Customer Reviews

The Myth of Alzheimer's: What You Aren't Being Told About Today's Most Dreaded Diagnosis

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Betty Friedan helped change our thoughts and language about gender relations. Martin Luther King, Jr. helped change our thoughts and language about racial relations. Now Dr. Peter Whitehouse is helping change our thoughts and language about aging - more particularly about our aging brains. And this is a very good time for another social revolution in thought and language. Seventy-eight million Baby Boomers are reaching a time in life when brain changes due to aging are inevitable and, with enough time passing, universal.

The language we use to describe the inevitabilities of cognitive aging tap into the deepest reservoirs of fear: senior moments, dementia, loss of self, and organic brain dysfunction. In particular, we think of two words with unspoken angst: Alzheimer's disease.

In "The Myth of Alzheimer's: What You Aren't Being Told About Today's Most Dreaded Diagnosis," Dr. Whitehouse and his young literary protégé, Daniel George, address the very foundation of our cultural and social relationships to the most dreaded disease of modern times. First described in 1907 by Alois Alzheimer, this disease has grown into a "$100-billion-a-year marketing and research juggernaut, with more than 25 million afflicted worldwide." The victims of this mysterious milady face ostracism, institutionalization, isolation, loneliness and dependency. The perpetrators of the Myths are comfortable with our collective fears because they inspire research budgets, drug sales, elaborate diagnostic testing protocols, and nicely decorated prison facilities.

Above all, the Myths perpetrators create another class of human being, the unfortunate mortals who are less-than-fully human because of diminishing memories, communication skills and competencies with the activities of daily living. They are dying brains without hearts.

To most of us, such a medical diagnosis is a decree worse than death itself. It is what we dread for our parents; it is what we fear for ourselves. The authors believe the time has come to change our language and our innate conceptions of cognitive aging

With more than 30 years of experience as a scientist and geriatric neurologist, Dr. Whitehouse has been at the forefront of the evolution of the disease we call Alzheimer's. He has earned over a million dollars consulting with pharmaceutical companies about development of cholinesterase inhibitors, the contemporary silver bullets in drug therapies for early treatment of disease symptoms. He has accepted grants to support research and education in service of the same industry, valued at millions of more dollars. He has traveled the world to discuss the marvels of the coming cognitive pharmacopeia, again a benefactor of drug industry dollars.

And, finally, he has set in motion a pugnacious call for sensibility and a more informed public. As he portends, "(the book) is at root a book for Baby Boomers and health care professionals, and anyone else who wants to join me in bringing a new understanding to Alzheimer's disease and taking control of their own brain aging."

Taking control is a clarion call for the Boomer generation. Taking control is our legacy, and at exactly the right moment in the trajectory of our lives, Peter Whitehouse passionately compels us to take control of the source of our humanity, our creativity, our intellect, our personhood ... our brains. He suggests we have choices if we have knowledge and wisdom. He suggests we have dignity if we change our paradigms. He suggests we have the power to change what it means to be human across the entire lifespan, up to and including the twilight years when some of us inevitably will confront the challenges of cognitive decline. He suggests we no longer need passively to resign to medicine's most fearsome diagnosis, for either ourselves or those we love. He tells us we can deconstruct Alzheimer's and together create a more humanistic, healthy and hopeful view of brain aging. That can be our generation's final legacy.

To help us get from here to there (by overcoming the tyranny of AD), the authors have written a new narrative about brain aging. By employing the transformative power of stories and anecdotes, buttressed by the precision of hard science, they take readers through a fascinating journey.

Unabashedly they stare down the mythmakers. AD is not a brain disease or a mental illness; symptoms we associate with AD are not simply a brain's molecular breakdown occurring in old age but more often "a rainstorm that occurs throughout life." A new conception demands this cluster of cognitive changes to become both an individual's and humanity's long-term responsibility, from personal health choices to taking care of the planet that sustains and, because of environmental degradation, poisons us.

