Events
Alzheimer’s Summit’s 4th Day strains Doña Quixote’s “open-mindedness”: cure dementia?
AT THE END OF THE POST, I AGAIN GIVE SIGN-UP INFORMATION FOR THE ALZHEIMER’S WORLD SUMMIT and THE AGENDA FOR DAY 4, Sat 10/23
While thinking about, promoting, and preparing for the Alzheimer’s World Summit (Oct 20-24), I tried to learn as much as I can about slowing/preventing/reversing/curing dementia in the contexts of both complementary/alternative/intergrative medicine as well as Western medicine. On prevention and reversal, the two forms of knowledge has some common ground.
While even I swear that meditation works to fill my head with peace, the most evidence-based medicine can say is that trials shows that it provides “modest benefits” in anxiety, pain, and depression.. However, “larger-scale randomized, rigorous trials are needed” (Scientific American).
The two camps agree that interventions exist that can slow and possibly prevent dementia, though non-Western medicine is far more positive about the possibility and offers more treatments toward it than Western medicine; at the same time, non-western medicine almost totally lacks the peer-reviewed control-group trials so revered in Western medicine. However, there are seven pillars for a brain-healthy lifestyle over which individuals might have control on which the two sides agree: Regular exercise, Social engagement, Healthy diet, Mental stimulation, Quality sleep, Stress management, and Vascular health. While the particulars of treatment vary widely between the two camps, the pillars, at least, seem to stand.
A few anecdotal reports exist on either side about reversals of memory- and other dementia-related losses. In one dramatic account, albeit in a newspaper rather than a scientific journal, Western medicine treatments at the University of Florida’s Center for Movement Disorders and Neurorestoration lead to a “cure“: “The Woman who Recovered from Dementia.” The punch line is that the underlying condition turned out to be a brain tumor (removed through surgery) and not one of the 200 recognized forms of dementia.
Pauline, mother of Roni Caryn Rabin (author of The Woman who Recovered from Dementia) with her granddaughters. The retired psychiatrist’s cognitive symptoms improved immediately after brain surgery.. Photo: Washington Post.
In another “miraculous report, “a diet of blueberries and dark chocolate” “reversed” another woman’s dementia: Sylvia Hatzer was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in December 2016 and it progressed so fast that within months she forgot even who her son was. It turns out that her diet consisted of somewhat more than “blueberries and dark chocolate”—and even more than her son Mark reports when he says, “Everyone knows about fish but there is also blueberries, strawberries, Brazil nuts and walnuts—these are apparently shaped like a brain to give us a sign that they are good for the brain.” Sylvia’s diet was, in fact, an enhanced version of the Mediterranean diet, the Green Med, which adds plant-derived iron and protein to make up for the original version’s depletion of the body’s iron stores when dietary meat is decreased. Interestingly, proponents of the Green Med diet emphasize that it works at its best if combined by the other 6 aspects of the “seven pillars.” Through Western-style trials, the Mediterranean diet and it’s green version have already been verified as the best treatment for managing heart-related risk factors, including decreases in body weight, cholesterol, and blood pressure. From a science perspective, Sylvia Hatzer’s improvement can be explained through the fact that the inflammation in her brain, a chemical change in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s, was decreased through a diet high in antioxidants. Even her son Mark does not claim “recovery” from Alzheimer’s, but rather “improvement.” Sue Clarke from Alzheimer’s Association also does not use Hatzer’s case as an example of complete reversal. “It’s fantastic that Sylvia and her son Mark have taken action to create a personal plan that works well for her dementia diagnosis,” she says. “There currently no cure or way of preventing the progression of the condition, but taking regular gentle exercise, eating a healthy diet and doing cognitive exercises can help someone with dementia manage their symptoms more effectively.
Sylvia Hatzer with her son Mark, who helped her follow a diet High in antioxidants that helped her to considerably reverse some of her dementia symptoms
In the over twenty science journal articles about curing dementia that I read over 3 months while preparing for the Summit, I came upon only one treatment that sometimes offer a dramatic reversal of dementia to the point that Western doctors think of it as a cure. One such example is the case of John Abraham, who had had “enjoyed robust health throughout retirement, but began to lose his mind in late 2019” at the age of 80. The article, titled “The Dementia that can be Cured,” reports on Abraham’s treatment at the John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, by neurologist Sarosh Iranii. Iranii diagnosed Abraham’s disease as autoimmune dementia. In this condition, the symptoms of memory loss and confusion are the result of brain inflammation caused by rogue antibodies binding to the neuronal tissue, rather than an underlying neurodegenerative disease. As soon as treatment that includes steroids and other immunotherapies begins, dramatic improvements are often reported. “Patients can go from being in a nursing home, unable to communicate, to returning to work, being able to drive again,” says Eoin Flanagan, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, one of a handful of centers in the world along with Iranii’s research group, that is actively studying autoimmune dementia.
