Is this in addition to psychological autopsies?

This change in procedures has been very slow to develop because much of the dementia in this country is from mad cow disease, not Alzheimer's. The beef industry has been successful in stopping any tests that could possibly distinguish the two, and has also managed to create an FDA rule that makes it illegal for any US beef producer to test their beef for mad cow disease, and advertise it as tested and clean. Which is why you never see beef labelled as tested for mad cow disease at the market. No one knows how much beef in the US is infected. The official FDA policy is that you will never know...

Alzheimer patients die twice... once when the forget their family, and then again when their body dies... its a particularly cruel disease in this regard... the family has to endure not one but two deaths of the person they love. Without our brains, humans are reduced to a couple of dollars of chemicals. Everything from our eyes down is meant to feed information to our brains in order to survive and provide it with oxygen. When the brain stops recognizing the world around it, it is over.

Very interesting theory, Bloggit, about Alzheimer's really being Mad Cow Disease.  I'd love to see your documentation about this.  Mad Cow Disease in humans is called "Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD)".  Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease has been identified as an inherited, genetic disease that effects mostly European Jews.  It is rather rare, but has also been know to occur spontaniously in people without the genetic defect.  When people eat infected meat from cows with Mad Cow Disease it is then called "Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD)".  However, almost all sure human cases result in death within a year or so.  So your hypothesis that what we call Alzheimer's is really vCJD is rather stunning.  The reason is that people of all ages would be eating infected beet, according to your hypothesis, and thus a lot of people would be dying at any stage and any age of life.  And we don't see this happening.  While Alzheiner's has been diagnosed at earlier and earlier ages, we haven't seen younger and younger people DYING from it.  Nor does it explain the fact that most Alzheimer's patients live for years with the disease, getting progressively worse, and not dying wiothin a year as do people with vCJD.  But I'd love to read about your hypothesis, so post some links and such.  Thanks. 

I am not in favor of these big name medical drug manufacturers and General Electric squirreling into autopsies of human brains, it can't be good news. It could be all about finding out just how much damages they succeeded in, that ought to help them work faster with newer poisons and toxins without leaving any trace back to their drugs and or other toxins we are filling up with. Who will be next the candy and cereal manufacturers in autopsies?

This is about reducing autopsies as the method to diagnose Alzheimer's disease and about diagnosing and hopefully treating the disease earlier than the current practices.

 Until about 20 years ago alzheimer's was considered a long term problem that from first problem to death was 20+ years.  Only recently has Alzheimer's been a considered to have a short term progression.   I agree with bloggit that most of the short term cases are probably CJ rather than Alzheimers.  Since there are very few autopsies any more there has been few checks to see what the person died from.

As wide spread as the CJD/madcow etc is everyone has been exposed. Luckily for most their bodies or genetics block the process or we would see more cases of very short dementia of all sorts.

I have a problem with mandatory autopsies. It seems as though one's personal and final wishes are not being fully honored when they are routinely sliced and diced after death because of bureaucratic nonsense. While I do understand there is a justified measure of concern when a person's cause of death is somewhat of a mystery, or reasonable doubt for death comes into play. However, I do not feel that every person who dies deserves the indignity of being carved up like some science experiment. Too many times I've seen cancer patients, who have been under the care of doctors for well over a year. As if it weren't depressing enough suffering with the progression of the dibilitating disease itself, along with the depression and all the social stigma that comes with it; they also have to deal with the image of what happens to them after death. Their body must then undergo the further indignities of being cut open from stem to stern. Families are told that this is done to quantify the cause of death. This is nothing but pure bureaucratic BS. The cause of death is oftentimes known prior to death because the family, as well as the medical doctors who have been treating the patient, have witnessed the demise of their loved one. This simply strikes me as an unnecessary procedure on many deceased people and just another step towards government override of the deceased person's and/or family wishes. Mandatory autopsies are a sham in many instances. This is just an excuse to clear the way for further human experimentation.

