Good morning everyone,
About a year ago we set up the r/dementiaresearch subreddit as a catch-all for studies, surveys, solicitations, polls, calls to action, and any other updates related to products, trials, masters/PhD studies or projects, or anything else where people are looking to interact with the members of the r/dementia community without cluttering the main page here.
There have been a number of quality solicitations in recent days so I just wanted to update everyone to check them out. This is a disease that robs people of hope and I know that participation in research is one way of trying to help others and gain some sense of control over these diseases as we confront them.
Thanks,
hazel
Excellent, thanks.
Why would we buy into all these solicitations that only push particular medications? They're just ads wrapped in a decorative envelope.
That depends on the solicitation. Some of them will be for particular medications but others will be more open-ended. Generally a medication-specific solicitation will be based on a medication that may not be on the market so you will have to gauge your interest based on how much you are willing to accept the risks for a newer medication.
Others- I would say most of the solicitations, are not for medications at all but are more generally concerned with surveying the wellbeing of caregivers or dementia sufferers. These will also sometimes be linked to a specific product or service but sometimes will be more generally aimed at analyzing the wellness of people to create a dataset that can be used later on for the creation of products or interventions.
My view is that these solicitations are generally aimed toward improving the quality of care and quality of life of people dealing with dementia so they are valuable, but individual products or studies may have their own particular drawbacks. We don't allow these solicitations on the main r/dementia forum but I am hopeful that further research will eventually lead to improvements in treatment and an eventual cure for these diseases so I want to have a place where we people can contribute to that search if they are willing and able.
Great answer and well done. Thank you.
Hello! I'm currently a student and also someone who is a caregiver for my grandfather who is going through Parkinson's dementia. I'm also doing research work right now on how we can use combine technology + medical specialists to assist with caregiver burden and improve quality of life for patients. Where would you recommend I reach out to ppl who might be interested? I have a background in engineering and design and am trying to figure out how simple user design can improve tech burden and actually be assistive.
PS. I'm also fully new to reddit and was recommended to join by several ppl to connect with likeminded folks, so forgive me if I'm posting in the wrong place or breaking any general reddit guidelines.
r/dementiaresearch is your best bet.
ty!
Then don't do it.
Thanks for sharing this, Hazel. It’s really encouraging to see a space dedicated to research and real efforts toward understanding dementia better. Every bit of participation feels like a small way to fight back against something that takes so much — appreciate the reminder to check it out.
My sister is 85 years old and in relatively good health however she has dementia/Alzheimer’s. She will not admit that there is anything wrong with her however, she is having auditory hallucinations all day and night, she has sundowners and delusions. Is there any medication at her age that can help with the auditory hallucinations without completely putting her in the bed?
The mainline dementia drugs like Aricept can help with auditory hallucinations and those generally aren't going to knock someone out and have them bedridden. If that does not help many dementia patients end up using antipsychotic medications like Clozapine which is a more heavy-duty treatment.
I will provide all that is needed for this reserach
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Feel free to post this to r/dementiaresearch
Good afternoon
My 80 year old grandma, who had a mild case of dementia recently, had an open heart surgery valve replacement surgery.
she was somewhat normal before the surgery, other than miss placing items here and there.
When she woke up from surgery, she was mentally different she was seeing loves ones who had passed away years ago and also hallucinations .
She never took another bite to eat or drink after the surgery. This went on for about 2 months until she recently passed away. Ultimately, her organs began to shut down when she became too weak. The liquid iv no longer could substitute for what food would have done.
Is it possible that the surgery sent the dementia in over drive and skipped stages? Everything happens so fast, and im just looking for answers or trying to cope with happen.
Anesthesia is often identified as an issue in this way. It is likely that there was already some dementia and damage before the surgery but with the event of the surgery all of the mechanisms that had been hiding the progress were taken away and it suddenly became very obvious that she had been suffering from hidden symptoms for some time.