Above: PET scan of a 68-year-old woman with a 10-year history of cognitive difficulties shows prominent hypometabolism with a pattern suggestive of Alzheimer’s disease
Above: PET scan of the patient after treatment with immunosuppressants. Normalization of the scan was associated with dramatic improvement in cognitive abilities.
The outcome of my research, then, is that my survey found that only autoimmune dementia out of the over 200 different defined subtypes has been shown through peer-reviewed research to be curable. Notably, this dementia does not result from an underlying neurological condition as the other dementias do. This outcome shows me that I should refine my former skeptical conclusion “dementia cannot be cured” to “autoimmune dementia can be cured, but no cures have been recorded for any brain that has already been neurologically damaged through dementia.
I’ll let you know if the Alzheimer’s World Summit changes my mind!
HOW: Sign up for a FREE PASS that entitles you to watch the entire Summit.
Note that as soon as you get to the Summit webpage, click on GET MY FREE PASS to register. Once you have registered, you will receive an e-mail with your member password. Go to the Member Login on the menu bar at the top of the page and click on it. Use your password to access the Member Area, where you will be able to see the Summit Agenda in the green bar at the top: you will then be able to see all the speakers for each day of the Summit and start planning which sessions you’d like to watch.
WHEN: The Summit stretches over 5 days (Wednesday 20th-Sunday 24th)
GERDA’S SPEAKING TIME: Wednesday October 20th, 1:00 p.m. CST
AGENDA: Your FREE PASS gives you access to every participant’s speaking time so that you can watch some or all of the 30 presentations.
Saturday, October 23, 2021
Summit Overview: Inspiration for our lives and prevention
11 a.m. CST
Happiness and Prevention of Alzheimer’s
Marci Shimoff, Happy for No Reason
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- Discover what you should know about happiness
- Learn the fast track for happiness
- Find your love response
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12 p.m. CST
The 6 Pillars to Slowing and Reversing Aging
Debra Poneman, Founder of Yes to Success Seminars and Co-Founder of Ageless
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- Find the keys to turn back the hands of time
- Learn techniques to prevent aging of the brain and the body
- Discover what to avoid as we age
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1 p.m. CST
The Power of Movement and Neuroplasticity
Anat Banian, Developer of the Anat Baniel Method of NeuroMovement® Author of Move Into Life
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- Discover the basics of movement and why it’s important for our wellbeing
- Explore what brain plasticity is and how to make it work for you
- Learn the 9 essentials for vitality
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2 p.m. CST
Functional Medicine and Healing of Our Bodies
Karyn Shanks, Functional Medicine Physician
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- Discover why there is hope for preventing and healing Alzheimer’s
- Learn the foundational aspects of preventing, treating and reversing Alzheimer’s disease
- Gain a better understanding of how treating Alzheimer’s differs from treating other metabolic, inflammatory or autoimmune disorder
- Explore how to create a positive shift in the epidemic of Alzheimer’s disease
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3 p.m. CST
How to Remember Anything
Nelson Dellis, USA Memory Champion & Memory Improvement Coach
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- Learn how Nelson developed such an amazing memory
- Explore amazing brain health tips
- Discover whether training your memory helps to prevent Alzheimer’s
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4 p.m. CST
Vastu Architecture and Alzheimer’s Prevention
Michael Mastro, Architect and Founder of Vastu Creations
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- Discover Vastu and ways to design your environment for a great living experience
- Learn Lifestyle strategies that can improve your memory
- Understand what causes stress in your environment and how to reduce that stress
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Taking care of us “dementers”: Day 3 of the Alzheimer’s World Summit is all about the people who help make our lives livable and joyful
In case you haven’t run across the word “dementer” (in the title) before, I first heard it from the neurologist who participated in my diagnosis in 2011. “Seems you are already dementing,” she said. Given my interest in words, I found it extremely funny to discover a verb that makes me the main(?) agent in the downhill slide of my brain. “I dement, you dement, he/she/it dements,” I conjugated to Peter when telling him about her remark. Ever since then, nominalizing the verb “dement” to make me the doer of the verb has been an instant joke in our family. I have learned that calling someone “demented” or a “dementer” used to be employed by doctors and researchers who studied and dealt with the disease every day. Today—unbeknownst to my then doctor—the term is usually regarded as hurtful. I, however, think of it as just another slur that needs to be reclaimed, in the same way that pejoratives based on race (“n——”, “ch—”), gender (“bitch”), sexuality (“queer”), nationality (“limey”, “yank”) or other group membership have been taken back by those who used to be the targets of the intended oppression. I feel that rather than put energy into changing an unacceptable word, I would rather expend mine on helping change how society regards dementia itself: an illness for which the of which the bearers are not to blame but instead need support, laughter, love, acceptance, the absence of racism, homophobia, misoginy misandry, and—most importantly—the best possible care. Day 3 of the Alzheimer’s World Summit will be all about care. I will end this post with the Day 3 Agenda so that you will know which topics will be addressed.
