Dementia

The cost of caring for dementia patients has reached $109 billion annually, exceeding that for heart disease and cancer, and will double by the time the youngest baby boomers reach their 70s, according to a study. Dementia is characterized by a group of symptoms that prevent people from carrying out the tasks of daily living. Reduced mental function makes it impossible for them to do things like keep track of medications or finances. In more severe cases, patients lose the ability to handle basic tasks like bathing and dressing.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Tennessee's Pat Summitt plans to coach "as long as the good Lord is willing" despite recently being diagnosed with early onset dementia. In a statement from Summitt released by the university on Tuesday, the Hall of Fame coach said she visited with doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., after the end of the 2010-11 basketball season ended and was diagnosed with early onset dementia - Alzheimer's type - over the summer. "I plan to continue to be your coach," Summitt said.

Police are asking for the public's help in locating an 83-year-old man with dementia who has been missing since Wednesday morning in the Tacony section of the city. David Fleming was last seen in the 6300 block of Gillespie Street around 11 a.m., police said. He is described as 5-foot-11, 180 pounds, with blue eyes and gray hair. He was wearing a black T-shirt with animals on it, jeans shorts, black socks, and white sneakers. Anybody with information is being asked to contact Northeast Detectives at 215-686-3153 or -3154.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Tennessee's Pat Summitt plans to coach "as long as the good Lord is willing" despite recently learning she has early onset dementia. In a statement from Summitt released by the university on Tuesday, the Hall of Fame coach said she visited with doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., after the 2010-11 basketball season ended, and early onset dementia - Alzheimer's type - was diagnosed over the summer. "I plan to continue to be your coach," Summitt said.

Mike Ditka says these are the times he thinks most about Mick Tingelhoff, Pete Pihos, Joe Perry, John Mackey, the late Jim Ringo, and dozens of other former NFL players who have suffered from dementia or Alzheimer's. Ditka, long a passionate advocate for the welfare of former NFL players suffering from injuries sustained on the field decades ago, recently read the news of a study commissioned by the NFL. It indicated that memory-related diseases were diagnosed in former players at a rate 19 times the rate for all men aged 30 through 49. The Hall of Fame player, who went on to coach two NFL teams and is now a broadcaster for ESPN, is angry that a study commissioned by the NFL is now being downplayed by a league spokesman and other doctors.

The prolific Philadelphia playwright Bruce Graham must be leading a charmed life. In a matter of months, The Outgoing Tide, his funny and searing exploration of dementia and its effect on a family, has been given not one but two terrific productions here. The first was in Center City in the spring, at Philadelphia Theatre Company. The second now plays in Wilmington, where Delaware Theatre Company takes The Outgoing Tide - with its perfect narrative arc, smooth writing, and genuine tone - and runs with it in a production directed by Broadway producer Bud Martin, in his first season as artistic director in Wilmington.

At 83, Mr. Hockey is still in demand and on the move. Gordie Howe is about to embark on another series of fund-raisers to support dementia research. It's a personal cause. The disease killed his wife, Colleen, in 2009 and is beginning to affect him. "He's a little bit worse than last year, but pretty close to about the same," son Marty said. "He just loses a little bit more, grasping for words. "The worst part of this disease is there's nothing you can do about it. " While the long-term effects of concussions have been very much in the news lately, the family is hesitant to link the Hall of Famer's condition to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)

For years, scientists studying the brain have quarreled over whether smoking protects people from such diseases as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. After all, the theory went, nicotine stimulates the brain, so it should help fight off brain diseases. A study from the Netherlands yesterday cast doubt on that theory, finding that smokers in fact suffered higher rates of Alzheimer's disease than nonsmokers. The results will cheer antismoking activists who have feared that research into the "benefits" of smoking would reduce smokers' efforts to quit.

As the population of people with Alzheimer's disease grows, election officials need to tackle a problem that is growing with it: how to regulate voting among people with dementia. In an article published today, a multidisciplinary research team said it saw evidence of two potentially big problems among the four million Americans with Alzheimer's disease: Some are still capable of voting but aren't allowed to. Others who shouldn't be voting still do and are vulnerable to fraud. The country has no clear rules on deciding who is competent to vote, the group said in an article that appears in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.

