Please note: Empowering Caregivers has not endorsed the product mentioned in this article. We feel it is important to bring important information to you. You must weigh the information and make your own decisions and it is suggested that you consult with your loved one’s physician as well.
Alzheimer’s disease poses one of the most difficult health challenges imaginable for coping. Especially for the care-taker, since the victim loses cognizance of reality. Opposite to rearing a baby, the behavior of an Alzheimer’s patient wanes instead of maturates daily. Many care centers now have special lock-in units for Alzheimer’s patients who require observation around the clock. And USA Today recently reported that Alzheimer’s is an epidemic which is projected to affect 1 of 2 Americans by 2025!
Two years ago my wife noticed that her 88 year old mom living alone in a nearby state was making strange remarks during their phone conver-sations. Like “the living room is now full of kids from the neighborhood” and “wonder who is knocking at the door at 11 p.m.” Upon realizing that something was wrong, we brought her to live with us. Our family physician immediately diagnosed her as in the 7th or 8th stage of Alzheimer’s. Her two physicians back home had prescribed devastating drugs for her symptoms while failing to diagnose the disease. Those drugs were creating hostility, confusion and violence. Once she thrust a kitchen knife through her new blouse in frustration over inability to button a sleeve. She wrestled us (almost successfully!) in resisting a visit to the hospital emergency room. She fell numerous times in a dazed stupor. She wandered outside into the cold without clothes until we installed deadlocks on the doors. She was clearly headed for the professional services of a nursing home. But my wife refused to give her up.
We had recently become distributors for a division of Rexall which manufacturers unique nutritional blends of wellness medicine, and decided to access whatever available all-natural products could be used by an Alzheimer’s patient. We immediately began using a product called Calming Blend for daytime and evening anxiety, and another called Calmplex to induce sleep. But of profound significance was Cogno Blend, an inexpensive product based on medical studies with Cat’s Claw. A report was recently given at an Alzheimer’s symposium on Rexall’s patented formulation of this recognized herbal.
Cogno Blend removes the beta amyloid deposits on the brain cells caused by the disease. With the cooperation of our family physician (who, like most doctors, are untrained in the field of nutritionals and herbs), we removed Judi’s mom from all prescription drugs except a mild anti-depressant. Distinguished cardiovascular specialist and friend in a distant state, Dr.Raif Tawakol, who uses Cogno Blend in his practice, advised us that this natural agent produces results corresponding to how early treatment is initiated. And of course, we had become aware of the disease in its latest stages. So we didn’t know what we could expect from our substitution of all-natural supplements for prescription drugs.
The immediate consequence of our decision was not dramatic nor dazzling even though in less than a month we noticed some behavioral changes. Over several months we experienced gradual improvement. Now after two years, our physician characterizes her as in excellent health and drastically improved over her condition when he first examined her. She is still living at home with us rather than institutionalized. She immensely enjoys riding in the car with us every day to my wife’s retail shop where she converses with customers (even if unintelligibly). She loves going with us wherever we go, but especially to eat at restaurants several times a week. We take her with us each month to a special musical entertainment venue at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, original home of The Grand Ole Opry. She takes in everything, and is usually clapping and dancing with the music by the end of the evening. She was always an outgoing, friendly person, and will often enter a group of people speaking to everyone and joking. Her former sharp mind is usually still alert and her sense of humor intact as evidenced in the way she will occasionally create some rhyme in response to a remark. Once I kidded, “Willie, Willie, you’re so fine…,” and she quickly retorted, “I’m the best all the time.”
Country-born-and-raised in the hills of Tennessee, she assumed the care of her little brother and sisters when her mother died when she was only 10. She picked cotton, prepared the meals, and washed clothes in a wood-fired kettle. Once she said, tongue-in-cheek, “I wish I had a good education so they wouldn’t just call me a pretty girl.” Another time she asked me to raise the car window while we were driving because I was “taking the beauty out of her hair.” The other day we passed a jogger in the car, and she observed that the girl was “trying to run to get some flesh off of her.” Even though she has lost most of her memory and is confused about names, she clearly recognizes that she is loved and reacts accordingly. She often chatters with us about people and events – in much the same manner as she did when she was younger – and even though her utterances are now unintelligible, we easily sense her meaning and interpret the attitudes and feelings behind the words. In summation, our personal observation of her condition is that the Alzheimer’s disease has stabilized, as distinct from the usual mental decline associated with the advancement in age of a 90 year old. Even her anxiety and sleeplessness have declined so that we no longer have the need for Calmplex and Calming Blend. And very important to us, she is not in a nursing home where the atmosphere would spiral her condition downward.
The medical profession is divided over the possibility of whether brain cells can regenerate after damage. Dr.Tawakol has observed actual reversal of Alzheimer’s symptoms using Cogno Blend among some of the patients in his practice which he attributes to the regeneration process. However, if the disease spreads like uncontrollable cancer before treatment begins, he compares the irreparable damage of the nerve endings to the short-circuiting of stripped electrical wires. This suggests that early treatment holds the greatest potential for either stabilization or reversal, and that advance prevention is even more preferable. Because of this difficult family experience, we have been motivated to use this product as a preventative.
Copyrighted by Phil Speer, S.T.B., Ph.D.
