Measuring Dementia
Your newsletter is wonderful. My wife is in an advanced stage of AD and I found your newsletter quite by accident while surfing the net for news of new medicines. Your newsletter and the accasional letters to the editor has been a godsend for me as it provides a forum to ask and answer questions as well as a source of information on the latest studies. Our doctor is amazed at how we keep up to date with the study results and I directed him to your newsletter. Please keep up the good work!

One thing I have wondered about and only recently found out was; how do you measure the degree of dementia? I found out when trying to enroll my wife in a drug testing program that they use a testing sequence where you can score from 0 to 30 and where 30 would indicate minor or no dementia. I was shocked to learn that my wife scored an eight. I also found out that virtually all drug testing is focused on AD prevention and early detection, which in retrospect makes sense, but does not leave much hope for those with more advanced cases.
Floyd Hammerquist
Vancouver, WA

Alzheimer's Daily News Passes 500,000 Mark
The Alzheimer's Daily News received many emails in response to achieving the landmark of 500,000 news distributions in the first quarter of 2006. Thank you all for your kind responses and support. Here is but one example:

Dear Mark and Ellen,

Warm greetings from Kyoto in spring. It is extremely great that Alzheimer's Daily News has passed 500,000 mark. Your news is very helpful for my study and work for people with dementia and their family caregivers in Japan.
With best regards,
Miyake Yoshio, M.D.
Alzheimer's Association Japan
Kyoto, Japan