“Awakenings” in Advanced Dementia Patients Hint at Untapped Brain Reserves

Re:“Awakenings” in Advanced Dementia Patients Hint at Untapp... by ianai on Friday August 02, 2019 @11:21PM (#20598438)

“it seems to be a spontaneous, meaningful event that goes well beyond the occasional “good days” most dementia patients experience. The period of clarity is brief, lasting minutes, hours or possibly a day. It seems to come in the hours, days or weeks before death”

Based on my understanding of “why we sleep” and seeing complicated things fail, I wonder if their brains reach a maximally deteriorated state that somehow cancels out the damage temporarily. It might be helpful to find out whether people in these episodes seem truly “in tact” and able to recall their memories across their whole lives. Or, if it tends to be some minute portion of their memories.

Don’t know, but I genuinely wish this disease to perish. How it took my family members was just evil.

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Re:“Awakenings” in Advanced Dementia Patients Hint at Untapp... by Fr0styMatt88 on Saturday August 03, 2019 @01:26AM (#20598826)

My first thought was "I wonder if it's caused by a release of DMT?" [1] [2]. Interesting research ahead for sure.

[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.0142...

[2] https://beckleyfoundation.org/2017/07/05/do-our-brains-produ...

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Re:“Awakenings” in Advanced Dementia Patients Hint at Untapp... by svjatoslav on Sunday August 04, 2019 @05:19AM (#20605356)

Exactly !!! Someone should notify this team or others in the field. I think DMT controls neurons sensitivity (trigger happiness). In high amounts one gets hallucinations. But for vegetative patients low amount of DMT might restore brain activity to normal level.

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Re:“Awakenings” in Advanced Dementia Patients Hint at Untapp... by svjatoslav on Sunday August 04, 2019 @06:39AM (#20605619)

I shared DMT idea to Lydia (article author).

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Re:“Awakenings” in Advanced Dementia Patients Hint at Untapp... by Fnoord on Saturday August 03, 2019 @07:00AM (#20599783)

I've witnessed my father with dementia and a whole lot of other diseases (kidney failure, MS). He was happier in his last days^H^H^H^Hyears. Except for pain because of his back from lying down, an indirect result from his lower leg amputation.

(Somewhat related to the lucidity: he had good and bad days, and I never knew which one it was going to be before I went seeing him. This lead to both surprises and disappointments.

I also suspect my father used a lot of humor in his life as a way to memorize things. Because humor sticks. Now I remember all these dad jokes, and repeat the pattern with my daughter...)

Now, contrast to my mother in law. I'm currently the only person who speaks to her. Her 3 children are in fight with her, due to various reasons (well, I believe it all stems from autism which 2 of her 3 children now have a diagnosis for 1 of which she does not even know; and she surely has it as well, same for her oldest son). Her memory and brains are still quite well at the age of 77 (6 years older than my father when he passed away).

I don't have such a good memory, and it haunts me currently. It has haunted me all my life. Especially other people with autism have much, much better memory than I have.

I believe dementia has a rather clear purpose: to become happier in the last days of your life, to make life bearable.

Since I learned about this purpose, it makes it easier for me to know I have this gene. And more difficult to know how my partner is going to deal with the lack of dementia plus the occurrence of mine.

From my observations between my mother with my father, and myself with my father, it seems at first an internal struggle which the patient is trying to carefully hide. Eventually they admit it to other people. It seems that at some tipping point, the pain of dementia is more for the people who notice it, while the person with dementia does not suffer as much anymore.

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