Use Your Brain to Change Your Age: Secrets to Look, Feel, and Think Younger Every Day: A Longevity Book - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Daniel G. Amen, MD, is a double board-certified psychiatrist, professor, and ten-time New York Times bestselling author. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on using brain-imaging tools to help optimize and treat his patients. Amen Clinics have one of the highest published success rates for patients. His research was listed as one of the Top 100 Stories in Science for 2015 by Discover magazine. He has written and hosted eleven highly popular shows about the brain for public television. His work has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, and Men’s Health and on The Dr. Oz Show and Dr. Phil.

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NANA, LISA, AND RUTH

KNOW YOUR NUMBERS TO KEEP YOUR MIND HEALTHY AND PREVENTALZHEIMER'S AND OTHER DISEASES OF AGING

I can never find my keys. Sometimes they show up by theeggs in the refrigerator.

I am fifty-two. Isn't that normal?

Think again!

When Lisa was a young girl she adored her nana, hermother's mother. Nana and Lisa baked cookies together, played cards for hours,told silly jokes, and picked plums in Nana's backyard. Nana taught Lisa how tocan the fruit for plum jam, which they loved to share. Nana was veryoverweight, so she would hold the ladder while her granddaughter climbed theladder for the plums. On nights Lisa slept over, Nana always read to her. Lisaremembers laughing so hard that she would sometimes snort at the silly voices Nanaused when she read the stories. At night in the dark they promised each otherto always be best friends. Lisa loved snuggling into Nana's body, which wasever so soft. She felt unconditional love in Nana's presence, which was one ofthe best feelings she remembered from her childhood.

Then, when Lisa was about twelve years old, somethingstarted to change. At first, it was barely noticeable. Nana seemed lessinterested in their time together. There were no more jokes, fewer stories, andNana said she was too tired to play games or pick plums. Nana was also moreirritable with Lisa, even sometimes yelling at her for what seemed like noreason at all. Lisa was devastated, but Nana did not pick up on the social cuesthat should have told her that her granddaughter needed soothing. Lisaremembers this as one of the saddest, most confusing times in her life. Shewondered if she had done something to make Nana mad. "What's wrong withNana?" Lisa would ask her mother, but time and again her mother would say,"Don't worry. Nana is fine." This only deepened Lisa's pain andconfusion. Maybe she really was the problem and Nana had just stopped lovingher.

Her grandmother was sixty-five years old when Lisanoticed the changes. Around this time, Nana had been diagnosed with diabetesand high blood pressure. Lisa remembered watching Nana take her pills and hershots to feel better, but no one seemed overly concerned about her health.

When Lisa was fourteen, Nana took a dramatic turn for theworse. With Lisa in the car, Nana got lost on the way home from the store. Nanapanicked and stopped a man who was walking across the street to ask for help,but she could not tell him where she lived. She appeared frightened andconfused, like a child. Lisa asked the man to call her grandfather, who came topick them up.

Once they got home Lisa cornered her mother. "Look,Mom, I know something is really wrong with Nana. Her brain isn't working right.She needs help." Still, the family continued making excuses, normalizingwhat was obviously not normal behavior. Looking back on this time, as an adult,Lisa remembers being furious, feeling she was, even as a young teen, the lonevoice of reason shouting into a bitter wind. After Nana got lost several moretimes, the family finally was concerned enough to take her to a doctor whodiagnosed her with something called senile dementia. He recommended Nana livein a nursing home for people with memory problems.

Gone were the happy warm feelings she once enjoyed whenshe visited her grandmother. The nursing home where she now lived smelled"medical" and felt cold, and Lisa felt odd and afraid in it. Shenever knew which Nana she'd find on these visits: Sometimes Nana smiled whenshe saw Lisa; sometimes she did not recognize her at all. Sometimes when Lisaread to Nana she seemed engaged and happy, other times her grandmother justwanted to be left alone. After a few years, Nana died in the nursing home.However, Lisa felt that Nana had really died years earlier when her personalityslowly ebbed away. At Nana's funeral, all of their special times circledthrough Lisa's mind. She couldn't help wondering how a person could disappearwhile her body continued living on, and she couldn't help feeling how sad itall was. Lisa wondered if she or her mother would have the same problem asNana. She prayed to God they would not.

Lisa's mother, Ruth, was also a lot of fun. They too hadmany special times, cooking, reading, and playing together. Like Nana, Ruth wasa fabulous baker who also struggled with her weight, early onset diabetes, andhypertension. Lisa's mother was also a wonderful grandmother to Lisa's threedaughters, which reminded Lisa of the closeness she'd shared with her own nana.In fact, her girls called her mother Nana as well. In the back of her mind shekept watch over her own mother's brain health. She didn't want hergranddaughters to lose this vibrant and wonderful relationship they'd enjoyedwith her mom, as she'd lost hers with Nana. It was this concern that promptedLisa, now in her early forties, to pick up my book, Change Your Brain, ChangeYour Life.

When Ruth turned sixty-eight Lisa's worst fears startedto actualize. At first, Ruth struggled with finding the right words. If shemeant dog, she might unintentionally say bark; if she meant milk, she sometimessaid cow. One time when she asked her granddaughter for a hug, she said,"Give Nana a slap."

Ruth's memory was also becoming a problem. Lisa watchedher reach for the phone to dial her sister whom she'd just called five minutesearlier. Her sister said this sort of thing was happening more frequently.Lisa's father mentioned that there were times when he found her mother standingand staring and not knowing why she was in a room. There were also twooccasions on which Ruth got lost driv-ing in a town where she had lived forthirty years, forcing her to call her husband for directions. Her father hadinstalled a GPS system in Ruth's car to help her. (I sometimes wonder if havingGPS systems actually delays the diagnosis of early Alzheimer's disease, aspeople do not have to rely as heavily on their own memories to get from point Ato point B, so their deficits are not seen early by those who could encouragethem to get help.)

Initially, Lisa's dad just laughed off her mother's struggles.He explained it away with, "She is just getting older. She's under a lotof stress." Or "You know your mom has never had a good memory orsense of direction. It will pass. Everything is all right."

Because early signs of dementia may alternate withperiods of lucidity, families tend to deny what's happening. This is tragic,because the earlier someone seeks help, the better the prognosis. Rememberingher Nana, Lisa wasn't about to ignore her concerns or let others downplay them.She anxiously and emphatically told her father, "Mom needs help and sheneeds it now." Together they approached her mom with their observationsand concerns, urging her to go to the Amen Clinics. At first Ruth wasresistant. "I'll be okay," she said, which frightened Lisa even more.Then Lisa reminded her of Nana and told her that early intervention might helpher avoid Nana's fate. At this, Ruth agreed to come to the Amen Clinics for anevaluation and brain SPECT imaging.

I greeted Lisa and Ruth when they came into my office andlistened to their story. From these descriptions alone, I suspected Ruth hadearly Alzheimer's disease. However, after being a neuropsychiatrist for thirtyyears, I knew I couldn't proffer a diagnosis based on my suspicions alone. Ihad to look, test, probe, and get as much information as possible.

Ruth's brain SPECT scan showed three findings consistentwith

Alzheimer's disease:

1. Decreased activity in her parietal lobes, at the back,top part of her brain. The parietal lobes help with direction sense.

2. Decreased activity in her temporal lobes, which helpget memories into long-term...