Dr. Whitehouse challenges us that AD does not lead to loss of self, as we might have envisioned the plight of President Ronald Reagan; rather, persons with cognitive impairment are still able to be vital contributors to society until the final days of life. By evoking new paradigms about brain aging, we can allow people the noble opportunities to continue contributing. For example, Dr. Whitehouse is also a founder with his wife of The Intergenerational School, a farsighted institution that brings children together with wise teachers who are great repositories of life's most important lessons.

If this book simply accomplished the objective of "creating a new cultural narrative that can shape the way we age in the twenty-first century," it would be an important work worthy of careful review and contemplation. But the good doctor and his protégé take their work even further by creating a new model of living with brain aging. Dr Whitehouse unveils everything we need to understand, from preparing for a doctor's visit to knowing how to live successfully with aging across the human lifespan.

So, in the end, he teaches readers how to "think like a mountain." For example, Boomers can climb the first peak by rethinking mortality. Instead of elevating "anti-aging" as the highest purpose for our credit cards, Dr. Whitehouse suggests that the energy (both psychic and monetary) for self-preservation can instead be directed at "becoming agents of great change in the world," the final expression of Boomers' highest aspirations in youth. Another peak to scale is self-indulgence that costs our health. So simply he suggests eating well, exercising judiciously and eliminating bad habits that foster disease.

This seminal book isn't just about Alzheimer's or the Myths that infuse the disease with too much power over our collective consciousness; it is the most intelligent work thus far about our generation's final crusade, the quest for wisdom in our longevity.

The Myth of Alzheimer's: What You Aren't Being Told About Today's Most Dreaded Diagnosis

This review is the inside viewpoint of an 86 year old retired engineer who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. It is very helpful in exlaining the very things I am experiencing, in a reasonable understandable manner. It is clear in explaining that it starts out with no symptoms and inexorably progresses. I am very aware of problems, but also pleased that I can still do math althouigh very slowly.

The title is misleading, as it leads one tho think that the disorder itself is mythical, which was the viewpoint of the kind social worker who recommended the book to me. She was really shocked when I showed her a photograph of an autopsied brain, much reduced in size with a hole in the middle. Also when she saw my own report - "cerebral and cerebellar volume loss". Pretty straight forward.

Actually the author's point is that he feels the problem is actually the effect of normal aging, not a disease or disorder in itself. And the very word "Alzheimer's" ia so scary that it should not be used. He's got a point. He makes it clear in the book on page 36. "Thus, the onset of age-relate conditions such as brain aging appears to be part of the 'normal' sequence of events that take place after we have reached an age whwn we can no longer reproduce and fulfill our evolutionary purpose." He continiues "It would actually be quite abnormal for someone not to have increasing memory challenges in their seventies, eighties, and beyond". That makes me feel much better, I have not ben singled out.

I have recommended the book to my family and friends as a somewhat comforting explanation.

I have only one bone to pick with the book. After 100 years of medical experience with a problem that could be actuall diagnosed only by autopsy, there is now a research and medical procedure called "PET scan" (Positron Emissions Testing" which is available to patients and is covered by Medi-Care. To me, it represented immense relief to actually know the answer.

By the way, Alzheimer's is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. Apparently it gobbles up us left overs who didn't get cancer or auto accidents which are much more common.

Prof Donald E. Niles

The Myth of Alzheimer's is not only relevant to people who have the potential of one day being wrongfully diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (which already includes everybody) but also to people interested in the medical community.

As a field, medicine is commonly criticized for lacking empathy with our patients that we usually treat like customers. Medicine also seem to lack accountability (only when major mistakes are made do physicians get supervision). Furthermore it seems that medicine has forgot to create its own limits (check the price of the medication you are on).

As a medical student, I believe that this criticism is founded. In medical school are taught all day every day, pure simple and elegant facts. We are given an explanation about those facts and we are then expected to go on practicing without ever asking questions. Thus we are never taught to have accountability. Exactly zero second is spent in the vast majority of medical schools on the price of health care thus physicians have no sense of limits. Finally our competitive process weeds out most people with any kind of empathy.

In his book Dr. Whitehouse shows a great example of how to think outside the box, how to see the mistakes that medicine has made, and the process which has lead to the largest myth of our generation: the Myth of Alzheimer's.

