Terry Pratchett's take on Alzheimer's

My apologies to anyone who has caught this article on BBC already (it's dated Oct.7th, 2008)


Terry Pratchett: I'm slipping away a bit at a time... and all I can do is watch it happen | Mail Online

Nothing much to say that doesn't seem blatently obvious... This makes me sad, and angry, again, still...

Alzheimer's sucks big time. My aunt was diagnosed with it 2 years ago. A confectioner for the past 40 odd years and she had to ring my mom the other day to ask her how to make a fruit cake. And yet two hours later, she made a gorgeous sponge cake with no problem at all.

It and dementia has to be one of the worst things for a family to have to watch a family member go through.

I remember seeing an article a few years ago, which made me bloody furious at the stupidity and wastefulness of some research programs thought up by the medical profession just to keep people in a job.
With the wide range of ailments that can seriously affect the human race; one of the big universities in the UK had proudly announced that after two years research, at a cost of over £2m..."the popping sound heard when people 'cracked their knuckles' was simply caused by a build up of nitrogen bubbles in the synovial fluid of the finger joints."

Simply? Helloooo, (knocks on head) Mr. Researcher, how many people have had their lives ruined by this 'life threatening' condition?

When it comes to wake-up calls, I certainly admire and respect Pterry for helping to increase public awareness of Alzheimers which has taken a back seat to other medical research for far too long.

Joc, I had a doctor tell me 18 years ago that the popping sound was caused by air bubbles caught between the joint. It does make no sense at all for the people to have to pay the bills of "stupid" research (not saying all research is stupid, but honestly, do we really need to spend 43 millions dollars to find out what causes toe jam?).

My grandmother died of Alzheimers. It was a very slow and debilitating process. Not just for her, but for the family as well. I don't think that she and Pratchett have the same type, but it's scary as hell one way or the other.