Twenty-First Century Challenge
“Unfortunately, the most effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease today is counseling the caregiver.”
This sober conclusion comes from Mary Mittleman, a leading researcher at NYU’s medical school. She explains why: “There is no effective drug that will stop or reverse the disease.”
Though it sounds grim, her statement does point toward an important response to the disease. In her research into caregiving for people with Alzheimer’s, the speaker has discovered what a difference it makes to have caregivers who are well-informed.
Living Long
If you ask for preferences, most people will tell you they want to live as long as possible. Many, however, will add a proviso: only if they do not have to suffer Alzheimer’s or some other crippling disease.
As to what produces a long life, modern people tend to believe that our genes make most of the difference. If your parents reach 100, you have a reasonable chance of doing the same.
Death of a Mentor
The death of Dr. Robert Butler has stirred both my emotions and my thoughts. When word came that he had died on July fourth, it struck me as unlikely, even impossible. After all, I had spent the first full week of June with him as I took part in the Age Boom Academy for journalists conducted by his International Longevity Center in Manhattan.
Godwits and Wonder
“My heart in hiding stirred for a bird.” These words come from Gerard Manley Hopkins, the celebrated Jesuit poet of the 19th century. He was so far ahead of his poetic time, however, that he could have written in the 20th century.
If you took courses in English literature, the way I did, you would have discovered him to be either a great minor poet or a minor great poet. In any event, he was a marvelous innovator who had a transformative impact on poetry in our language.
Marvelous Migration
My spirits were buoyed up last week by reading about bar-tailed godwits. These small birds are based in southern Alaska in the warmer months there. When it turns cold, they take flight to New Zealand but not before they stuff themselves with food for the trip.
Then, almost incredibly, they fly 7,100 miles nonstop at 40 miles an hour and arrive at their destination in nine days. What a feat of navigation and endurance comes naturally to them!
These facts we know thanks to biologists who have been studying these birds for decades. The data about their migration comes thanks to the scientists surgically implanting satellite transmitters in their bodies.
Movie Remedy
Forget for a moment, if you can, Big Papi’s fall from batting grace; the balancing act facing David Cameron, the new British prime minister; the pope’s problems with sin and scandal; or the fallout from the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano.
Instead, focus on something really important. This column, if you persevere in reading it, will reveal a sure-fire stratagem for dealing with one of the ranking social problems of our era.
I refer, of course, to the odious habit of talking in movie theaters.