I just saw on the news that they've found electrical stimulation to help Alzheimer's. It showed a man with wires attached to his head. Did anyone else see this? We're all so desperate we'd try snake oil or goat pellets if we thought it would help, wouldn't we?
"Electric shock treatment for alzheimer's" started by jav on May 31, 2008.
The technique is called "deep brain stimulation", and it does require a fine wire electrode implanted in the brain. It has apparently been pretty widely used to treat Parkinson's, some 40,000 patients around the world, but only recently has gained interest for possible treatment of AD.
There are clinical trials ongoing on deep brain stimulation for AD:
Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) for Alzheimer's Disease ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00658125
Is this news report you saw something really recent, or talking about earlier studies?
I asked 2 Neuros about this and they said no. No explanation. His Pain Clinic Doctor said she had seen some amazing results with Parkenins patients and the brain stimulation and she didn't understand why they wouldn't try it.
Sunshyne, I understood it was today's news. It was also on Yahoo news on August 22nd. This must be something new during the past week. I missed that discussion in May.
OK, I found the Yahoo! news report you mention. This is a different group from the one in the earlier posts -- they were in Canada, this group is in Italy, the Canadian group was using deep brain stimulation while the Italian group -- which does study DBS for treating Parkinson's -- was studying "transcranial direct current stimulation" for treating AD.
The Yahoo! new article:
Brain stimulation improves memory in Alzheimer's
By Will Boggs, MD Fri Aug 22, 1:50 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Electrical stimulation of the brain may improve memory and recognition in elderly people who suffer from Alzheimer's disease, results of a study hint.
"Our preliminary data on Alzheimer's disease patients are promising as we observed beneficial effects after a single session of transcranial direct current stimulation," Dr. Alberto Priori from the University of Milan told Reuters Health, "suggesting that chronic daily application might induce even greater improvement."
"Our studies encourage broader research programs using different stimulation protocols and longer clinical follow-up to clarify the impact this therapy might have on patients' daily functional activities," Priori added.
Priori and colleagues investigated whether electrical stimulation applied over an area at the side of the brain called the temporoparietal cortex could improve recognition memory in 10 patients with Alzheimer's disease.
The treatment significantly improved word recognition memory accuracy, they found report, whereas sham treatment had no impact on memory.
The results were similar after correcting memory performance for guessing, the report indicates.
"Interestingly," the investigators say, the electrical stimulation-induced improvement in the word recognition test observed in patients with Alzheimer's disease is comparable to the 16 percent improvement induced by long-term treatment with cholinesterase inhibitors - drugs currently used to treat early memory problems in patients with dementia.
"We are assessing possible long-lasting effects of (electrical stimulation) in Alzheimer's disease patients using repeated session protocols in a larger sample with longer clinical follow-up," Priori said.
"We believe that the best results, especially in Alzheimer's disease patients, could be obtained by combining transcranial direct current stimulation with cognitive rehabilitation," Priori added.
They recently published, which is probably what set off the rash of news articles.
Neurology. 2008 Aug 12;71(7):493-8. Transcranial direct current stimulation improves recognition memory in Alzheimer disease. Ferrucci R, Mameli F, Guidi I, Mrakic-Sposta S, Vergari M, Marceglia S, Cogiamanian F, Barbieri S, Scarpini E, Priori A. Department of Neurological Sciences, University of Milan, Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Padiglione Ponti, V F Sforza 35, Milan 20122, Italy.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the cognitive effect of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the temporoparietal areas in patients with Alzheimer disease (AD). METHODS: In 10 patients with probable AD, we delivered anodal tDCS (AtDCS), cathodal tDCS (CtDCS), and sham tDCS (StDCS) over the temporoparietal areas in three sessions. In each session recognition memory and visual attention were tested at baseline (prestimulation) and 30 minutes after tDCS ended (poststimulation). RESULTS: After AtDCS, accuracy of the word recognition memory task increased (prestimulation: 15.5 +/- 0.9, poststimulation: 17.9 +/- 0.8, p = 0.0068) whereas after CtDCS it decreased (15.8 +/- 0.6 vs 13.2 +/- 0.9, p = 0.011) and after StDCS it remained unchanged (16.3 +/- 0.7 vs 16.0 +/- 1.0, p = 0.75). tDCS left the visual attention-reaction times unchanged. CONCLUSION: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) delivered over the temporoparietal areas can specifically affect a recognition memory performance in patients with Alzheimer disease (AD). Because tDCS is simple, safe and inexpensive, our finding prompts studies using repeated tDCS, in conjunction with other therapeutic interventions for treating patients with AD.
