We revisited the Summer of Love last Friday during Healing Arts with Diane Stenlund. She played a wonderful mix of songs from 1967 and created a scrapbook of album covers with colorful artwork inspired by the times. Wherever one falls within a cultural phenomenon like the Summer of Love, the impact can be lasting. Reflecting on earlier experiences can reunite us with our unique identities, and offer a different perspective whether we have memory impairment or not.
We sang along to the Beatles and shook our tambourines; making connections to each other and bypassing the differences of several generations.
Memory loss can be devastating at times. We all hope that the last Alzheimer’s patient will come in our lifetime. One of the important steps in tackling this sticky neurological disease is getting standardized testing for primary care physicians. It looks like we have such a test: The p-tau217 blood test combined with another blood biomarker called the amyloid 42/40 ratio, which measures two types of amyloid proteins associated with Alzheimer’s Disease.
The combination of the amyloid and tau tests, called the amyloid probability score, was the most predictive, and has 90% accuracy compared to the 61% accuracy of current tests. The next step is developing treatments and hopefully a cure. Early detection of Alzheimer’s will give patients a better start on treatment and will likely create more incentive to develop effective strategies to slow its progression.
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