“There's
no cure for dementia” is the plaintiff cry emanating from the
Conventional Medical Establishment. Dementia, we are told, is the
inevitable passing of years, the relentless process of ageing.
I disagree! It is not that straightforward. Lots of people reach their 80’s, 90’s, and 100’s, fully compos mentis, Why
do so many more fail to do so now? At the same time an increasing
number of people are not reaching their 50’s with sound mind, memory and
understanding. So why is dementia now affecting so many younger people?
These trends need to be explained.
No disease is ever successfully treated or cured unless the cause is known. Only when the cause can be removed, the disease can be prevented. And if you can avoid the cause you can avoid the disease!
There
are over 100 forms of dementia, the most common being Alzheimer’s
disease. I am not going to differentiate between them here, for reasons
that will become clearer later.
Dementia seriously and
progressively restricts the individual’s ability to carry out normal
daily functions and activities of living. Ultimately, dementia can
destroy every faculty that makes us human. It affects parts of the brain
that control our thought, our memory, our social interaction, what we
say and do, and out lives. Dementia progressively depletes mental
agility, thinking speed, and leads to memory loss, understanding, and
judgement. It can affect our personality, increasing apathy, and
inability to control of emotions, growing disinterest in friends and
surroundings, and much more.
Dementia
is now an epidemic. If we confine our attention to Alzheimer’s disease,
it is just over 120 years ago that neurologist, Alois Alzheimer, first
described it. His patient was a woman who developed dementia in her 50s
and died in 1906. Now, Alzheimer’s disease is the foremost form of
dementia, estimated to affect 24 million people around the world. The
disease has been described as “a ticking time bomb”.
Alzheimer’s Disease International has projected that by 2040 there will
be some 81 million sufferers throughout the world, with much of this
increase being in the ‘developed’ world. The ‘developed world’ is, of course, the part of the world that consumes most pharmaceutical drugs!
The
UK’s Alzheimer’s Society published a major study on the social and
economic impact of dementia in 2007 and 2014. Both were undertaken by
King’s College London, and the London School of Economics. They provided
the most detailed insights into the prevalence and impact of dementia
in Britain.
One in 79 (1.3%) of the entire UK population, and 1 in 14 of those aged 65 years plus now has dementia. The majority are women.
In 2007 they estimated that there were 700,000 people living with dementia in the UK. In 2014 this had risen to 850,000 people.
The
total number of people with dementia in the UK is forecast to increase
to over 1 million by 2025, to over 2 million by 2051.
There
are now 42,325 people with early-onset dementia (onset before the age
of 65 years) and 773,502 people with late-onset dementia (onset after
the age of 65 years) in the UK. In 2007 the figure given was 15,000 for
early onset.
In total, 311,730 people with dementia in
the UK are living in care homes, of whom 180,500 are living in
residential care and 131,230 in nursing homes.
Among
people with late-onset dementia, 311,730 (38.7%) are living in care
homes (either residential care or nursing homes) and 493,639 (61.3%) are
living in the community.
The total cost of dementia to
society in the UK is £26.3 billion, with an average cost of £32,250 per
person. (The total cost figure in 2007 was £17 billion).
So
dementia has become a serious problem. But it is not a problem that is
being addressed adequately by the Conventional Medical Establishment.
The NHS website describes the causes of dementia in line with the approach of conventional medicine generally.
“Dementia
is caused by gradual changes and damage in the brain. The most common
causes of dementia include diseases in which the brain cells degenerate
and die more quickly than they would as part of the normal ageing
process. The changes usually happen because of a build-up of abnormal
proteins in the brain. This damage leads to a decline in a person’s
mental and, sometimes, physical abilities.”
As it so
often does, conventional medicine is providing a physical description of
what happens to the brain; it fails to deal with what causes those physical changes.
Clearly anyone who develops dementia has suffered some kind of brain
damage. The question is, or should be, what has caused the brain to lose
its ability to function and operate normally; and why is it that other
people do not develop this dysfuncction?