The full paper isn't readily available without a subscription. I've sent an email to the corresponding author to see if he'll send me a reprint.
Sunshyne, some of that is too technical for me and I'm not sure we would want to participate in that kind of trial. It just caught my attention when I heard it on the news today. Anything about AD catches my attention these days. The drug Remember seems the most promising from what I've read but sounds like it won't be available for several more years.
OK, to simplify: the Canadian group is doing a study in which they surgically implant an electrode deep into the brain. While this "deep brain stimulation (DBS)" procedure has been successfully used with many Parkinson's patients, the idea of using it for AD is very new, and although the Canadian group has had some success in a tiny handful of patients, and very interesting results in animals (showing that the deep brain stimulation can actually stimulate cell growth) ... you'd have to be pretty desperate to enroll your husband in a clinical trial for treating AD. I think they're all up in Canada, any way.
The Italian group is pursuing something quite different, that is non-invasive, i.e., it does not involve surgery. But this is even newer than the DBS, and a lot more research is needed. They are not, to my knowledge, doing any clinical trials on this technique for treating AD yet, although there are a bunch of trials ongoing in different parts of the world for treating other disorders, such as depression.
Maybe I just lived too long. Somehow I associate the shock treatment with the old movies I used to see. They would use them on the mentally ill and of course they got worse and usually put the place upside down. I'm sure that they will come up with something eventually. I think it would have to something that would prevent the disease in the first place or catch it right in the beginning.
Yes, Sunshyne - thank you! So, should we get two extension cords, cut off the female ends and expose the wires, plug in the extension cords and massage scalps? <grin>
Those of you who are full time caregivers, I salute you! I work and still check this site from work as well as home! I'm so glad that I can!
carma, the old-fashioned shock treatments did seem to be a horror, didn't they? And yet, I had a friend in high school who underwent shock therapy, quite a few times, and she said that even with the bad side effects, they were better than suffering from her mental problems. She had the treatments voluntarily.
It's my understanding that even the same general type of therapy has changed quite a bit these days -- it is routinely used, and, so they tell me, nothing like what you and I imagine. And the newer types of treatments are very different. The technique that the Italian group is studying is very low-energy, it sounds to me to be more like a magnetic field.
Mary, you don't want me helping out with the treatments. When I was in seventh grade, we were studying electricity (which has NEVER been my forte.) We were supposed to set up a simple circuit with a light bulb and fuse. I was bored and did some fancy wiring. When I plugged it in .... KABLOOEY. All the electricity for that wing of the high school was out.
The teacher (not my favorite person in the world) was not amused. Actually, he turned an interesting shade of magenta, and hollered for a while. Maintenance was called, the fuses were fixed, I did my best to look meek and repentant.
Next day, the teacher was lecturing us on the fact that one had to have a closed circuit for electricity to flow. To demonstrate, he produced an extension cord with the ends of the wires exposed, and showed that he could hold one end without anything happening. (Too bad, in my opinion.) He was walking back and forth in front of the class, waving the cord around and lecturing us. The two bare wires accidentally flipped into contact with each other .... KABLOOEY. A ball of blue fire came rolling down the aisle. All the electricity for that wing of the high school was out.
Electrical stimulation has beenused with depression for years and has made a comeback. It does work for depression because the the effects on the neurotransmitter in the brain and the effects it has on the brain. I am not sure about the whole stimulating new cell growth but we do know that the brain "tries to fix itself" when there is brain damage, such as in trauma. That fixing only takes place if the person is trying. That is why physical therapy and speech therapy etc work with a new stroke or head trauma. If a person does not have those services, they do not have as much improvement. The research also shows that in AD patients who exercise their brain, the progression is not as fast and there are some nice studies that show if they lose a skill, study it hard and relearn it that they do better and actually hang on to the skill longer, of course that is not the case in the late stage 6 and stage 7 of the disease. It makes sense that electrical stimulation would have a similar effect. What would concern me is the potential side effects of having a probe in the brain, and I am not sure it would be any more effective than stimulating the brain with cross word puzzles, reading the paper etc. The neurotransmitters in the brain are not the problem but the tangles, or so they think. It is clear that they really do not have a clear understanding of what exactly destroys the brain in AD, though there are many theories. I personally would want to know much more about it before I would subject my LO to this procedure. I certainly would not be involved before the stage 2 trials proved it was safe. I would instead encourage him to stimulate his own brain with more normal activites. How is that for a pediatrician? :)