In my two previous posts about the forthcoming (October 20-24) Alzheimer’s World Summit, I have largely spoken of the difficulty I am experiencing in opening my mind to the treatment of Alzheimer’s and other dementias through modes of medicine developed outside of Western culture. It is not only my ongoing retrospection as I write these blog posts and otherwise prepare for the Summit that keeps my self-questioning going, but also stories from close friends whom I trust and love who tell me about the healing they have experienced from alternative/complementary/integrative medicine. Just today I had coffee with a fabulous friend who has a graduate degree in neuroscience and, like me, struggles with the fact that non-western healing modes have not yet accumulated the peer-reviewed evidence that both she and I hold so dearly. She told me the story of her own preconceived feelings about the superiority of Western medicine being pleasantly (if disturbingly!) churned upside down through her experience of Reiki treatment. During a recent session, she felt amazing sensations throughout her body while undergoing Reiki BY PHONE! While all of her Reiki-generated mental and physical feelings were not positive—some were really painful—she found her entire session very positively meaningful. She understands the pain that she experienced as necessary to loose deeply hurtful memories about her past, which she had so far resisted examining because she could not bear reliving them again. This Reiki session, though, had opened her up to start processing those feelings and also left her energized and eager to go forward. I therefore do not have to take the word of only the practitioners of complementary, alternative/ integrative medicine that their techniques work and actually benefit their clients greatly! Real stories from real people are so much better.
Helen Nelson-Reed, Nurturing Art
Friday, October 22, Day 3 of the Summit is all about real stories from real people about taking care of those of us with dementia. Needless to say, Day 3 brings forth no resistance from me. As you will know through my blogs, I often tell stories of the amazing humans who make up my caretaking circle of love: my children, my grandchildren, close friends, and—above all—my husband Peter, whose name is Rock: my helpmate, my resurrector from depression, my fixer, my lover. A recent such story is about Peter: “The Price of Love.”
I know one of the presenters “personally,” that is, through a long correspondence, her own caretaker story, her book Blue Hydrangeas, being on a zoom panel with her, and being zoom-interviewed by her: Marianne Scuicco is a registered nurse, co-founder and manager at a nonprofit, AlzAuthors, that consists of five daughters who have experienced the loss of a loved one with dementia and who also are a community of award-winning authors, each of whom has written about their dementia caregiver experience with the goal to end “the silence and stigma of dementia one book at a time”. Toward the same purpose, Marianne produces and hosts the podcast “Untangling Alzheimer’s & Dementia, an AlzAuthors podcast” for which she interviews people who similarly tell the stories of their own dementia or their experience as a caretaker. This is the forum for which she interviewed me.
Medicine Bear, Rita Loyd. Nurturing Art.
Friday, October 22, 2021
Summit Overview: Supporting our caregivers
11:00 a.m. CST
The DAWN Method and Changing The Paradigm Of Alzheimer’s Care
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- Learn about dementia-related behaviors and how we’ve traditionally responded to them
- Discover the DAWN Method and how to relate better to loved ones with dementia
- Explore ways of how to create a better journey for our loved ones with memory issues
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12:00 p.m. CST
Planning Ahead for Caregivers
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- Discover how perspective and a plan are necessary when providing care for someone living with Alzheimer’s
- Learn how the stigma affects perspective and the caring provided for someone living with Alzheimer’s
- Explore how perspective affects your plan
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1 p.m. CST
Caregiving Consulting
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- Explore how a caregiving support consultant can help
- Discover the biggest problems and concerns for caregivers
- Know when to ask for help
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2 p.m. CST
Inspiration and information For Caregivers
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- Learn how to create your own support network.
- Discover classes through the Alzheimer’s Assoc.
