Tag Archives: China
Dementia and Alzheimers’ Disease – How Can It Be Treated?
Dementia and Alzheimers’ Disease – How Can It Be Treated?
The Latin word “De-mentia”, literally means, the removal of a person from their own mind. It stands for a significant decrease in brain function, including memory, goal-directed thinking, orientation in space and time, and language ability.
Most dementias are progressive. They cannot be cured and will gradually cause more severe problems for the patient, and for the patient’s caretakers. As the population ages, Alzheimer’s disease is on its way to becoming the third most common fatal disease.
Prescription medications on the market starting in the 1990s to treat dementia have been a disappointment to patients and doctors alike.
The frustration caused by this situation prompted me to make the development of an anti-dementia treatment protocol a major focus of my clinical work.
As always, we start with a thorough neuropsychiatric assessment, looking for potentially reversible causes of cognitive decline such as a thyroid condition, vitamin deficiency, a sleep disorder, elevated blood sugar and diabetes. Importantly, untreated depression and chronic high stress and anxiety levels are associated with a higher risk for dementia. Most of the time, psychotherapy is a far better alternative to the all-too-common multiple prescription drugs.
The protocol uses a number of carefully evaluated novel interventions and components based on sound neuroscientific principles, sourced from both functional medicine and traditional medical systems, such as Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicine.
The protocol stabilizes many of my patients, and improves their functioning and quality of life. It has shown promising results not only for dementia, but also for traumatic brain injury. Continue reading
Update on the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease – from the International Conference of Parkinson Disease & Movement Disorders/MDS Developing World Education Program (DWEP). Shanghai First People’s Hospital, Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, PRC. September 30, 2016
Update on the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease – from the International Conference of Parkinson Disease & Movement Disorders/MDS Developing World Education Program (DWEP). Shanghai First People’s Hospital, Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, PRC. September 30, 2016 Continue reading
Alzheimer dementia and diabetes
Alzheimer’s disease [AD] is the most common cause of dementia in North America. Despite 30+ years of intense investigation, the field lacks consensus regarding the etiology and pathogenesis of sporadic AD, and therefore we still do not know the best strategies for treating and preventing this debilitating and costly disease. However, growing evidence supports the concept that AD is fundamentally a metabolic disease with substantial and progressive derangements in brain glucose utilization and responsiveness to insulin and insulin-like growth factor [IGF] stimulation. Moreover, AD is now recognized to be heterogeneous in nature, and not solely the end-product of aberrantly processed, misfolded, and aggregated oligomeric amyloid-beta peptides and hyperphosphorylated tau. Other factors, including impairments in energy metabolism, increased oxidative stress, inflammation, insulin and IGF resistance, and insulin/IGF deficiency in the brain should be incorporated into all equations used to develop diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to AD. Herein, the contributions of impaired insulin and IGF signaling to AD-associated neuronal loss, synaptic disconnection, tau hyperphosphorylation, amyloid-beta accumulation, and impaired energy metabolism are reviewed. In addition, we discuss current therapeutic strategies and suggest additional approaches based on the hypothesis that AD is principally a metabolic disease similar to diabetes mellitus. Ultimately, our ability to effectively detect, monitor, treat, and prevent AD will require more efficient, accurate and integrative diagnostic tools that utilize clinical, neuroimaging, biochemical, and molecular biomarker data. Finally, it is imperative that future therapeutic strategies for AD abandon the concept of uni-modal therapy in favor of multi-modal treatments that target distinct impairments at different levels within the brain insulin/IGF signaling cascades.
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21世纪经济导报（“美国市场上第一家领先的中国经济杂志”）针对第五大道医疗咨询刊载专题报道
21世纪经济导报（“美国市场上第一家领先的中国经济杂志”）针对第五大道医疗咨询刊载专题报道 Continue reading