When people saw photos that linked a famous person with a famous place, it changed the behavior of certain neurons in their brains. And it changed their memories, too.
Things like activity trackers and sensors might make it easier to keep people with dementia safe and help caregivers. Researchers are going to test that idea in the real world.
Sometimes Greg O'Brien gets a tingling in the back of his brain that tells him a hallucination is coming. Lions. Spiders. Birds. Sometimes the creatures are friendly. Too often, they're not.
People in their 60s and 70s who followed the Mediterranean diet for four years held steady on cognitive tests, a study found. But the test scores of people following a lower-fat diet went down.
In an eight-year study of older people, those who had held mentally demanding, stimulating jobs tended to retain their mental agility better than people whose work was less stimulating.
A jury in Iowa acquitted a man who had been criminally charged for having sex with his wife, who had Alzheimer's. Very few care facilities have policies on dementia, sex and consent.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — An investigation at the University of California, Los Angeles, medical school found that female professors at its Alzheimer's disease research center worked under hostile conditions.
Scientists are still better than computers at assessing a neuron's health by looking at its shape. But an effort that includes an international series of hackathons could help speed the process.
Only about half of Medicare patients are told of the diagnosis by their doctor, a study finds. That compares to 90 percent of patients diagnosed with cancer.
When actress and writer Laury Sacks started losing words fast, her best friends, who happened to be filmmakers, captured her experience. Looks LikeLaury, Sounds Like Laury shows how they reached her.
Results from an analysis of veterans' health records show a higher risk of death among people taking antipsychotic drugs for symptoms of dementia than has been documented before.
Corinne Lasmezas began her career studying a disease that destroys the brains of cattle. Now she's using what she learned to search for drugs that can stop human brain diseases.
Mary Catherine O'Brien says when she married her husband, Greg, in 1977, he was funny and outgoing. Alzheimer's disease has stolen much of that, she says, but the two are closer than ever.
Non-drug approaches for treating aggression and other symptoms of dementia work better than antipsychotic drugs, a study finds, and are less risky. That includes teaching caregivers how to respond.
Cape Cod journalist Greg O'Brien has always found solace in running, and a diagnosis of Alzheimer's hasn't stopped him. But making it work — for himself and his family — isn't always easy.
Margaret Bentley, a woman in British Columbia, didn't want food or liquids if she became mentally disabled. But a nursing home is refusing to stop feeding her, even though she has Alzheimer's.
The retired cop was an easy patient, who took his medicine without complaint. After an operation, the man went into a mental tailspin that his doctor realized had been in the making for years.
Greg O'Brien talks about how his life has changed in the five years since he was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. "More and more I don't recognize people," he says.
As vessels become more porous, researchers say, they allow toxins in the bloodstream to reach, and damage, delicate brain cells and raise the risk for dementia.
Writer Greg O'Brien was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease five years ago. He describes what it was like to hear the news — and break it to his family.
A new wave of self-monitoring devices and apps is hitting the Consumer Electronics Show — ones with explicit medical purposes. They promise to help diagnose everything from ear infections to diseases.
Last week, President Obama announced an ambitious project to map the human brain. The federal government would allocate $100 million to find out how neurons communicate with each other in the creation of knowledge and memories.
As the population ages and dementia threatens to become an epidemic, researchers are looking for ways to stimulate the brain and improve memory. The art of music and the science of the brain come together in Cleveland with the Cleveland Orchestra and the neurologists of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health.
StoryCorps is a radio program that travels the country, allowing two people to sit down and interview each other. A few weeks ago, Storycorps visited Las Vegas to interview people at memory loss facilities. They sat down with people with Alzheimer's or dementia and their family members and asked them to share their stories. We'll be playing some of those interviews over the next two weeks. And we'll also have a special show on Tuesday where we talk about memory loss and how it affects people and their loved ones. Do you know someone with Alzheimer's or dementia? How has it changed their lives? How has it changed yours?