- Understand the mindset of our loved ones.
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3 p.m. CST
Sharing the Stories of Our Alzheimer’s Journeys
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- Learn how caregivers can benefit from resources like books and blogs
- Discover what a caregiver can learn from the stories of others
- Create time to read
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4 p.m. CST
Senior Care for Mid to Late Stage Dementia
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- Learn the most common hindrances or misconceptions people have about cognitive decline
- Discover simple techniques for stimulation and validation to help someone already in a difficult journey
- Gain a better understanding of how to approach care on a limited budget
- How you can make the lives of loved ones better
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HOW: Sign up for a FREE PASS that entitles you to watch the entire Summit.
Note that as soon as you get to the Summit webpage, click on GET MY FREE PASS to register. Once you have registered, you will receive an e-mail with your member password. Go to the Member Login on the menu bar at the top of the page and click on it. Use your password to access the Member Area, where you must create your own log in. After logging in, you will be able to see the Summit Agenda in the green bar at the top: you will then be able to see all the speakers for each day of the Summit and start planning which sessions you’d like to watch. Above, I present the speakers of DAY 3.
WHEN: The Summit stretches over 5 days (Wednesday 20th-Sunday 24th)
GERDA’S SPEAKING TIME: Wednesday October 20th, 1:00 p.m. CST
AGENDA: Your FREE PASS gives you access to every participant’s speaking time so that you can watch some or all of the 30 presentations.
What do Rafal Olbinski’s surrealist visual puns have to do with the FREE “Alzheimer’s World Summit”?
The answer to the question in the title is, “The connection exists only in Doña Quixote’s—aka my demented self’s—mind.” Let’s see if I can disentangle it.
You know how when you learn a new word, you see it everywhere? There is a name for this: the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is actually a term for “frequency illusion,” a type of cognitive bias your mind creates when it deviates from rational thought and starts to make up patterns out of fleeting observations, that is, observations that have not yet been properly refereed by the rational part of your brain. Frequency illusion happens 1), when you learn anything new. While the novel information is still fresh in your mind, you pay more attention to it than to other things. Because of this, you see it more often when going about your daily life. (This situation is known as “selective attention”); 2), when you suddenly see your new concept (or word) everywhere, it seems uncanny, so you try to find a rational explanation. You then decide that your new information must have suddenly popped up as a new insight that was just coming to light everywhere in the world. You feel lucky that you had received the memo “so soon.” In reality, you’ve just stopped ignoring something that was already alive and well in your conceptual culture; it only seems new and exciting to you because you have recently become sensitized to it. (This circumstance is known as “confirmation bias.”)
Text on middle frame: Google search result: “Literally the first link that agrees with what you already believe.” Source, Cogblog: A Cognitive Psychology Blog
In my previous post, I told how it come about that I, a diehard Western science groupie, decided to participate in an upcoming (October 20-24) online gathering, the Alzheimer’s World Summit, which is focused on healing therapies for dementia that were developed outside of mainstream/conventional Western medicine. Since I first received an invitation to speak at the Summit, I “suspected” (ha! if ever there were a word indicating bias, this is it…) that the kind of information I could expect from most of my fellow speakers would contradict the lifelong convictions that stem from my academic/private self-indoctrination in the “religion” of science. I was strongly aware of how one’s mind is constructed by your own education and life experiences. Having thought about the Summit a lot—both before I agreed to the interview and again while writing the previous blog post, almost everything else I read seemed to deal with the various constructed realities in different people’s heads and fields of knowledge. When I happened to read an article on ways we see art, these words particularly resonated with me: “One aspect of our modern social context of the last four hundred years has been the inability to see beyond the categories assumed by our philosophies, sciences, habits of mass production and subject/object based language systems. The visual language of art and design have also largely reinforced ideas about reality that are born from the biases of dominant technologies. My mind shouted “Jackpot”! The quote is from a fabulous art website, MELT, “an archive of esoteric and contemporary culture, that explores the relationships between technology and spirituality, through the lesser known or often overlooked aspects of modern and historical art movements.” In the article, MELT examines how—in the “well-crafted visual puns” of Polish Surrealist Rafal Olbinski (born 1943)—”the visual language of art and design have similarly reinforced ideas about reality that are born from the biases of dominant technologies.” Oblinski’s art, however, also subverts the techniques and images of classical fine art to expose his grievance “towards their constructed reality’s failure to deliver what it publicise[s].”
Rafal Oblinski, Brain Landscape.
