but the culture and its extreme fearful ignor-ance of the topic of death. Modern industrialised civilisation was never interested in educating people in the nature of existence but rather focuses solely on preparing humans to serve the machine. Once service is retired you are on your own without the natural wisdom that once informed communities prior to industrialisation. Prior to the industrial age, humans lived in extended families which meant the elderly maintained meaningful activities and relationships throughout their lives. Even in their final years there was always the grandchildren and the simple domestic chores conducted in an atmosphere of familial caring. Within the present cultural landscape perhaps the best preventative to this suffering born of not understanding the mind is meditation. Meditation is the practice of resting as mind prior to the persona's arising. The more the pracitse, the more the peace of mind. Let go people! It's ok to forget stuff. There is no need to suffer ideas.

[@afsh3744]

My mom is only in 50 but she also have an Alzheimer disease.

[@afsh3744]

She is in very serious condition!

[@idastersmoen2342]

No, because the amyloid is just one part of the disease.

[@morticiagomez1870]

It might be too late for Joe Biden, but I’m sure the treatment can be found for future patients x

[@cbryce9243]

The title should have said, "The race to find treatment for "Alzheimer's"". 😥

[@morticiagomez1870]

Alzheimer’s is a type of Dementia

[@Squashed8Ball]

Alzheimers is the most common form of dementia.

[@cassieoz1702]

" the race to find a PHARMACEUTICAL treatment ..."

[@barbsyorkies]

T.Y...allllll sooo muchhhhhhhh....365 paperss t.y..it so nice of u and for YOUUUU HE DOESN'T REMEMBER DO U???????????????? Yes he DOES FOR U AND HIMMMM REMEMBER ANYTHING ANYTHING OK SO WE ALL CAN BE HEALTHY LIVE UR LIFE NOW...EVERYONE EVERYONE EVERYONE EVERYONE..