Mandatory autopises occur in a medicolegal setting. And yes autopises do occur where it apparent what the cause of death is known, but families do have to give ther consent for those. And they can limit the extent of the autopsy.

Some of these diseases are just recently being ID'd. Some, because of very long incubation periods, have been attributed to 'aging'. Some because of the location of the affected living in out of the way places. As time passes and investigators look into some of these obscure dieases I suspect that we will find other 'variant CJ' like diseases. Kuru is one of the more recently identified ones.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002355/

The importance and value of autopsy in the research of dementias is that not all dementias are Alzheimers, and being able to distinguish what is causing the dementia can make a huge difference in the treatment. While some types of dementia can be determined clinically with the proper diagnostic tests (vascular dementia, normal pressure hydrocephalus, vitamin deficiencies), Lewy Body Dementia (LBD) is the second most common type of dementia and is estimated to account for anywhere from 20% to 26% of all dementias. It presents almost identically to Alzheimers, but its progression is different and life expectancy is shorter; it’s related to Parkinsons. Quite a few standard treatments for Alzheimers are not beneficial for LBD and some can, in fact, be fatal. The real number of cases is difficult to determine, though, because at this time the only way to definitively tell whether someone has Alzheimers or LBD or a combination of both is though autopsy.

Most general practitioners, family doctors, and even geriatric specialists lump all dementias together as Alzheimers. Almost none have any knowledge of LBD or even some of the other more easily diagnosed types mentioned above. We had the benefit of being close to a major medical center where a second round of cognitive tests a year after the initial diagnosis of Alzheimers prompted a geriatric specialist to say that he “suspected” that my mother had LBD instead of Alzheimers. Further examination by a neurologist who specialized in dementias revealed “textbook Lewy Body Dementia” based on her fluctuating overall cognitive function, short term memory, visual hallucinations, and incipient tremor and balance problems. But he and all her other doctors were careful to point out that the only way to know for sure was through autopsy. He also said that it was not unusual for the brains of dementia patients to show evidence of both diseases on a spectrum ranging from “pure” LBD to with no evidence of the plaques and tangles of Alzheimers to the normal markers of Alzheimers with no evidence of LBD.

At that time, the drug Namenda had just come on the market and doctors were puzzled as to why it seemed to work for some “Alzheimers” patients and not for others. The literature about dementia will tell you that Alzheimer's medications don't work for everyone and some of the most commonly used drugs work in less than half the people tested. The neurologist and the dementia specialist who ended up taking over my mother’s case said that LBD patients usually responded dramatically to a combination of Namenda and Aricept but true Alheimers patients had little or no benefit from Namenda. But since the majority of patients are never correctly diagnosed, deciding which drugs will help remains a crapshoot.

My mother’s reaction to the combination was nothing short of miraculous. She was once again able to read the newspaper again and follow a 1-hour television show from beginning to end. She could participate in her care. But most wonderful of all, she was “with” us again.

Unfortunately, even Namenda only works for a while and after another two years, the inevitable decline began again. When my mother died, we requested an autopsy at the same research medical center where she had been diagnosed because we felt it was important to contribute to the research into this devastating disease. As expected, her brain definitely showed the characteristic Lewy Bodies, but is also showed signs of “mild” Alzheimers. We also sent copies of her autopsy to every doctor who had treated her in the hopes that it raises their awareness and will help them in diagnosing and treating all of their dementia patients.

Alzheimers and dementia are both terrible diseases. My dad was diagnosed with dementia about 12 years prior to his death (although the family saw it coming about 20-years prior to being diagnosed). I took care of him the last 3 years of his life. It is a terrible disease, robbing one of theirdignity, their life, their 'self' and almost all of their memories leaving only a shell behind. I fear that I may follow in his wake. I am not yet 60, but I can see my memory is not sharp like it once was, and I don't mean memory like what one would think as 'normal' memory loss. I have hopes that they will find a satisfactory treatment, but mostly I hope they find a cure, of course.

I was going to say something here, but I don't remember what it was...

Not funny to anyone with a family member with this disease.