The success of this book will not only be seen in how many people start asking questions about the facts of Alzheimer but also by the way the medical community decides to reexamine itself and hopefully start showing more: Empathy, Accountability, and self-Limitation.

Call it political correctness. Call it academic pressure. Call it whatever you wish, but understand that there is pressure, both subtle and overt, to follow only the conventional medical model where Alzheimer's is concerned. This model decrees that cure in the form of a pill or other medical device is the only solution to the problems of the aging brain. Huge amounts of money flow to that end.

In The Myth of Alzheimer's, authors Whitehouse and George ask you to understand that:

· what we are routinely told is not the whole truth about Alzheimer's disease,

· there is no universal agreement on the cause or cure for the symptoms of Alzheimer's in brain or behavior, and

· a billion-dollar industry relies on the perpetuation of the myth of Alzheimer's.

Heresy, pure and simple.

If the author were less well educated or experienced, we could burn him at the stake or, at the very least, denigrate his notions as those of a far-out kook. But as it is, we must regard his observations as having some degree of credibility.

Whitehouse and George devote a chapter to the billion-dollar industry that has grown up around Alzheimer's disease, especially to those associations and foundations that have benefited richly from contributions.

Of course, it's not only associations and foundations that focus so little on assistance and prevention and so much on a "cure" that has failed to materialize. Governmental bodies and pharmaceutical companies currently operate big budgets to fund hundreds of studies searching for the "cure" or symptom amelioration. Of those only about two percent focus on prevention.

The Myth of Alzheimer's is the right book at the right time. More and more people are turning away from conventional medicine, partly because its cost has skyrocketed, partly because its "promises" have failed to materialize or damaged those who trusted it. The ideas this book presents will help both the aging and their caregivers gain maximum comfort at minimal cost and reduced risk.

This is a uniquely important book. Read it. Learn about the theories of causation. Learn how your approach affects sufferers. Allow it to open your mind to new ways of thinking about and dealing with the syndrome known as Alzheimer's disease.

Thank you, Dr. Whitehouse, for presenting an extraordinary alternate view that encourages people to take responsibility for their own aging, their own health.

This review is from an insider, I am an 86 year old retired engineer who is coping with the early stages of the problem itself.

The position of the author is that what is called "Alzheimer's Disease" is essentially the same as 'Old Age' but the Alzheimer's word is too scary and should be avoided.

On pg 36 he states "statistically speaking, it is not normal to be demented at sixty six, whereas the onset of of some dementia in one's eighties, ninetie's or beyond is more or less the normal expectation"..."It would actually be quite abnormal for someone not to have increasing memory challenges in their seventies, eighties, and beyond".

The book is very good and with many examples explains clearly the many individual problems of Alzheimer's. I would recommend it to other older folks who wonder, or to the family members weho are worried about Mom or Dad.

Don't let the title fool you. Unfortunately it gives the impression of debunking the problem, but he emphasizes that the problem is real and he is only discouraging the use of that scary word, Alzheimer's.

I personally feel he spends too much time regailing the political issue of the evils of greed.

I have only one complaint. While he mentions PET scanning (Positron Emissions Testing) as a research tool, he does not point out that it is acctually available to the patient as the first, and possibbly the only, real medical test which positively diagnoses the problem in a living patient. (Much sooner than waiting for an autopsy which had been the only positive diagnosis for 100 years.) It is expensive but, with a doctor's prescription, it is covered by Medi-Care for us old folks. I am personally thankful that it tipped me off about a year ahead of time that due to "cerebellar volume loss" I would soon be using a cane in addition to the memory problems already apparent due to "cebellar volume loss" as also measured by the scan.

Prof Donald E. Niles.

I'm only in college but I've been a part-time caregiver for my great aunt since October and this book was really inspiring to my mom and I when we read it a couple weeks ago. We never say that my aunt has a "disease", and this validated our belief that she is a regular person who is still capable of having some quality of life in spite of the changes that she is undergoing. We look at old pictures together, and she still gets a lot of pleasure from doing simple things like that (the book suggests a few activities you can do). All in all, I would recommend this book to anyone who is caregiving for someone, and really anyone else who is interested because there's a lot of information and a fresh new perspective here that I believe will really catch on if people give it a chance.

