New Directions in Understanding Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. A Medical Agenda: Etiology, Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Alzheimer’s Disease and the Family: A Challenge of the New Millennium

      • Richard J. Ham

      Pages 3-20

   3. In Search of the Etiology of Alzheimer’s Disease

      • John A. Edwards

      Pages 21-29

   4. Alzheimer’s Disease: Theories of Causation

      • Walter G. Bradley

      Pages 31-38

   5. The Reversible Dementias: Do They Reverse?

      • A. Mark Clarfield

      Pages 39-58

   6. The Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease

      • Robert A. Murden

      Pages 59-64

   7. Cholinergic Drug Studies in Dementia and Depression

      • Paul A. Newhouse

      Pages 65-76

3. Cognitive and Language Evaluations of Dementia Patients

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 77-77

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   2. Verbal Communication Impairment in Dementia Research Frontiers in Language and Cognition

      • Raymond A. Domenico

      Pages 79-88

   3. Changes in Memory Processes of Dementia Patients

      • Taher Zandi

      Pages 89-100

4. Alzheimer’s Disease: The Other Victims

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 101-101

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   2. Understanding Placement of the Demented Elderly

      • Howard Bergman

      Pages 103-112

   3. Psychological Difficulties of Caring for Dementia Patients: The Role of Support Groups

      • Taher Zandi

      Pages 113-120

   4. Easing the Burden of Caregiving for the Paraprofessionals

      • Lory E. Bright-Long

      Pages 121-126

   5. How to Care for Dementia Patients: Case Management Models in Long-Term Home Health Care

      • Elizabeth Pohlmann, David Howells, Diane Buchanan

      Pages 127-133

   6. Encounters of the Mobile Geriatric Team

      • Suzanne Lavin

      Pages 135-140

   7. Role of Support Group for the Family Caregiver of Dementia: Recent Developments in the Structure of the Support System

      • Alice Barbara Vickers

      Pages 141-147

5. Back Matter

   Pages 149-161

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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.

• Alzheimer
• Case Management
• alzheimer's disease
• cognition
• dementia
• depression
• etiology
• health
• health care
• memory
• prevention

• Northeastern New York Alzheimer’s Disease Assistance Center, SUNY, Plattsburgh, USA

  Taher Zandi

• Central New York Alzheimer’s Disease Assistance Center, SUNY Health Science Center, Syracuse, USA

  Richard J. Ham

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