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Being Herd
Category:
Health/Wellness
Publisher: CS
ISBN-10: 1494742683
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 248
Copyright: Feb 19, 2014
ISBN-13: 9781494742683
Price: $4.95 (eBook)
If you know someone who suffers from Alzheimers or Dementia, this is a great resource. Learn nutritional and holistic tools to recover brain function, minimise stress and improve health.
Do you have, know or take care of someone who suffers from Alzheimer's? If the answer is ”Yes,” then you know you are facing a complete life-changing event. Most of today's major diseases are no longer death-sentences. But in mainstream medicine, little has changed for the Alzheimer's patient. The future is bleak and becomes progressively darker.
This does not have to be the case. Life is going to change. That part cannot be altered. But it IS possible to choose HOW it is going to change. It is possible to minimise and reverse many of the presenting symptoms of this disease. By taking charge, making a commitment to nutritional and dietary and life-style changes, it is possible to maintain a healthy, active and engaged lifestyle.
Holistic and Practical Support for Alzheimer's /Dementia will help you learn dietary and nutritional strategies to support the well-being, happiness and mental clarity. Learn about the role of nutrition, toxins in the body, and supplements. Taking these simple steps can minimise deterioration and in some cases even help to reverse it! It can help maximise cognitive function and minimise stress and emotional ups and downs.
You will also learn behavioural strategies, specifics for supporting and improving cognitive function. This book is filled with tips and strategies for diet, exercise and activities, as well as holistic support.
This book is written toward the moderate stage Alzheimer or dementia patient or person. But it will serve the mild to severe patient just as powerfully. It is also intended to be a support mechanism for the caregivers, with the supports in this book intended equally to support the well-being of the caregiver as much as the Alzheimer/Dementia family member, patient or client.
Holistic and Practical Support for Alzheimer's / Caregivers also contains worksheets and guides to help the reader along their way. There is also a video series available for those wishing for additional support.
Excerpt
Let's look at the immediate causative factors first. But first, let's start with the “healthy brain.”
Before we can attempt to fix something, we have to understand how it works.. and what is not working correctly. In other words, we need to understand what it is SUPPOSED to do. And we need to understand how is it “broken.”
The normal healthy brain
The brain uses up to 20 percent of all the energy/ calories used up by the human body.
The cerebral cortex alone ( the most affected area in Alzheimer/dementia)- the front part of the brain where we process thought/ ration... contains over 200 BILLION neurons and 125 TRILLION synapses.
A neuron is a nerve cell. Neurons are connected to each other. And communicate with each other. They are connected by thousands of synapses, to each other.. neurons communicate through AXONS... like the pipe cleaners that connect tinker toys. So the pathway that information, or nerve impulses travel is: down the axon, to the cell body, to the synaptic terminus ( the end of the pathway) An impulse will then trigger the release of neurotransitters that cross the synaptic cleft ( space inbetween).. and then send the information down the line. ( a very simplified explanation)
A neuron is like the HUB.. the axon is like the long sticks that bind and hold them together. The difference between tinker toys and neurons.. is that they do not STAY locked together. And information has to cross the “gap” between neurons. Information, nerve impulses, flow down the axon, to a neuron-- where they “jump” across to another neuron-- via neuro- transmitters. Neurotransmitters are like chemical carriers... that “ferry” the nerve impulse across the “gap” between neurons from the sending neuron to the receiving neuron..... bridging the space inbetween. Something similar say to the pony express in History. A carrier would bring a letter so far, where it would be transferred over to the next carrier. Passing the information along it's route, until it reached its destination.
Going back and forth, sending, receiving and retrieving information from the brain's complex and dynamic storage system. If someone asks if you like chocolate. that question sends a “messenger” to where it knows information is 'stored,” similar to a library with a catalog system ( only we don't remotely understand the hows and whys of the way the brain stores information:).. The brain has to “translate” the question, sort through the information for an answer, and send that “answer” information back through other areas of the brain, to the mouth.. so you can say “ OMG YES! I Love chocolate.” and the warm fuzzy areas of happy memories are also stimulated as well. A lot goes on, even in simple questions and every day tasks.
In the Alzheimer/dementia patient.. the synapses and neurons are affected.