Although this book has a lot of interesting information, it's basically just a book about his theory about Alzheimer's, what causes it, and how to avoid getting it if you don't have it yet. There's also some discussion of nutrition, etc. While I don't necessarily disagree with him (his theory makes a lot of sense) it's not really all that I wanted to see in the book. I would have appreciated a chapter or two at first detailing basic information about Alzheimer's, what is believed about it, how it progresses, what can be expected as it progresses and any helpful ideas about dealing with it. My mother has just been diagnosed and I'd like some ideas about what to expect and what is actually going on in her body, as well as why she does some of the things she does. I haven't quite finished the book, but I haven't found any of that yet. And I found endless discussion about his theory a little tedious. It basically comes down to what you're looking for. Someday when I have time (my mother lives with me and keeps me busy now) I might enjoy this book a bit more. But right now, I really wanted a lot more help dealing with and understanding Alzheimer's, not theories about what causes it.

At first, I thought this was going to be a fraud; someone trying to sell a snake oil book about Alzheimer's. So, rather than buy it or skip it, I did some online searches about the book and the author and found that it was a book worth having.

We assume that the medical fields all know what they are talking about. Alzheimer's is not one thing, it is many related conditions. One person's mental decline will be different in its time line and symptoms. It is what it is and that is about all we can say.

For anyone interested in knowing the truth about Alzheimer's disease, this is the book to read. You will not only learn a great deal about the history and current understanding of the nature of the disease, but you will also learn how the medical profession has wrongly diagnosed this dreaded disease. The most important part of the book--the last one third--provides details about how we can change the way we live in order to maintain healthy brains and thereby extend their useful life. A groundbreaking approach to truly understanding the nature of brain aging.

First a complaint: the book is repetitious. The first fifty pages, in particular, could have been cut by half, as the authors' central message is repeated, and repeated again.

Nonetheless, that message is vivid and germane for anyone looking after someone whose brain is under attack--or simply aging, as Peter Whitehouse and his cohort Daniel George put it. I only wish I'd read The Myth of Alzheimer's when I was taking care of my father in the last year of his life. My father's diagnosis, a common one I'm sure, was "Advanced second-stage dementia, most likely caused by Alzheimer's." I think Whitehouse's book would have confirmed my own instincts: that medications were unlikely to be of much help to my father, and that my job was to care for him, allowing him as much dignity as I could offer and as much warmth as he'd accept. He was prescribed Aricept and I gave it to him, but it seemed a frail defense against a powerful tide of memory loss and confusion.

As Whitehouse puts it, most people in the Alzheimer's empire know that "there is no singular disease called `AD,' and that it is a complex, scientifically imprecise social construct that may never be cured." And because of this, we would do better to focus our efforts on enlightened care than to pour all our money and attention into finding a cure for this little-understood disease--if indeed Alzheimer's is a disease at all, rather than simply an effect of brain aging.

In the last three decades, establishing cognitive deterioration and disability in the elderly as a disease, rather than the result of a natural process, has been vital to both researchers and drug companies. As Whitehouse explains it, "In order for their research to be taken seriously by those who controlled the public coffers, it was clear that their efforts had to be targeted at something other than the vague process of aging. Their work had to be focused on something real and immediate, something awesome and imminent--a specific disease worthy of massive research efforts into its cause and cure, a `disease of the century.'"

It helps, when making these charges, that Whitehouse is clear about his own role through the eighties and nineties, as one of those neuroscientists who embraced and formulated Alzheimer's as a disease, almost as a plague. He has since seen the light, and is extremely persuasive about it. There is much science and clear history in this book, and a great deal of common sense, as well. We have been sold, he claims, a dire vision of dementia, with the promise of an eventual cure--yet in thirty years we have made almost no progress toward that cure. What we need to do, Whitehouse explains, is take care of patients with cognitive decline, and keep them as involved in the world as possible. Our bodies break down and our minds break down, and there is much we simply have to live with. We can keep studying the problem of dementia, but in the meantime there are patients to be looked after.