Is Alzheimer’s disease hereditary. How can I lower my risk for Alzheimer’s

Welcome to Passionate World Talk Radio Network, a wholly owned subsidiary of Global Media Network LLC. Educate, enlighten, entertain. Called the NPR of the internet. Welcome to Truth, Lies and Alzheimer's with host Lisa Skinner.

How's everybody doing today? Welcome to our show, Truth, Lies Alzheimer's, the podcast. I'm Lisa Skinner, your host. Let's go ahead and start this conversation.

Sometimes I can hear the sound trying to make sense in my brain. Smooth melody comes to life after the rain.

Cope, don't struggle, navigate the challenges of Alzheimer's.

Is what I need to change the world. A few bunch of words in this song written for me and for you.

All the things we can do for the sake of the nature we Our goal is to get to the truth, dispel the lies and myths, and unveil its secret faces. Understand what it's truly like to live with this disease and focus on what really matters—spending quality time with your loved one. Hi, I'm Lisa Skinner. I am so happy you pushed the play button to watch this video today. That tells me that you are more than likely looking for guidance as a memory caregiver to someone who suffers from Alzheimer's disease and dementia. Everyone has an Alzheimer's story, so let's start that conversation now. I know your pain. Not only have I had 8 of my own family members suffer from dementia, but I've been counseling families for nearly 30 years, and just like you, I've been a caregiver for family members. I know firsthand the challenges that unexpectedly show up, just like a California earthquake that shakes your very foundation, and it comes out of nowhere. For many, many years now, I've listened to the stories of people living with dementia about aimless wandering, looking for something that doesn't exist, hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, just to mention a few of the behaviors that we see. And the worst part about this disease is that everyone is in it for the long haul. It lasts 4 years. The average is 8 to 15 years. So let me share a little bit about me. And my skill set? Well, I'm a behavior specialist with an expertise in living with Alzheimer's disease and dementia. My background includes being a speaker, a counselor, a support group leader, a regional director for one of the largest senior care organizations where I set up memory care wings, developed programs, and I am a certified dementia care trainer through the Alzheimer's Association. Negotiation. I also hold a degree in human behavior. I have written multiple books on the subject and now have developed a concise guide, a book and a workbook, that delivers solutions that will help you return to what really matters. And what's that? Spending quality time with your loved one. I applaud you for having the courage to care for a person who will eventually rely on you for everything. Many people over the years have said to me that the job would be so much easier if it only came with a manual. Well, now it does. With our new training workshops, we will cover many of the everyday challenges that you will encounter, which will equip you with an arsenal of tools and tips to help make your world easier to manage. Currently, there is no cure for Alzheimer's a way to detect it in its early stages. Yet every 66 seconds someone in the US is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. So follow along with me as I join you in your new reality. I know this information is not easy to find, but you have come to the right place. All you need to do now is listen, learn, and and implement the techniques that I will be teaching you into your new world of memory caregiving. Please go to our website at truthliesalzheimers.com to learn more. I'm Lisa Skinner, and I am here with you on this journey. Truth Lies in Alzheimer's: Its Secret Faces by authors Lisa Skinner and Douglas W. Collins is a concise guide for caregivers navigating the heartbreaking challenges of having a loved one diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and other dementia. Everyone has an Alzheimer's story. It's time to start that conversation about Alzheimer's disease and stop treating it like it's only family business. You can find it on Amazon.com, Barnes Noble, and other fine booksellers.

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Hi! I am thrilled to be able to introduce our very special guest today, today, Mr. Mike Parker. Mike is an award-winning writer, actor, director, and playwright, and Mike is the creator and founder of buddyhollywood.com, which is an online entertainment magazine. Welcome to the show, Mike.

I am so happy to have you here. Absolutely thrilled to be joining you, Lisa Skinner Skinner. Thanks for having me.

Thank you. It's such a pleasure. Now, we say at Truth, Lies Alzheimer's, the podcast, that everybody has an Alzheimer's story, and Mike Parker is no exception. He's here today to share with us his extraordinary story of having 6 of his family members succumbed to Alzheimer's disease. Mike, welcome to the show. You know, this is almost unheard of to have 6 family members of the same family, all blood relatives, develop Alzheimer's disease. Now, I've had 8, and people are blown away when they hear I've had 8, but not all of mine were blood relatives. There were a few through marriage. Share with us what this has been like for your family.