So often, the main excuse conventional medicine provides for the epidemic rise of dementia has been that ‘people are living longer’, that dementia is ‘a normal part of ageing’. There are three reasons to question whether this is an adequate or even a viable explanation.
Many people live to advanced old age without suffering any noticeable form of dementia.
many people are now contracting dementia in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. The conventional medical establishment now calls this ‘early onset dementia’.
The epidemic rise of dementia, in all its forms, far outstrips any rise in demographic trends.
The cause of the dementia, like so many other diseases, is often said by conventional medicine to be ‘unknown’.
They might mention factors such as genetics, family history; and life
style factors such as smoking, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure
and high cholesterol. And no doubt all these factors play a small part.
Yet none seem sufficient to explain the extraordinary rise in dementia.
Could
it be that the cause of dementia is not really ‘unknown’, least of all a
puzzle to the Conventional Medical Establishment. The magazine ‘What
Doctors Don’t Tell You’ (WDDTY) in October 2015 stated
“Evidence
is emerging that a large coterie of drugs for conditions such as high
cholesterol, depression and insomnia can all bring on dementia”.
The self-published book by Grace E Jackson, ‘Drug Induced Dementia - a perfect crime’ catalogues the vast amount of scientific evidence that pharmaceutical drugs are a primary cause of all forms of dementia. Anyone
who is concerned about contracting Alzheimer’s Disease, or anyone who
is caring for someone diagnosed with dementia, should read this book.
The
rise of dementia almost exactly mirrors the increased consumption of
prescribed drugs during the last 100+ years. And the incidence of
dementia is also reflects the amount of drugs consumed by different
countries throughout the world.
So does the Conventional
Medical Establishment know about this link? The patient harm that
pharmaceutical drugs do is contained within the own literature,
including the link with dementia. Sometimes their own medical journals
discuss the link. For instance, the Medscape website has published an
article entitled “Definition of Drug-Induced Cognitive Impairment in the Elderly”, which states:
“Numerous
drugs have been identified in ..... causing a multitude of psychiatric
symptoms, including hallucinations, fearfulness, insomnia, paranoia,
depression, delusions, bizarre behaviour, agitation, anxiety, panic
attacks, manic symptoms, hypomania, depersonalisation, psychosis,
schizophrenic relapse, aggressiveness, nightmares, vivid dreams,
excitement, disinhibition, rage, hostility, mutism, hyper-sexuality,
suicidality, crying, hyperactivity, euphoria, dysphoria, lethargy,
seizures, Tourette-like syndrome, obsessiveness, fear of imminent death,
illusions, emotional lability, sensory distortions, impulsivity, and
irritability, which can impact on mental capacity. Further, there are a
number of medications that may be linked to causing cognitive impairment
by inducing delirium, confusion, disorientation, memory loss, amnesia,
stupor, coma, or encephalopathy.”
So an important
question arises. Why does the Conventional Medical Establishment ignore
this when communicating with the general public? Why do they insist that
the cause of dementia is “unknown”. Why do they consistently suggest
that the causes are demographic, or genetic? Most important, have
patients and their families ever been informed that pharmaceutical drugs
and vaccines might be an important cause dementia, or indeed that there
is such a thing as ‘drug-induced cognitive impairment’?
One
outcome of such honesty and transparency would be the emergence of a
safe preventative treatment for dementia. STOP PRESCRIBING THE DRUGS!
And
has the general public been made aware of the drugs we should all be
avoiding in order to prevent dementia, or indeed any of the other
brain-related illness? Medscape has done so in its article, providing a long list of drugs to be avoided.
“Among
these drugs are: acyclovir, anticholinergics and atropine,
anticonvulsants, tricyclic antidepressants, asparaginase, baclofen,
barbiturates, benzodiazepines, beta-blockers, buspirone, caffeine,
chlorambucil, chloroquine, clonidine, clozapine, cytarabine, digitalis
glycosides, disulfiram, dronabinol, ganciclovir, histamine-2
antagonists, ifosfamide, interleukin-2, ketamine, levodopa, maprotiline,
mefloquine, methyldopa, methylphenidate, metrizamide, metronidazole,
pergolide, phenylpropanolamine, pilocarpine, propafenone, quinidine,
salicylates, seligiline, sulfonamides, trazodone, and
trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. Often these medications produce more than
1 type of psychiatric symptom.”
