Posted on 12/07/2012 5:11:10 AM PST by RoosterRedux
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine in November surgically implanted a pacemaker-like device into the brain of a patient in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, the first such operation in the United States. The device, which provides deep brain stimulation and has been used in thousands of people with Parkinson's disease, is seen as a possible means of boosting memory and reversing cognitive decline.
*snip*
The surgery involves drilling holes into the skull to implant wires into the fornix on either side of the brain. The fornix is a brain pathway instrumental in bringing information to the hippocampus, the portion of the brain where learning begins and memories are made, and where the earliest symptoms of Alzheimer's appear to arise. The wires are attached to a pacemaker-like device, the "stimulator," which generates tiny electrical impulses into the brain 130 times a second. The patients don't feel the current, Rosenberg says.
For the trial, all of the patients will be implanted with the devices. Half will have their stimulators turned on two weeks after surgery, while the other half will have their stimulators turned on after one year. Neither the patients nor the doctors treating them will know which group gets an early or later start.
"Deep brain stimulation might prove to be a useful mechanism for treating Alzheimer's disease, or it might help us develop less invasive treatments based on the same mechanism," Rosenberg says.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
I agree with everything you said. People who havent experienced the pain, frustration and saddness of alzheimers with their loved ones shouldn’t be so quick to say, ‘this but not that’. The just don’t understand.
FINALLY!!! A cure for my CRS disease. Wonder if I can get the same effect without surgery by sticking my finger in a wall outlet?
For years, dentists have suspected that at least one major cause of Alzheimer’s may be based in chronic gum infections.
Typically, it is difficult for bacteria to get in the brain, and very difficult for them to get back out of the brain. But a chronic gum infection may give them an opportunity to pass through capillaries unaffected by the blood-brain barrier.
The plaque associated with Alzheimer’s may actually be the remains of many years worth of dead bacteria.
However if this is the case, to prevent at least a percentage of Alzheimer’s cases may be as simple as periodically brushing the teeth with common powered baking soda, alternating days with regular toothpaste against tooth plaque and to provide fluoride.
Baking soda is a specific against the five common spirochete bacteria that live in the mouth, killing them in just a few seconds. Along with a water pick, which disrupts bacterial colonies hiding behind the gums, this would seem to be all that is required.
Though there is no statistical proof of this, at least one dentist commented that Alzheimer’s was much rarer when a baking soda and salt combination was used as toothpaste, then there was a sharp increase about 25 years after regular toothpaste began being widely used.
He also noted that commercial baking soda toothpaste is not concentrated enough for this antimicrobial effect.
Since alternatively brushing with baking soda is neither expensive nor difficult, it should be recommended as a possible preventative regime against Alzheimer’s.
Very interesting. Worth a try.
Ping.
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