You know, you're absolutely right. Everybody has an Alzheimer's story, and I wish I wasn't part of that elite group, but I am. And it's— I think the easiest way I can describe it is it's just— it's challenging. It's a little bit scary, and it's And it's exhausting, if I'm just being completely honest. My story starts back with my dad, who slowly slipped into various stages of dementia, including Alzheimer's. My parents live probably a good 12 hours away from me by car, so I didn't get to see him very much. We would drive in you know, maybe 2, 3 times a year. And at one point, my mom would pull me aside and go, "Do you notice anything wrong with Dad? He's just not himself, and I think he's got Alzheimer's." And, you know, I would talk to Dad, and he would seem fine to me. Of course, I'm not there all the time, and we'd come back in a few more months, and Mom would go, "Something's just wrong with Dad." Over the years, he just slipped further and further away until he was really bedfast and hospitalized and finally came home to die, in essence, waiting for the end.

Do you remember when your mom brought to your attention that she suspected that there might be something serious going on? How many years was it before it was blatantly obvious that there was definitely something going on here?

You know, it really started when he was around 80 years old, and my dad passed away when he was 88, so I'm going to say about 8 years. And she probably noticed it before that, if I'm honest. My younger brother died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer when he was 39 years old, when my dad turned 80, just shortly after that. And the decline was marked. After that point. Up to that point, he would exhibit signs like paranoia. You know, friends would be over, tell jokes, laughing. He'd be over in the corner going, why are they laughing at me? It had nothing to do with him, you know. So those kind of things would happen. And then as he continued to decline, he would lose his memory. He wasn't sure who people were, you know. Lost bodily functions, getting to the bathroom, and those kind of things until he finally got to the point where really he was incapable of taking care of himself.

And how did your family manage the care? So talk to us a little bit about, was he at home? Was your mother his primary caregiver? Talk to us a little bit about the care that he received during his illness.

Well, my kids call my mother the Iron Lady. She is the most tenacious, stubborn, you know, willful person I've ever met in my entire life. And her whole posture the entire time she was going through all of this was, that's my husband. I married him for better or for worse. I'm taking care of him. So he stayed at home pretty much all the way up until the point where he was hospitalized and went into a nursing care facility for, you know, 3 or 4 weeks while he was getting his legs under him again, so to speak. And mom was not happy at all with the care that he was receiving, and she basically said, nope, taking him home. I'm like, you sure you want to do that? Because you're no spring chicken. I mean, she's just in her late 80s at that point. She said, nope, So she took him home and called the VA and they got a hospital bed out there for her, put it in the living room. She slept in the living room chair beside my dad for the next however many years until he finally passed away.

Did hospice eventually come in and help with the care?

Hospice did come in right there at the very end. We, my brother and my older brother and I, you know, tried to help as much as we could with the financial decisions and the care decisions, those kind of things. But primarily we paid for private nursing care to come in and help Dad with things like, you know, giving him a bath, just those kind of things, feeding and helping him eat. But really hospice didn't come in until the very, very end, probably the last 4 months.

Well, that was my next question, if your mom had any help. So thank you for answering that because that's gotta be the hardest job on the planet is to take somebody, take care of somebody who can't communicate their wants and needs with, with you anymore. It is such a difficult job. And yeah, yeah, it's brutal.

And fortunately, my mother had a very good, you know, base of care— excuse me— for my dad. All of her sisters lived there, all of his brothers and their family. They had a pretty tight-knit support group there in her hometown. So she wasn't by herself all the time. Oh, good.

So because you have had 6 immediate family members suffer from Alzheimer's disease or one of the brain diseases that causes dementia, um, do you give a lot of thought to the risk that you personally are at for developing dementia? People ask me that all the time, and I'm not quite sure how to answer it. Of course, I'm, I'm concerned, but I've done a lot of research on it, so I'm doing things to lower my, my, my risk. So tell us how you feel about kind of being in that high-risk category.

You know, that is such a very present question. My wife and I have this kind of discussion on a fairly regular basis, and she'll go, "Oh, okay, it's you," you know, doing one of these things. But yeah, my dad and all of his brothers passed away from some form of dementia within 1 year. My dad's father.

You mean one year of them being diagnosed?