In the Alzheimer brain... it appears that the brain is changing, long before there are clinical, noticeable symptoms and signs. Alzheimer's affects the older population more commonly. And there are age-related factors that contribute to this. Certain areas of the brain atrophies a bit more with age ( less use, combined with the aging process). There is added inflammation in the brain ( the body's attempt to counter invasive/ intruding/toxins?).. and there is dysfunction in the brains mitochondria.
Mitochondria are the energy-factories, inside our cells. They convert energy into forms the cell can use. This is similar to the way our body converts food, into energy that the body and organs can use. Only mitochondria are doing this on the smallest microscopic levels- INSIDE each cell.
In the Alzheimer brain, the mitochondria somehow lose their “integrity”... and this leads to the loss of function. This means the cells in the brain are not being adequately “fed”.. And important to note, studies found that the dysfunctional mitochondria were located at the synapses of neurons involved with memory.
Is the mitochondria the very first domino in a long line of dominoes? That's hard to say. Another component of Alzheimer’s is the build up of amyloid plaques in the brain.
Anyone who has gone to the dentist understands the basic idea of plaque. It is a substance that builds up and interferes with normal function. In the brain of the Alzheimer patient, pieces of protein, called beta- amyloids... clump together. These proteins come from larger protein that is found in the fatty (protective) membrane surrounding the nerve cells/ neurons. Amyloid deposits are particles of oxidized protein that build up inside all non-dividing,cells, such as the brain and heart Amyloid buildup slowly shuts down the ability of the cell to function properly and acts as an irritant.
The beta-amyloid has a sort of 'sticky' characteristic, and gradually builds up into plaques. As they clump together, they can block the information that travels from cell to cell/ neuron to neuron. The plaques clog up the area around synapses, like a traffic jam at an intersection, and the normal flow of traffic.. or information, is disrupted. The Plaque, may also be the cause of the inflammation- as the body-brain knows this is something that does not belong there, and it triggers an immune response.
Another major contributing aspect is something called neurofibriliary tangles. That's a mouthful! While the amyloid plaque is something that affects the cells from the outside, tangles, form INSIDE the neurons.
Tangles are composed of a protein called Tau. The tau protein is a part of cell structure, called micro-tubules. But in the Alzheimer brain it breaks down, and is not broken down and disposed of properly. Instead, they get twisted up and tangle together.. interfering with the proper function of the cell on the inside.
So the proper function and communication of the brain cells/ neurons... is compromised from the inside AND the outside. Eventually, the neurons are so challenged that they cannot do their job. And when messages cannot be sent between neuron A to neuron B.. repeatedly-- the connection between those two neurons is broken, and dies. Overall there becomes a loss of connectivity between brain cells. So all the remaining neurons are a bit like islands.. with fewer and fewer boats traveling between them, and they get cut off from the rest of the ' islands.' without proper food-nutrients, and lack of 'exercise' they wither up and die off. Just like people.
And as those connections die off... it becomes harder and harder for information to get through... the brain has to work that much harder, to find alternate routes between “source” and 'destination”
So this is a basic.. overview of the brain and how Alzheimer affects the normal function of the brain. And we have a fundamental understanding of cause and affects of the damage that is taking place.
But from a holistic perspective, we try to look at broader and bigger pictures. In ideal circumstances an organism performs a function. Holistic medicine tries to understand what stopped working, and what interferes with its own ability to regulate its health and repair or heal itself.
In regards to Alzheimers/ dementia, we may never know definitively, what the underlying single cause is. It may be that there is no ONE single underlying cause.
But we can begin to look at some things that we do KNOW and see as correlations.. for example... heavy metals may not CAUSE Alzheimer... heavy metals, like mercury aluminum and copper... BUT, there tends to be an OVER abundance or excess of these substances in Alzheimer/dementia patients. So it is important to test and remove any contributing factors, by detoxing the body. It is also important to incorporate protocols that can remove the plaques and toxins from the brain... helping the brain to perform the house-cleaning that it can no longer manage on its own.
Additionally, there are specific vitamins that tend to be associated with the presence of Alzheimer's. Low vitamin D for example seems much more common in Alzheimer than in the healthy brain/ patient.
We will go into more detail on these aspects in each of the chapters in this book...
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