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"No one else likes me," said the woman who died alone.

The story below was sent by a colleague that lives in Maine. As you will see, it is about a woman who died in her home and whose remains were not found for 2.5 years.

Many people may feel that no one really dies alone. I hope that is true. Nevertheless, when one dies and is not found for over two years, most would say that people do live and walk through life alone.

It is a new year. It is never too late to change unless we have a cognitive dysfunction that disables us from doing so. I have oft written of the dysfunctional families that I encounter.

I have two step children that I inherited when they were 5 and 6 and two biological children.
There have been rough patches, but there was never a time where I was unwilling to listen to what I might have done to upset them, apologize and change; I am not averse to graveling in order to keep my family intact and healthy. Through doing that, I now have a family who practices open communication and embraces the art of gravel for the sake of moving towards love, togetherness and respect.

This Christmas break, my husband and I had a candid talk with all four of them ages 13-26. We told them that we did not want to go into a nursing home and wanted to know if they understood that we were depending on them. If any one of them was not up to the task or did not care for us in that regard, it was OK, but we needed to know.

This lead to a very deep conversation about our lives, including the insurance (long term care and life) that they will be able to use to hire caregivers. It is a conversation that I will intentionally initiate through the years as my husband and I age. I do not want to burden my children, but I do not want them to ignore me at best or abuse me at worst.

Please understand that I am not using this newsletter as an opportunity to brag about how great my family is.

If I can get one reader to push past their ego and try to connect with those in your family who share the same desire to move forward with a similar connection (and get over their own egos), I will have done something very good. In the end, that is all that I want out of my professional life and my newsletters.

I hope that you walk through this year and life in the company of at least another.

Click Here for the link to this story

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Dementia
Alzheimer's Update

Queensland scientists have found that non-invasive ultrasound technology can be used to treat Alzheimer's disease and restore memory.

University of Queensland researchers discovered that the innovative drug-free approach breaks apart the neurotoxic amyloid plaques that result in memory loss and cognitive decline.

"The Government's $9 million investment into this technology was to drive discoveries into clinics, and today's announcement indicates that together with the Queensland Brain Institute, it was a worthwhile investment," Ms Palaszczuk said.

"The farsighted investment of government and philanthropic partners has allowed us to build the research excellence and capacity required to make major discoveries such as this," Professor Perry Bartlett said.

"I believe the work opens up an entirely novel avenue for future therapeutic treatment."

Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research director Professor Jürgen Götz said the new treatment method could revolutionise Alzheimer's treatment by restoring memory.

"We're extremely excited by this innovation of treating Alzheimer's without using drug therapeutics," Professor Götz said.

"The ultrasound waves oscillate tremendously quickly, activating microglial cells that digest and remove the amyloid plaques that destroy brain synapses.

"The word 'breakthrough' is often mis-used, but in this case I think this really does fundamentally change our understanding of how to treat this disease, and I foresee a great future for this approach."

The approach is able to temporarily open the blood-brain barrier, activating mechanisms that clear toxic protein clumps and restoring memory functions.

Research has been conducted using mice with an Alzheimer's model, with the next step being to scale the research in higher animal models ahead of human clinical trials, which are at least two years away.

"This treatment restored memory function to the same level of normal healthy mice," Professor Götz said.

"We're also working on seeing whether this method clears toxic protein aggregates in neurodegenerative diseases other than Alzheimer's and whether this also restores executive functions, including decision-making and motor control."

Susan B. Geffen | Gerontologist, Attorney, Author | 1(888) 422-6070

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