Medical assistance in dying has been legal in Canada since July 2016, but there are no ‘specialists’ responsible for doctor-assisted suicide and many doctors are overwhelmed with requests.
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More than 2,000 Canadians have chosen medical assistance in dying (MAID) since legalization in 2016. But palliative care doctors aren't embracing assisted suicide as part of their job.
Lewy body dementia and other illnesses of aging brains cause immeasurable suffering for patients and their families.
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Lewy body dementia is the second most common type of dementia. Why don't more people recognize the signs?
Creating a ‘digital story’ of their memories using photos, music, text and video, can hep dementia patients open up to their fear and move into optimism.
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When dementia patients use photos and music to produce digital stories about events in their lives, they start to remember. They also face their fears about the disease, and experience happiness.
The myth of compassion fatigue suggests that compassion is a finite resource. The reality is that health-care providers are over-worked and need better institutional support.
Brain connections determine whether you remember the wind in your hair or who was prime minister.
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Neuroscientists have struggled to explain whether certain types of memory involve distinct parts of the brain. Now a study suggests it's mainly down to pathways in the brain's white matter.
Friendship helps protect against loneliness even when oldsters do not have dementia. It can be especially beneficial for those who do.
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A recent study finds that friends ought not let friends with dementia be lonely. The surprising part? Why staying friends is good for the friend without dementia as well as for the one who has it.
There’s an urgent need for a new ethic of dementia care that supports the facilitation of sexual expression.
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The sexuality of persons living with dementia is demonized by media and ignored by clinical guidelines. But sexuality is fundamental to being human and vital to a humane culture of residential care.
Engaging in cognitively stimulating activities can help build your resilience to cognitive decline.
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Activities that engage your brain, such as learning a new language and completing crosswords, as well as having high levels of social interaction, can reduce your risk of dementia.
A hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease is gradual deterioration of memory.
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Yen Ying Lim, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health and Rachel Buckley, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, but treatments are still far from successful in clinical trials. Here is what we know about the disease, and what is yet to be uncovered.
Social care needs taking care of.
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Medical panels are constantly lowering thresholds across many diseases, which results in more and more healthy people being diagnosed as sick.
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More of us are labelled as sick with the constantly changing diagnostic cut-offs for diseases. Now an international expert panel has drafted a list of things to consider before setting new thresholds.
For couples, families or friends who share a significant song, the effects of music can be powerful and persistent, lasting well into old age, even piercing through dementia.
New research shows that exposure to fine particulate air pollution may double the risk of dementia in older women by increasing growth of beta-amyloid plaques in the brain.