Brain Landscape subverts our trust in the conviction that we can see the natural world in an “unbiased” way, because it shows with the “vision cone”—studded as it is with the double spiral of DNA— that our modern industrial/information/medical era world view cannot be other than “tainted” through the Western notion of science. The viewer’s knowledge of the world is, in this case, so speckled with science that he cannot but observe all of nature around him—and within him—as broken into smaller in smaller and smaller “realities.” He can never see the landscape in the same holistic way as our pre-Western-science ancestors or our contemporaries immersed non-Western ways of knowing can. Of course, our ancestors and not-wholly-Western-influenced contemporaries, in turn, had/has a world view “tainted” by the various “realities of their own life practices.
If I could restate the Alzheimer’s World Summit’s overall goal (as I see it) in terms of the above, it would be to awaken the ability of those of us steeped in Western forms of knowledge “to see beyond the categories assumed by our philosophies, sciences, habits of mass production and subject/object based language systems.” So whether you, like me, may still have strong skepticism about healing modes outside of mainstream/conventional Western medicine or whether you have already already seen the light, I’m again giving the signup information for the Alzheimer’s World Summit and following that, the agenda of speakers for the second day of the Summit.
HOW: Sign up for a FREE PASS that entitles you to watch the entire Summit.
Note that as soon as you get to the Summit webpage, click on GET MY FREE PASS to register. Once you have registered, you will receive an e-mail with your member password. Go to the Member Login on the menu bar at the top of the page and click on it. Use your password to access the Member Area, where you must create your own log in. After logging in, you will be able to see the Summit Agenda in the green bar at the top: you will then be able to see all the speakers for each day of the Summit and start planning which sessions you’d like to watch. Below, I present the speakers of DAY 2.
WHEN: The Summit stretches over 5 days (Wednesday 20th-Sunday 24th)
GERDA’S SPEAKING TIME: Wednesday October 20th, 1:00 p.m. CST
AGENDA: Your FREE PASS gives you access to every participant’s speaking time so that you can watch some or all of the 30 presentations.
Rafal Oblinski. Can’t find the title of this work. Like the previous Oblinsky image, it subverts our notion of the brain we expect to see in a “real” open skull. Rather than the large-grapefruit-size pinkish-gray walnut, we see a space filled with birds on the verge of fluttering into the world as mapped by modern cartographers using surveillance craft and satellite imagery. At the same time, the map clouds seem to be on the verge of already breaking up under the influence of yet newer technologies—or is Oblinsky foreseeing the fragility of the continents under the threat of climate change?
Agenda fo Thursday, October 21, 2021
11:00 a.m. CST
Summit Overview: The Biology, Biochemistry, and anatomy of Alzheimer’s Disease
Brain Health, The Glymphatic System and Alzheimer’s Prevention.
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- What is the lymphatic system and how does it impact Alzheimer’s disease?
- Exciting animations which demonstrate the inner workings of the brain
- Tips and suggestions on how to support optimum brain health
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12:00 p.m. CST
The Immune System, The Brain and Prevention of Alzheimer’s
Tim Hutton, Craniosacral Therapist-Diplomate (CST-D)
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- Understand how compensation around the body’s internal tensions and conflicts play in the ability of the body to function normally
- Discover the immune system and how it works
- Explore the connection between the immune system and the brain
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1:00 p.m. CST
Colon to The Cosmos and Alzheimer’s Prevention
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- Learn about what role digestion has in our overall health
- Understand the connection between digestion and Alzheimer’s
- Discover the best ways to connect our colon to the cosmos
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2:00 p.m. CST
The Lymphatic System and How it Affects Our Mind and Body
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- Discover how an Osteopathic Physician’s approach differs from that of a standard medical practice.
- Understand what the lymphatic system is and how it works.
- Learn the interplay between the lymphatic system in the body and the brain.
- Understand how to take care of your lymphatic system and overall health for those concerned with preventing Alzheimer’s.
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3:00 p.m. CST
GMO’s, The Gut and Prevention of Alzheimer’s
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- Discover how GMOs present a problem for animals and humans and what types of health problems they might cause.
- Learn how GMO’s play a part in memory and cognitive function.
- Understand how to protect yourself when you are concerned about Alzheimer’s prevention4:00 p.m. CST
4:00 p.m. CST
Biological Dentistry and Prevention of Alzheimer’s
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- Learn about the connection between dental health and overall health in the body
- Discover how metals and bacteria in your mouth is connected to toxins in your body
- Explore ways to help prevent Alzheimer’s by protecting your teeth and mouth
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Gerda speaks at the “Alzheimer’s World Summit,” Oct 20-24. Do join me for the FREE online event!