The cost of caring for dementia patients has reached $109 billion annually, exceeding that for heart disease and cancer, and will double by the time the youngest baby boomers reach their 70s, according to a study. Dementia is characterized by a group of symptoms that prevent people from carrying out the tasks of daily living. Reduced mental function makes it impossible for them to do things like keep track of medications or finances. In more severe cases, patients lose the ability to handle basic tasks like bathing and dressing.

Though unmistakable in retrospect, Mom's symptoms were not obvious at first. Her six grown children told her, and themselves, that plenty of older people are forgetful. Everybody misplaces keys and glasses and checkbooks, they said. Anybody can forget how to spell forty . Boy, were we ever in denial. Our mother had - and still has - dementia, the umbrella term for Alzheimer's disease and similar disorders with little in the way of treatment, and no cure. An estimated 5.4 million Americans have dementia, which saps people of the ability to handle the car, the checkbook, the cooking.

For a problem that has no doubt been around as long as humans have been falling on hard objects and bashing one another's skulls with clubs, brain injuries are still surprisingly mysterious. Scientists, including a cadre at the University of Pennsylvania, are lifting the veil, though, and what they're seeing is already "dramatically" changing American sports, said Douglas Smith, who heads Penn's Center for Brain Injury and Repair. Everyone from parents to pro athletes to military leaders is suddenly paying more attention to "mild" brain injuries, or concussions, and their long-term consequences.

The room is filled with dementia patients, including a Flyers icon who is in hockey's Hall of Fame, and they are trying to enjoy each other's company during the holiday season. Keith Allen, the first coach in Flyers history and the general manager of the team's 1974 and 1975 Stanley Cup champions, is pushed ever so gently in his wheelchair so he can greet a handful of visitors at the Sunrise Senior Living facility in Newtown Square. Allen, 89, wears a blue sweater, blue jogging pants, white sneakers, and a red Santa hat with a team name on the front - Flyers - that he spelled in sparkles during an arts-and-crafts class.

Cathedral Village, a retirement community in Philadelphia's Andorra section, last month reached what experts called a "unique" agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia to enhance care in its nursing home, especially for Alzheimer's and dementia patients. The joint agreement grew out of complaints by Barry Vernick, whose wife, suffering from Parkinson's disease and dementia, died following a brief stay at Cathedral Village in late 2008. The agreement mentions no allegations of wrongdoing by the nonprofit Cathedral Village.

The plastic glove dispenser inviting visitors to cover their hands is the first sign that an uncommon art exhibit is footsteps away. Inside the second-floor gallery at Ursinus College's Berman Museum, an iPod offers a jazz soundtrack to a painting's abstract swish of colors. A sequined-and-studded Styrofoam bust mimics the contemporary art image that hangs above it. "Please do touch," urges a nearby sign. The residents of Parkhouse, Montgomery County's long-term care and senior-living community in Royersford, do just that, and look around at the exhibit that they helped create.

Norma Rita Bednarek, 91, mother of Washington Savings Bank president Martin G. Bednarek, died Wednesday, Oct. 31, of natural causes at Deer Meadows Home Health, a nursing facility in Northeast Philadelphia. She had dementia for seven years, her son said. Martin Bednarek is known in Philadelphia for serving on the School Reform Commission from fall 2003 to spring 2008. He also served on the School District board of education from March 2000 to December 2001. Mrs. Bednarek was born and raised in the Mayfair section of Philadelphia.

The prolific Philadelphia playwright Bruce Graham must be leading a charmed life. In a matter of months, The Outgoing Tide, his funny and searing exploration of dementia and its effect on a family, has been given not one but two terrific productions here. The first was in Center City in the spring, at Philadelphia Theatre Company. The second now plays in Wilmington, where Delaware Theatre Company takes The Outgoing Tide - with its perfect narrative arc, smooth writing, and genuine tone - and runs with it in a production directed by Broadway producer Bud Martin, in his first season as artistic director in Wilmington.

WASHINGTON - For people with Alzheimer's disease, a hospital stay may prove catastrophic. A new study highlights the lingering ill effects: Being hospitalized seems to increase the chances of Alzheimer's patients moving into a nursing home - or even dying - within the next year, Harvard researchers reported Monday. The risk is higher if those patients experience what's called delirium, a state of extra confusion and agitation, during their stay. It's not clear exactly why, although specialists say delirium is especially bad for an already damaged brain.