But there is much more, known links between pharmaceutical drugs and dementia.
Vaccine ingredients: aluminium and mercury
The
association between dementia and aluminium and mercury is well
established. In modern society we have increased our contact with these
poisonous substances. This includes contact through dental amalgam
fillings (a mercury based compound placed routinely in our teeth, in the
wet environment of the mouth that leeches this poison into our bodies,
close to our brain)!
And both aluminium and mercury have been an
ingredient of most, if not all vaccines in the last 70 years. These
vaccines are, or course, usually injected directly into our bloodstreams
which means that toxic ingredients have a direct route to our brain!
The Influenza Vaccine
Dr
Hugh Fudenberg, MD, one of the world’s leading immuno-geneticists,
found that people who have had 5 consecutive ‘flu vaccinations between
1970 and 1980 (the years he studied) the chance of getting Alzheimer’s
Disease was 10 times higher than those who had one, 2 or no shots. Dr.
Fudenberg said that this was due to the mercury and aluminium elements
in ‘flu vaccinations, and that the gradual mercury and aluminium
build-up in the brain causes cognitive dysfunction. (Hugh Fudenberg, MD,
is Founder and Director of Research, Neuro lmmuno Therapeutic Research
Foundation, and this information came from transcribed notes of his
speech at the NVIC International Vaccine Conference, Arlington, VA
September, 1997).
Dr Haley, in NeuroReport, 12(4): 733-737, 2001, said this about the association between mercury and Alzheimer’s disease.
“Seven
of the characteristic markers that we look for to distinguish
Alzheimer’s disease can be produced in normal brain tissues, or cultures
of neurons, by the addition of extremely low levels of mercury. In
addition, research has shown that Alzheimer’s diseased patients have at
least 3 times higher blood levels of mercury than controls. How much
more research is necessary before the appropriate regulatory bodies
respond with restrictions on the use of mercury-leaking dental amalgam
fillings and ALL vaccines?”
Antidepressant Drugs
Antidepressant drugs have regularly been linked with dementia. WDDTY (Oct 2015) in its article ‘The Damaged Brain’
says that antidepressants appear to target the brain’s white matter,
causing damage and functional impairment. It quotes four studies
(Stroke, 2008; 39:857-862, ProcNatlAcadSciUSA, 2003;100:1387-92,
AmJPathol, 20012; 158: 453-68, JAffectDisord, 2009;117:24-29) that “have found a greater incidence of dementia among populations using antidepressants.”
In a Danish study, including all patients treated with antidepressants, “the
rate of developing dementia was increased compared to the rate among
persons unexposed to antidepressants. Nevertheless, the rate of dementia
changed over time; thus during the initial prescription periods the
rate increased with the number of prescriptions”.
Antipsychotic Drugs
WDDTY
(Oct 2015) also outlines the known links between dementia and
antipsychotic drugs such as Clozaril, Zyprexa, Risperdal and Seroquel.
It highlighted two studies, (IntJGeriatrPsychiaatry 2005; 20: 872-5,
AlzheimerDisAssocDisord, 1994;8: 2011; 211-27) that focused on autopsy
studies which showed that those who had taken antipsychotic drugs showed
evidence of brain deterioration “suggestive of Alzheimer’s, or some other form of dementia”, both indicating that taking antipsychotics more than doubled the patients chances of having dementia.
Another
study (JNeurolNeurosurgPsychiatry, 2007; 78:233-9) found that taking an
antipsychotic drug alongside an antidepressant quadrupled the patients’
chances of having dementia.
A UK study (LancetNeurol, 2009; 8:
151-7) found that antipsychotic drugs were not effective in doing what
they were supposed to do, but were associated with greater cognitive
decline.
And in another British study (AgeAgeing, 1998; 27:181-8),
which looked at every case in a dementia register for 1993-4, found
that 13% had a past history of psychiatric treatment, and the use of
psychiatric drugs was nearly four times greater among those who had gone
on to develop dementia.
