EVERYTHING LISTED UNDER: Dementia

The Alzheimer’s Association’s annual fundraiser – Walk to End Alzheimer’s – occurs in more than 600 communities across America every year.

A few years ago, Angela Lunde, a leader in patient and caregiver education for the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center in Rochester, Minn., sat at a table between two people who live on opposite sides of a dilemma.On one side of Lunde was a man with early- to mid-stage Alzheimer’s disease.

If one of your parents died of Alzheimer’s or has it, what does that mean for your own prognosis? How much would you want to know about your risk of Alzheimer’s when there is currently no medical treatment?

Most people think of dementia as affecting memory and cognition, and it certainly does. But some of the most distressing symptoms of Alzheimer’s or other dementias are behavioral and psychological.

After rock legend Tom Petty was found unconscious and in cardiac arrest Oct. 2, he could not be revived, his manager said on Petty’s official website. Petty died peacefully later that day at UCLA Medical Center. Whether his family decided to take him off life support due to a do-not-resuscitate order, as reported by another source, has not been confirmed. But the loss of the 66-year-old musician serves as a reminder that tragic events can happen no matter one’s age or seeming good health.