Nancy Wurtzel

Here’s the latest news on more money for Alzheimer’s research: Yesterday (June 6, 2016), The Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee has proposed a $400 million increase for Alzheimer’s research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). No, this funding does NOT get us on a NIH research par with many other major diseases, but the increases made in just a few years is encouraging. These new funds could keep more researchers in the Alzheimer’s field (see my previous blog post about why scientists are leaving or have left the field of cognitive research). Current funding is just under $1 billion, leaving a deficit of $600 million plus to get to that goal.

In Tuesday’s post, I examined chronic anger and how it, along with the resulting stress, adversely affects the body and the brain. On the flip side, some people experience similar deep-seated fury, but instead of expressing those feelings they compartmentalize the anger and repress the feelings. I’ve done a fair share of research and soul-searching on this topic, and have determined that I do have feelings of anger that linger and I find it hard to let them go. * If your anger is directed at a person, you could say, “I’m feeling angry right now, and I’m deciding how to handle it.

A 2014 study at the University of California, Berkeley identified chronic stress as triggering long-term changes in brain structure and function. In a series of experiments, Daniela Kaufer, UC Berkeley associate professor of integrative biology, and her colleagues, including graduate students Sundari Chetty and Aaron Freidman, discovered chronic stress generates more myelin-producing cells and fewer neurons than normal. In the study results, Sanders writes, “Researchers have shown that chronic stress generates long-term changes in the brain that may explain why people suffering chronic stress are prone to mental problems such as anxiety and mood disorders later in life. Writing about this study for Time magazine, reporter Alice Park quotes Dr. Sinha, “…people experiencing chronic stress may be more vulnerable to suffering from brain shrinkages in key areas when they are faced with a life trauma or sudden adverse event.

It was a rainy night in Eugene, Oregon and Sandra Clarke, a bedside nurse at Sacred Heart Medical Center was busy making her initial rounds. The medical professional in Sandra understood it was his time to die, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was not acceptable for him to die without family, friends or anyone at his bedside. In 2001, with the help of her co-workers at Sacred Heart Medical Center, Sandra launched the No One Dies Alone (NODA) program. Best described as an elder orphan program for those who have either outlived family and friends or are alone for other reasons, NODA brings a trained volunteer, called a compassionate companion, to the hospital bedside of someone in the last hours of life.