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The management of Alzheimer's Disease and the related dementias is one of the major challenges to health care professionals and American society-at-large for the coming decade and the coming millennium. The rapid growth of the over-eighty-five population, the group which, as recent studies have confirmed and as many of us clinicians have long suspected, has an even higher prevalence than previously quoted of dementing disorders, is the major cause of this. We are thus challenged by, as Bernard Issacs used to call it, "the survival of the unfittest," as well as the oPtimistic approach of "bringing life to years," as John F. Kennedy said. The fact is that we, as a society, tend to confuse "treatment" and "cure" (and "prevention"). As the proceedings of the conference which this book represents emphasize, there is considerable work going on about the potential prevention of, or at least the reduction of, symptomatology in these illnesses by interventions genetically, chemIcally, and so forth. However, the more we find out, the more complicated it becomes, and the more heterogeneous Alzheimer's and the related disorders appear to be, not only in their manifestations (as clinicians have long recognized) but also in the individual initiating and underlying processes. For these reasons, absolute preventive techniques or the likelihood of an intervention which will reverse the process in a high proportion of patients, do not appear to be just around the corner.
List of contents
Section I A Medical Agenda: Etiology, Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia.- 1 Alzheimer's Disease and the Family: A Challenge of the New Millennium.- 2 In Search of the Etiology of Alzheimer's Disease.- 3 Alzheimer's Disease: Theories of Causation.- 4 The Reversible Dementias: Do They Reverse?.- 5 The Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease.- 6 Cholinergic Drug Studies in Dementia and Depression.- Section II Cognitive and Language Evaluations of Dementia Patients.- 7 Verbal Communication Impairment in Dementia Research Frontiers in Language and Cognition.- 8 Changes in Memory Processes of Dementia Patients.- Section III Alzheimer's Disease: The Other Victims.- 9 Understanding Placement of the Demented Elderly.- 10 Psychological Difficulties of Caring for Dementia Patients: The Role of Support Groups.- 11 Easing the Burden of Caregiving for the Paraprofessionals.- 12 How to Care for Dementia Patients: Case Management Models in Long-Term Home Health Care.- 13 Encounters of the Mobile Geriatric Team.- 14 Role of Support Group for the Family Caregiver of Dementia: Recent Developments in the Structure of the Support System.- Contributors.- Author Index.
Summary
Proceedings of a conference held in Plattsburgh, New York, May 25--26, 1989