Within one year of the time the first one died and the time the last one died was one year. So all four of those siblings passed away from some form of dementia at that time. My grandfather had passed away previously. He was, of course, now he was in his 90s, so it's not like he was a spring chicken, but he was in the depths of depression or dementia at that time as well. And Now my mother is deep into dementia. She doesn't know who I am. You know, she— I mean, she'll— you can sing songs with her, that kind of thing, and she'll sing along, "Que será, será." It's very sweet. But now she— the last time I saw her is, "Who are you?" "I'm your son, Mike." "Oh, okay." And later she said, "Now who are you again?" So that kind of thing. So Yeah, she would at least respond.

She knows you. She may just— yeah, her short-term memory has probably been, um, is off more than it's on, and she's pulling from her past memories. So she knows she knows you, but she's just not sure where you fit into her picture. Yeah.

Now, but to answer your question You had asked me, do I worry about developing dementia or Alzheimer's, one of those kind of things? And absolutely. I mean, it's a, you know, when you talk about your dad and your beloved uncle who was the sweetest guy in the entire world, got very violent towards the end, you know, obviously I look in the mirror and go, are you okay? Then I'm talking back to myself, I'm going, maybe I'm not, I don't know. It certainly makes me want to delve into What kind of research is being done on Alzheimer's right now? And what are some things that I can do to make sure that I'm keeping my brain active as well as my, my physical body?

Truth Lies in Alzheimer's: Its Secret Faces by authors Lisa Skinner and Douglas W. Collins is a concise guide for caregivers survivors navigating the heartbreaking challenges of having a loved one diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and other dementia. Everyone has an Alzheimer's story. It's time to start that conversation about Alzheimer's disease and stop treating it like it's only family business. You can find it on Amazon.com, Barnes Noble, and other fine booksellers.

I started doing the DM Zone because I love interviewing people, and I got the opportunity to start visiting with authors, with corporate clients, and it helps them relax if we're just chatting. For sure. And so So that's where the DM Zone created its beginning. Then I got to go to Country Thunder. All the fun stuff. Then Hollywood producers said, "Oh, do you do interviews?" Yeah. "Well, come on over." And I got to do red carpets. And I've had a blast doing it. So about for the last 15 years, I have been doing the DM Zone.

I love it. And it's fun to interview people because you get to not only get to know them, but know what makes them tick and know what makes them be proud of who they are and what they have going on and all these different things happening. But it's great. I'm very excited to, to watch your show and everything like that.

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There's only one type of Alzheimer's disease that's actually considered genetic, and it's the rare form, which is early onset, which typically shows up before the age of 65. The more common form of Alzheimer's disease is not necessarily genetic, but it does tend to run in families. So really that just becomes a risk factor for us because we've had multiple family members who have developed it, but there are so many risk factors that, well, can get thrown into the bucket, and the more you have stacked against you, the more at risk you are of developing it. So just because it runs in your family, you still only have a 50% chance of developing it. And some of these risk factors are modifiable and some are not modifiable. If we can work on the ones that we know are modifiable or manageable, then it can negate that from being a risk factor just piled against you. So that was comforting to me, having so many family members have Alzheimer's disease, to know that, okay, I still have a 50-50 chance of avoiding this.

Wow. Yeah, 50-50 still ain't great odds. No. Yeah, that is a comfort. I'm glad to know that because I did not know that. Oh good, I just made the assumption.

Now, so can you tell us what some of the biggest challenges have been for you and your family? Let's kind of talk in the present tense because you're— you currently have a mother-in-law that's in a memory care facility. No, your mother-in-law's at home and your mother is in a memory care facility. So, I mean, this disease is just— creates all kinds of angst for everybody, for the person who has it, for the family members, for friends. What would you say are some of your biggest challenges that you and your family face?

Sure. You know, I think the biggest challenge that I have with my mom is that she's just so far away. I mean, she's in a memory care facility in South Central Arkansas. I live in Middle Tennessee, so we're a good 10 to 12 hours away by car. My older brother lives probably 5 hours away from, so he's a little bit closer. Of course, she has, again, a fairly good support system there in her hometown. So all the people from her church are there. Her two sisters live locally. She has, you know, nieces and nephews that go visit her on a daily basis. So that's a comfort to me to know that I've got We have family members that are there in town that are able to check on her and make sure her care is being provided properly. She is in hospice right now, so we have hospice coming in on a daily basis. Her diagnosis is not good, and we've gotten the call 3 times in the past 6 weeks that this is it, but it's still not it, and she's still there. So I think she's getting the best care that she can at this stage of life for So yeah, I'm not satisfied with the care that she's getting. It's just challenging that I can't be there all the time to, you know, that's my mom.