Three months ago, I received an e-mail invitation from craniosacral and longevity expert Michael Morgan to participate in an upcoming (October 20-24) online gathering, the Alzheimer’s World Summit. Michael would be the host. The purpose of the Summit was to bring together others like himself who had started to apply healing therapies that were developed outside of mainstream/conventional Western medicine toward preventing, slowing, or even possibly reversing the effects of Alzheimer’s and maybe other dementias.
Alzheimer’s is the most frequently occurring form of dementia in the US and world (34%). Microvascular dementia, which I have, is the second most common (20%), followed by the other dementias depicted in the diagram (Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry).
Given my lifelong die-hard adherence to the evidence-based model of Western science, my mind boomeranged through my long-held convictions that Western medicine is the only way to go with dementia of all stripes—and whatever other health conditions one has to deal with. I know that many of you who read my posts do not agree with me, because you have kindly and generously sent me accounts of positive experiences with one or the other alternative/complementary form of healing, which I then researched and mostly rejected. I followed up by responding to your suggestions with what I hoped was a nice e-mail 🙂 explaining what I had found out and why I thought it was something I did not want to try.
“Nice Gerda” responds to you—my Readers’—kind alternative/complementary suggestions with heart-felt thanks!
It’s not that I am not interested in other modes of knowledge: dating back to the pre-internet era, I voraciously read everything I could find by and about Hinduism and Buddhism; was aware of Hegel’s, Jung’s, and Heidegger’s incorporation ofTaoism in their thinking; devoured Krishnamurti; ate up Frijof Capra’s The Tao of Physics; loved the fact that the Greek mathematics of Euclid and Archimedes was preserved and built upon by Islamic/Arabic as well as Hindu/Indian scholars during the West’s dark Middle Ages—and so on.
Left: Ishaq ibn Hunayn’s Arabic Translation of Euclid’s Elements, AD 1270. Photograph: copyright the trustees of the Chester Beatty Library (Irish Times). Right: While Europe was in the dark ages, Indian mathematics transformed zero from a placeholder to a number in its own right (Madras Courier)
I also dipped into and had on occasion tried alternative/complementary health-promoting or healing methods, whether for my body or my mind. First, after I graduated from Pretoria University, I learned yoga from a self-help book. Later when we lived in Johannesburg, I attended a yoga center in a beautiful, silent garden. I don’t attend classes any more—I can no longer interpret the instructor’s moves quickly enough to go along. Nevertheless, I still use certain asanas at home to perk up my digestive system or help me cope with back pain. Second, during the 1980s when I was in my early thirties, I learned transcendental meditation from South Africans who had themselves received TM teacher training from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India. I still practice meditation today, though I now seldom sit in the prescribed posture or use my mantra, but rather let my thoughts go peaceful as I walk by the river or sit at home focusing on a phrase that is meaningful to me. Third, when my primary-school aged daughter Marissa became very ill with asthma, we experimented with homeopathy. To our disappointment, her attacks continued. After they had landed her in hospital, we resolved that she would continue on traditional Western medications. And so she did, until her asthma virtually disappeared during her thirties. Lastly, I tried acupuncture for a cough that was then thought to have been triggered by my asthma. Unfortunately I did not experience relief through this method.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi near Huntsville, Ontario, Canada. 1978
Despite my general distrust of modes of knowing for which no science-based evidence can be found, I also really do not want to be a knowledge snob! I have always loved and known people who have completely different world views than I do. Besides, especially in these times of our horrible national rift between groups with different understandings of the world, I feel that it is very important to mingle with and learn from people who think differently than I do. In addition, it’s an important part of my self-image to at least appear open-minded 🙂 Accordingly, I arranged a zoom discussion with Michael to hear more about the conference.
During our conversation, it took me only as long as Michael saying that he took care of both his step-mother and then his sister-in-law who had Alzheimer’s to know that I had something to learn from this man. “It is not only the person with Alzheimer’s who is affected by the awful symptoms of the disease,” he said. “It affects the physical and mental health of everyone in the family who help to take care of them.” As we carried on talking, it felt like we were two travelers, by happenstance seated side-by-side in a plane, swapping tales about our separate journeys that traversed various challenging territories at different times and in different ways, with each of us all the while trying to create our own map.
Needless to say, die-hard science groupie Gerda accepted Michael’s invitation. He subsequently interviewed me. Below I explain how you can watch not only my interview, but also those of the other 29 speakers.
