Psychology Discussion Board Assignment

Psychology Discussion Board Assignment

Psychology Discussion Board Assignment

Demented people respond to music, babies respond to music, fetuses probably respond to music. Various animals respond to music,” Sacks says. “There is something about the animal nervous system when one played some of the new music, which he had heard for the first time at the concert, he could sing along with it and remember it.”

It is an encouraging development which seems to respond to music all

,” Sacks says, citing

30 seconds later he asked ‘How’s Pigpen?”

Children have been found to learn quickly lessons that are embedded in song. Sacks, the one-time quiet researcher, is invigorated by the possibilities. He wonders whether music could carry such information, to give his patient back a missing part of his life. To give Greg “some sense of what’s been hap-peeing in the last 20 years, where he has no autobiography of his own.”

the way down

. . .

During the second half, the band played its newer songs. And Greg’s world began to fall apart. He was bewildered and enthralled and frightened. Because the music for him—and this is an extremely musical man, who understands the idiom of the Grateful Dead—was both familiar the case of a patient with damage to the frontal lobes of his brain.

“When he sings, one almost has the strange feeling that [music] has given him his frontal lobes back, given him back, temporally, some function that has been lost on an organic basis,” Sacks says, adding a quote from T. S. Eliot: “You are the and unfamiliar

He said, This is like the music of the future.

That would hye Sacks dancing in the music, while the music lasts.”

Sacks tried to keep the new memories

The effects of music therapy may not always last. Sacks will take what he can get. “To organize a disorganized person fresh. But the next day, Greg had no memory of the concert. It seemed as if all had been Lost. “But—and this is strange—aisles.

Excerpted by permission from Prolies, the magazine of Continental Airlines, February 1994. Psychology Discussion Board Assignment.

Using a special kind of PET scan, this research team examined activity in certain parts of the hippocampus in dozens of elderly research participants and then conducted follow-up studies of these individuals for up to 24 years. (The hippocampus plays a major role in long-term memory.) Eventually, 43 percent of the study’s participants developed either mild cognitive impairment (mild dementia) or Alzheimer’s disease itself.The researchers found that those who developed these cognitive impairments had indeed displayed lower hippocampus activity on their initial PET scans than the participants who remained healthy. Overall, the special PET scans, administered years before the onset of symptoms, predicted mild cognitive impairment with an accuracy rate of 71 percent and Alzheimer’s disease with an accuracy rate of 83 percent.

As you will see shortly, the most effective interventions for Alzheimer’s disease and other kinds of dementia are those that help prevent these problems, or at least ones that are applied early. Clearly, then, it is essential to have tools that identify the disorders as early as possible, preferably years before the onset of symptoms.

That is what the research advances in assessment and diagnosis so exciting.

What Treatments Are Currently Available for Dementia? Treatments for the cognitive features of Alzheimer’s and other of dementia have been at best modestly helpful. One common approach is the use of drugs that affect acetylcholine and glutamate, the neurotransmitters that play important roles in memory. Such drugs include tacrine (trade name Cognex), donepezil (Aricept), rivastigmine (Exelon), galantamine (Reminyl), and memantine (Namenda). Some Alzheimer’s patients who take these drugs improve slightly in short-term memory and reasoning ability, as well as in their use of language and their ability to cope under pressure (Apostolova & Cummings, 2008; Julien, 2008).Although the benefits of the drugs are limited and the risk of harmful

effects is sometimes high, these drugs have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Indeed, a skin patch for one of the drugs, rivastigmine, was approved by the FDA in 2007 (Hitti, 2007). Clinicians believe that these drugs may be of greatest use to persons in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease or to those with mild cognitive impairment. Another approach, taking vitamin E, either alone or in combination with one of these drugs, also seems to help slow down cognitive decline among people with mild dementia (Sano, 2003).A number of other possible drug treatments are being investigated currently. Psychology Discussion Board Assignment.

The drugs discussed here are each prescribed after a person has developed mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease. In contrast, several research teams are currently trying to develop an immunization for the disease (Bussiere et al., 2004). In a similar vein, a number of studies suggest that certain substances may help prevent or delay the onset of the disease. For example, one set of studies indicated that women who took estrogen, the female sex hormone, for years after menopause cut their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in half (Kawas et al., 1997), and other studies seemed to indicate that the use of nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen and naprosyn (drugs found in Advil, Motrin, Nuprin, and other pain relievers) may help reduce the risk ofAlzheimer’s disease, although research findings on this possibility have been mixed ( Julien, 2008).

Cognitive treatments have been applied in cases of Alzheimer’s disease, with some temporary success (Sadock & Sadock, 2007; Knight et al., 2006). In Japan, for example, a number of persons with the disease meet regularly in classes, performing simple calculations and reading aloud essays and novels. Proponents of this approach claim that it serves as a mental exercise that helps rehabilitate those parts of the brain linked to memory, reasoning, and judgment. In a similar vein, some research suggests that cognitive activities may actually help prevent or delay the onset of mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease for certain individuals (Meyers, 2008). One study of 700 80-year-old individuals found that those research participants who had pursued cognitive activities over a five-year period (for example, writing letters, reading newspapers or books, or attending concerts or plays) were less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than mentally inactive participants (Wilson et al., 2007).

More Stimulation, Healthier Brain. Psychology Discussion Board Assignment.