As part of National Alzheimer’s Disease Month in November, the Alzheimer's Association and First Lady of California Maria Shriver released The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Takes on Alzheimer's. The report is the largest study ever conducted to look at the effect of Alzheimer's disease on American women as caregivers, people with the disease and advocates. The Shriver Report: A…

On Helping Prevent Alzheimer's Disease

By Dr. Max S. Chartrand Ph.D. From Hearing Health Magazine, 2000 Exploring the tragic, yet little known impact of Alzheimer's that is exacerbated by uncorrected hearing loss upon society. Persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) cost Medicare approximately 2.6 times more money than those who do not have the diagnosis, according to a recently released study sponsored by the AARP Andrus Foundation.…

By Dr. Max Stanley Chartrand Headlines predicting a coming Tidal Wave of Alzheimer's are grossly misleading. In fact, most of the commonly accepted statistics on the prevalence of the condition are based upon false data. "What is Alzheimer's?" we ask. And too often the answer relies on the premise that anything that looks like it, walks like it, and quacks…

By Max Stanley Chartrand, Ph.D.  Vignette: The children of 87 year-old Mrs. Anna Smith are concerned about her mental health. She lives alone, and although no major mishaps have occurred, they are concerned that she is becoming reclusive and depressed. At family gatherings, she sits off to the side of the group and no longer participates in conversation. At times,…

By Max S. ChartrandFrom the archives of Hearing Health Magazine: Alzheimer's is predicted to afflict almost epidemic proportions of the elderly in the coming decades, yet the medical community in general still ignores the cognitive and health impact of unmitigated hearing loss. Alzheimer's Tidal Wave A Hearing Connection? There's a tidal wave coming all right – the exponential growth of…