HOW: Sign up for a FREE PASS that entitles you to watch the entire Summit.
Note that as soon as you get to the Summit webpage, click on GET MY FREE PASS to register. Once you have registered, you will receive an e-mail with your member password. Go to the Member Login on the menu bar at the top of the page and click on it. Use your password to access the Member Area, where you will be able to see the Summit Agenda in the green bar at the top: you will then be able to see all the speakers for each day of the Summit and start planning which sessions you’d like to watch.
WHEN: The Summit stretches over 5 days (Wednesday 20th-Sunday 24th)
GERDA’S SPEAKING TIME: Wednesday October 20th, 1:00 p.m. CST
AGENDA: Your FREE PASS gives you access to every participant’s speaking time so that you can watch some or all of the 30 presentations.
During the 9 days that remain before the Summit, I will post additional information about each conference day’s speakers in separate posts. For today, though, more about Michael Morgan who—together with Kathy Regganie (also a Summit speaker)—made this event happen.
Michael Morgan, host of the Alzheimer’s World Summit
For the Summit, Michael selected, invited, and interviewed 30 speakers whose work in one way another center on Alzheimer’s/other dementias: among them, speakers who have dementia, those who care for them, a four-time USA Memory Champion, and many career practitioners of holistic and complementary methods that could potentially intervene in the disease process as well as provide support for caretakers who daily experience the sadness, anxiety, loneliness, and exhaustion—even total burnout—that inevitably befalls those dealing with a loved one’s dementia.
Michael’s career started out with a BA degree from UC Berkeley in Physics and Philosophy, two classical disciplines based on Western modes of knowledge. For graduate work, though, he pursued his interest in modes of knowing that were developed outside of mainstream/conventional Western frameworks: he enrolled in an MA program in Interdisciplinary Studies at the Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa. It struck me that, like Michael, I was not unfamiliar with either Physics or Philosopy—the first constituted a minor in my Math and Chemistry bachelor’s, the second resulted from a life-long deep-reading hobby plus two university Philosophy courses while I was gearing up for my PhD in English; neither was I unfamiliar with Iowa or Maharishi Mahesh Yogi—the first came when I was a 16-year-old exchange student (from South Africa) doing her senior year in high school at Carroll High in Iowa (1967) and the second during the 1980s when, as I told above, I learned TM from teachers trained by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Maharishi International University
During his MA studies and after graduation, Michael set out on a career focused on mind and body work, that is, a group of alternative/complementary therapies that enhance the mind’s interactions with bodily function to induce relaxation and to improve overall health and well-being. These therapies include CranioSacral Therapy (CST), which was developed by osteopathic physician Dr John E. Upledger from 1975 to 1983 at Michigan State University, where he served as a clinical researcher and Professor of Biomechanics. In 1985, he established Upledger Institute in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. That is where Michael subsequently trained to become a CranioSacral Therapist and eventually became an instructor—a position he has held for over a dozen years by now.
The osteopathic origins of craniosacral therapy led me to another family connection to alternative/complementary healing: when my husband Peter was 14 years old, a car coming out of a driveway drove into him as he was biking home from high school in Pretoria, South Africa. He was thrown through the air and serendipitously landed at the feet of a doctor standing nearby. Unfortunately he was severely concussed and was only able to give a garbled mix of his recent and current addresses before he fell into a three-day coma. His parents were only able to track him down after more than 12 hours of frantic searching. One problem was that when they enquired from the police and hospitals about a 14-year old boy who had not come home, the persons answering the phone said they were not aware of any teenager in an accident. After much probing, his parents explained that, despite his young age, he had a very dark beard, which would by then have grown into a formidable 5 o’ clock shadow. This description immediately led them to the right hospital, where they waited out the remaining days of his coma. He fortunately came to with an apparently fully functioning brain, but without his front teeth.
Peter at 15 with his new front teeth
While he was recovering—and his teeth were being fixed!—he was treated by a Pretoria osteopath, Dr. Ober. Given that this happened in the early 1960s before sacroranial therapy was developed, the form of treatment consisting of Dr. Ober holding him lightly by the head while she gently manipulated his head and neck could not officially have been sacrocranial therapy. According to Peter, it had a pleasant and calming effect similar to a contemporary sacrocranial session described by Paul Ingraham, former assistant editor of ScienceBasedMedicine.org, now science writer and alternative/complementary treatment skeptic: “It is truly, deeply comforting to have your head held and gently manipulated for a long time by a craniosacral therapist with the best intentions to provide a soothing experience. Receiving craniosacral therapy is one of the most pleasant, sleepy experiences I have ever had on any massage table.”