Yeah. But you do feel that she's being well taken care of?

Boy, that's a bit of a loaded question. I'm going to answer it this way. My mother-in-law is still functional. She is declining. She has a number of— she has a lot of health issues, everything from COPD and high blood pressure to heart palpitations and angina, and the list goes on and on and on. I have kind of refused to accept the term caregiver. Quite frankly, you know, I had this conversation with her cardiologist about 3 weeks ago, and And my response was, I've seen what happens when family members turn into caregivers. And because the steady decline— this is my perspective, you as a professional may have a different view altogether, so disclaimer— but when I see that steady decline, it's like it requires more and more of your time and more and more of your effort and more and more of your emotional reserves until you get to a point where you actually resent and maybe even dislike. And hate's a pretty strong word, but I've seen people actually grow to hate their parents or in-laws or whatever else because it's just so in your face all the time. And, uh, and my response was, I love this woman. She's my mother-in-law. I mean, she's been my mother-in-law for going on close to 50 years now. So, you know, I remember her from way back when I first got married, when I was a baby. Feels like And I don't want to dislike her. I don't want to be frustrated and angry with her. And I certainly don't want to grow to hate her. So I don't want to be her caregiver. And I'm like, I'm not going to be that. I'm going to be her son-in-law. And when she needs help, I'm here to help her. And if she needs me, you know, once a week I take her out so she can get out of the house. And, you know, she's got her little walker and she goes around and does shopping, that kind of stuff. And and I'll sit with her in the evening, go, "How you feeling? You okay? Are you lying to me? Tell me the truth. How are you feeling?" That kind of stuff. But I want to be the guy who is responsible for caring for her. So in my response when she first moved into this is, "When that time comes, then we're either going to have to have people come in to care for you, or we're going to have to find a facility that can give you the kind of care that you need." because I want to be your son-in-law. I don't—

Okay. So, Mike, I actually have one last question for you, and I think it's a really important question for our audience because as we talked about, so many people are living this every day of their lives and the numbers are going to triple in the next 25, 30 years. So because you are on this journey now with your family. Is there any advice that you can share with our audience that might help them have an easier time managing this disease? Something that maybe, you know, today that you wished you had known before? Is there anything that you can share with us?

I think for me, the most important thing has been that you have to have someone you can talk to about this without feeling like you're judged. Because when you live with an Alzheimer's patient or you live with someone who's suffering dementia, whether it's in your home or whether it's in a care facility somewhere else, it's the elephant in the room. It's always right in your face. You're never very far away from it, and you have to be able to express your anger, your frustration, your despair at times. You have to be able to express that to someone who is not going to feel like you're just the most awful person in the world for not wanting to be in it all the time. Fortunately, I'm married to an incredible woman who will take a walk with me pretty much every day, at least for, you know, a half hour, 45 minutes. And we often look at each other and go, okay, safe space. I just need to talk. And it's like, talk, baby, talk. And I will talk as well. And you just, so you can pour all of that stuff out so that when you get back home, you're ready to face it again. I think that's the biggest thing for me is don't do this by yourself.

No. And I think we're all in agreement now that everybody truly does have an Alzheimer's story. But people are just now starting to come out of the woodwork and be willing to talk about it. Before, they wouldn't even talk about it because of stigmas and just being afraid of judgments and being afraid to admit that they have this situation going on. We really need to raise this awareness because, you know, we are on the verge of the next global crisis if we can't talk about it and really start addressing the needs of the people. You have been a wonderful, wonderful guest. We learned so much from you and can't tell you how appreciative we are of you taking the time to be on the show today.

Sometimes I can hear the sound Trying to make sense in my brain.

You have to have someone you can talk to about this without feeling like you're judged. When you live with an Alzheimer's patient or you live with someone who's suffering dementia, whether it's in your home or whether it's in a care facility somewhere else. It's the elephant in the room. It's always right in your face. You're never very far away from it.

Thank you for listening to Truth, Lies Alzheimer's with your host, Lisa Skinner. You have just listened to Truth, Lies Alzheimer's on Passionate World Talk Radio Network. A subsidiary of Global Media Network. You can listen to Truth, Lies and Alzheimer's All Over Again at www.passionateworldtalkradio.com, facebook.com/passionateworldradio, youtube.com/passionalworldradionetwork, @_pwtr, Twitter, iHeart, Amazon, Spotify, to name a few.