Beware football and Alzheimer’s

His words came back to me when during an interview with Norma Inniss, president of Alzheimer’s Association of Trinidad and Tobago, and a member of the elected Board of Alzheimer’s Disease International (2005-2008), she remarked: “We are looking at the relevance of head injuries in footballers and boxers to the disease, and have now found a few well-known footballers who suffered Alzheimer’s prior to their deaths. Football coaches should be aware of this and tell young footballers not to head the ball.”

Alzheimer’s Disease is neither an inevitable part of aging nor a mental illness, and there are ways in which you can fight it. The disease, a progressive, degenerative disease, is one of the leading causes of “dementia,” which is the general name for mental disorders marked by memory failures, personality changes and impaired reasoning.

One hundred years ago, German neurologist and psychiatrist, Dr Alois Alzheimer, described an ‘‘unusual disease of the cerebral cortex’’ affecting a woman in her fifties, Auguste D. The disease went on to bear the doctor’s name and now in 2006, Alzheimer’s disease is known to be the most common form of dementia.

It causes brain cells to shrink or disappear, and they are replaced by dense, irregularly shaped spots called plaques and thread like substances called tangles, which eventually choke healthy brain cells and cause them to die. Most people who develop the disease are over 65 years of age. The second most common form of dementia, Vascular Dementia, is caused by problems with the supply of blood to, or within, the brain. People may have mixed dementia – both vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

When asked what progress has been made in the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease, Inniss explained, “Mainly that people are now accepting that there is a problem, although some still treat it lightly and say I am forgetting I must be getting Alzheimer’s, but it is not a joke at all.”

When individuals recognise or accept there is a problem (because there is still a lot of denial), they should attend meetings of the support groups in San Fernando, Tobago and Port-of-Spain. Care- givers even moreso should also attend meetings where they can share their experiences, so that they help one another, and realise they are not alone.

“What we try to do when someone comes with a problem is send them to the Memory Clinic at the University of the West Indies Psychiatric Unit at Mount Hope where they can get an assessment. We need to have people in the first stages because right now early diagnosis is very important as there are drugs available which can be used to delay progression of the disease. They work only for a time, as the disease continues to progress. But there is definitely improvement in the quality of life which is important although the drugs are high cost.”

Management is focusing is on three things:

•Making the disease a health priority throughout the world because right now 24.3 million people worldwide have dementia. Alzheimer’s is the leading cause and by 2040 the figure would have quadrupled to 80 million. Dementia must be integrated into mainstream health agendas worldwide.

•Prevention — people are now being told about the things which will help, such as, controlling chronic diseases (eg diabetes), strokes, head injuries and episodes of depression; Feeding the brain through multivitamins that include folic acid, Vitamin E and C, and eating foods rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, Exercise the body and brain, work out, take a class, converse, read, play cards or work on crossword puzzles.

Early diagnosis is important because so much is being done for people with dementia now. For example, because of early diagnosis, an Alzheimer’s patient functions very well as a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Association, with which Trinidad and Tobago has been recently twinned, and she is also on the International Board.

Carlotta Simon-Rodrigo, a director of the local board, explained the part played in helping the caregivers who themselves need “a lot of attention as they sometimes have to teach the patient to eat like you would a baby. We want people to be aware of any early stage symptoms, and this will happen if they come to the support groups at the first signs. Nowadays, we suggest that the patient be brought out in the early stages to the things they enjoy but not be kept out too long as they get tired and irritable. Above all dignity is an important value to preserve in the presence of a disease as overwhelming as Alzheimer’s.”

In an effort to raise international awareness of the disease, ADI will be marking the centenary of when Alzheimer’s was first described, with a series of events culminating in a climb of Mount Kilimanjaro for World Alzheimer’s Day on September 21, 2006.