Craniosacral therapy
Despite the pleasant nature of his experience with his craniosacral session, Ingraham still faults the therapy for lacking “well-designed studies evaluating the efficacy of [this] technique in peer-reviewed literature.” Nevertheless, he acknowledges that “subtle effects of the manual therapy probably do exist—just because it can’t be measured doesn’t mean it isn’t there.” He does not question the actual positive effects of craniosacral therapy, but rather the explanation practitioners give for it, namely “that the tiny manipulations of CST affect the pressure and circulation of cerebrospinal fluid, the fluid that surrounds and cushions the brain and spinal cord.” Instead, he proposes that “primate sensory neurology” might be responsible for the positive effect of the therapy rather than practitioners’ explanation.
Ingraham cites Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR)as an instance of primate sensory neurology that might offer an explanation. ASMR, Ingraham explains, “is a flush of euphoria and tingling around the head and neck. It’s triggered by things like attentiveness, a soft voice, quiet and repetitive actions, and interesting and gentle tactile stimulation (especially around the head). ASMR isn’t well understood, but it’s probably a sensory reward for grooming behaviour (in the same way that orgasms are an evolutionary incentive to reproduce. A [sacrocranial therapy session] seems like a perfect ASMR-generating ritual, a grooming simulation fine-tuned to produce ASMR.” While the “brain tingles” that occur during ASMR have been observed via brain imaging demonstrates that such a phenomenon actually happens, its correlation with scraniosacral therapy of course also still lacks “well-designed studies evaluating the efficacy of [this interrelation] in peer-reviewed literature.”
So how does Michaels work relate to Alzheimer’s/other dementias? Before I let him tell you this in his own words via his TEDx talk, let me tell you again how to participate in the Alzheimer’s World Summit:
HOW: Sign up for a FREE PASS that entitles you to watch the entire Summit.
Note that as soon as you get to the Summit webpage, click on GET MY FREE PASS to register. Once you have registered, you will receive an e-mail with your member password. Go to the Member Login on the menu bar at the top of the page and click on it. Use your password to access the Member Area, where you will be able to see the Summit Agenda in the green bar at the top: you will then be able to see all the speakers for each day of the Summit and start planning which sessions you’d like to watch.
WHEN: The Summit stretches over 5 days (Wednesday 20th-Sunday 24th)
GERDA’S SPEAKING TIME: Wednesday October 20th, 1:00 p.m. CST
AGENDA: Your FREE PASS gives you access to every participant’s speaking time so that you can watch some or all of the 30 presentations. I give Wed 20th’s—the first day’s —agenda at the end of the post. Or you can check out the entire agenda once you are signed up.
So how does Michaels work relate to Alzheimer’s/other dementias? In his own words:
Agenda fo Wednesday, October 20, 2021
11:00 a.m. CST
Summit Overview, CranioSacral Therapy and Changing the Trajectory of Alzheimer’s Disease
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- The role of CranioSacral Therapy in changing the trajectory of Alzheimer’s Disease
- Review of past, present and future research
- The mechanics of fluid flow in the brain and how we can effect positive change
- Summit overview
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12:00 p.m.CST
Living with Alzheimer’s and Fighting the Good Fight
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- Learn about Greg’s journey with Alzheimer’s
- Discover ways to organize your life while living with Alzheimer’s
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1:00 p.m. CST
Living With Dementia, The Heart and Journey of The Soul
- Learn Gerda’s Alzheimer’s story
- Discover how dementia alters all of your relationships, including yourself
- Discover simple self care methods
2:00 p.m. CST
The Caregivers Journey
Christina Keys, Director for Community Growth for Caregiving.com
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- Discover how becoming a caregiver can teach you how to change
- Explore caregiver resources and support options
- Understand the role reversal of becoming a caregiver
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3:00 p.m. CST
Re-Framing How We Look at Alzheimer’s and Dementia
Susie Singer Carter, Filmmaker/My Mom and the Girl Host/Creator of Love Conquers Alz Podcast
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- Learn to re-frame how you look at Alzheimer’s and dementia
- Discover ways to communicate with your loved ones as their journey progresses
- Explore what it would be like if you could slow the progression of the disease and preserve the quality of life for your loved one
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4:00 p.m. CST
Emotions, Change, and Prevention of Alzheimer’s
Sherianna Boyle, Emotional Detox Coach
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- Discover the emotional component of the disease process
- Learn about what keeps us from experiencing our emotions
- Explore how to develop a different relationship with the past
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