A few years ago Ted Turner announced that he has Lewy Body Dementia. Jane Fonda, Ted Turner’s ex-wife, said she had known about it for quite a while. Ted Turner said he feels exhausted and forgetful. There is no cure for Lewy Body Dementia but there are medications to help with symptoms.
The NIH (National Institutes of Health) defines Lewy body dementia (LBD), as a disease associated with abnormal deposits of a protein called alpha-synuclein in the brain. These deposits, called Lewy bodies, affect chemicals in the brain whose changes, in turn, can lead to problems with thinking, movement, behavior, and mood.
According to Lewy Body Dementia Association (lbda.org), LBD affects an estimated 1.4 million individuals and their families in the United States alone. Because LBD symptoms may closely resemble other more commonly known diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, it is currently widely under-diagnosed.
LBD is an umbrella term for two related diagnoses. It refers to both ‘Parkinson’s disease dementia’ and ‘dementia with Lewy bodies.’ The earliest symptoms differ but reflect the same underlying biological changes in the brain. Over time, people with both diagnoses will develop very similar cognitive, physical, sleep, and behavioral symptoms.
LBD is a multi-system disease and usually requires a comprehensive treatment approach with a collaborative team of physicians from varying specialties. Early diagnosis and treatment may extend your quality of life and independence. Many people with LBD enjoy significant lifestyle improvement with a comprehensive treatment approach, and some may even experience little change from year to year.
There is a lot of research being done. In Japan, there are exciting developments of a potential new drug. Scientists at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, believe they may have found a drug, which they call SAK3. They have tested the drug in a series of experiments involving mouse models of neurodegenerative disease, the latest of which appears in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
“We discovered the novel, disease-modifying therapeutic candidate SAK3, which, in our studies, rescued neurons in most protein-misfolding, neurodegenerative diseases,” says senior author Kohji Fukunaga, Professor Emeritus in the University’s Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Researchers say the drug appears to work by activating a mechanism for disposing of clumps of misfolded proteins. The new study adds to previous research that suggests SAK3 could treat a range of brain disorders that involve protein misfolding, including Alzheimer’s disease and Huntington’s disease. The scientists hope to start clinical trials of the drug shortly.
According to the NIH, Lewy body dementia typically begins at age 50 or older, although sometimes younger people have it. LBD appears to affect slightly more men than women. Lewy body dementia is a progressive disease, meaning symptoms start slowly and worsen over time. The disease lasts an average of 5 to 8 years from the time of diagnosis to death, but the time span can range from 2 to 20 years. How quickly symptoms develop and change varies greatly from person to person, depending on overall health, age, and severity of symptoms.
For more information visit Lewy Body Dementia Association: LBD.org
The Lewy Body Society
LewyBody.org
National Institutes of Health
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-lewy-body-dementia#signs
That’s sad
I used to love watching Ted Turner on talk shows. I love his accent. I listened to Jane Fonda talk about him and she said that he loves nature and watching the birds. He has saved the bison and owns an extraordinary amount of land.