Suffering from Alzheimer's Disease: Major Neurocognitive Disorder
[SINGING] Oh, what a beautiful morning. Oh, what a beautiful day.
You cannot look at their faces without wondering, what's been lost?
[SINGING] Everything's going our way.
Hello, Miss Josephine.
Hello, Miss Josephine.
Has Josephine Gallaro forgotten that she's 88? That she was born in Sicily?
[SINGING] Oh, what a beautiful morning.
Irma Fraad was a lawyer in the 1930s, and then curator of Near Eastern art at the Brooklyn museum. Does she remember?
[SINGING] Everything's going our way.
Alzheimer's disease has stolen their memories, robbed them of who they were, and left them here in a Brooklyn nursing home. It will not stop until it has wiped away even who they are now.
Look at the sky. I think the worst thing would be to be in such a state that you couldn't do things for yourself at all. Anything. And you could not do even the minor things. And yet you're still alive.
Oh, we got so lucky today. The weather's beautiful.
Roy Duhon was diagnosed in April. His wife Susan didn't want to believe that at 54-- that's right, 54, not 84-- he could possibly have Alzheimer's disease.
Everyone can read a watch. So when Roy would say to me, I don't have my watch on, what time is it? I wouldn't think anything about that. We found other excuses for everything. Eventually, after all the testing, it was difficult to find excuses.
A much decorated Air Force colonel, he piloted B-52s in Vietnam. He held a command position in the Gulf War. And before retiring in 1996, was in charge of maintaining F-15s worldwide. Now, every three months, he has to sit through what he refers to as the stupid test.
Here we go. Flower, tulip. Cup, smile. What word was paired with flower?
Flower was tree.
Flower was paired with the word tulip.
Tulip. OK.
The Duhons are desperately hoping that a cure is found in time to help Roy. Short of that, better ways of slowing the disease down. And it just might happen. Alzheimer's research is at the point where their are hopes are as justified as their fears.
Four million Americans have Alzheimer's disease. The number is expected to rise to 14 million by the middle of the century, unless a cure is found. If you reach the age of 85, you'll have a 50/50 chance of getting the disease. The average cost of caring for an Alzheimer's patient is $174,000 from diagnosis to death. Shocking statistics, yes, but they've helped to force the disease out of the shadows into mainstream medicine.
This is it. I mean, this is a really exciting period. Things are moving very fast.
Neurologist Richard Mayeux is part of the team leading Alzheimer's research at Columbia University.
I think if a person has symptoms now or was recently diagnosed, I think the future looks better than it did a year ago, two years ago, five years ago. Whether that will mean that during their lifetime, they will take a drug that will either stop their disease or reverse it-- I think it's possible. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we're not at the end of the tunnel yet.