Statin Drugs
WDDTY
(October 2015) outlined the evidence linking dementia with Statins.
These drugs, according to claims made by conventional medicine, lower
cholesterol, and thereby help to keep Alzheimer’s at bay. They do not,
and as the article says, there is no evidence that they do.
“…the
lack of effectiveness of statins for treating AD was firmly established
in 2009, when two reviewers independently analysed two large-scale
randomised controlled trials… Their conclusion was that statins given
late in life to people at risk of vascular disease won’t prevent AD or
dementia”.
In fact, as the article suggests, it is now
becoming clear that cholesterol has a useful role in maintaining brain
function, which means that any attempt to lower cholesterol (with
statins or any other drugs) has the exact opposite effect. Professor
Yeon-Kyun Shin, who undertook this research, is quoted as saying:
“If
you try to lower the cholesterol by taking medicine that is attacking
the machinery of cholesterol synthesis in the liver, that medicine goes
to the brain too. And then it reduces the synthesis of cholesterol,
which is necessary in the brain”.
Benzodiazepine Drugs, and other sedatives/sleeping pills
Benzodiazepine
drugs, including that well-known ex-‘wonder’ drug Valium, are not only
addictive, with long-term side effects, and associated with many deaths:
they are also connected with a 50% increased risk of dementia. Research
was published in the British Medical Journal in 2014, “Benzodiazepine use and risk of Alzheimer’s disease: case control study” which concluded:
“Benzodiazepine
use is associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. The
strong association observed for long term exposure reinforces the
suspicion of a possible direct association even if Benzodiazepine use
might also be an early marker of a condition associated with an
increased risk of dementia. Unwarranted long term use of these drugs
should be considered as a public health concern.”
Doctors know about this link. The GP magazine, Pulse, published an article “Benzodiazepine use linked with the development of dementia” in September 2012.
“Patients
taking benzodiazepines have more than a threefold increased risk of
developing dementia, shows a long-term UK epidemiological study. Welsh
researchers followed more than 1,100 men over 22 years and found 9% of
them took benzodiazepines regularly at some point during the study….
This level of risk remained when researchers adjusted to take account of
factors such as psychological distress”.
Despite this,
Benzodiazepine drugs continue to be prescribed; and often for more than
the one month limit that has been imposed on them.
WDDTY (Oct
2015) confirms this picture, pointing to further studies linking
Benzodiazepines with dementia, and explains how the link works.
“Newer
studies show this has to do with their effect on brain gangliosides.
These molecules, made up of fat and sugar, are largely found in brain
lipids and covering every neutron. They are essential for regulating
cell growth, forming neural synapses and responding to foreign invaders
like toxins and bacteria. Without gangliosides, we lose the myelin on
our nerve cells, or the entire neton, and may even die”.
One sleeping drug, Zolpidem,
which comes under a variety of different names, was found in one study
to increase the risk of getting dementia by a massive 84%!
Anticholinergic Drugs
Anticholinergic
drugs are more common than many people may realise. Indeed, most will
take them without realising they fall into this drug category. They are
prescribed to relieve conditions such as insomnia and sleep problems,
high blood pressure, heart disease, chronic lung problems, poor
digestion, tremors, muscle stiffness, weakness, anxiety and
incontinence. Many are openly available, without prescription, at the
local chemist!
An article in the British Medical Journal (Feb
2006; 332: 455-459) refers to research that suggests doctors should be
aware that anticholinergic drugs can cause confusion, memory loss and
disorientation. Karen Ritchie, the author of the article, told Reuters
(London) said that:
“A large number of elderly
people are taking medications that can mimic early dementia and are
likely to be classed as having early dementia. A very large number of
people with so-called early dementia have these effects due to drug
consumption. The drugs they are taking are very common - they include
things like antihistamines”
“What we showed is that many
of the people who are classified in this way have it due to the
medication they are taking, and not because they have early Alzheimer’s
disease”.
WDDTY said this of the study demonstrates how quickly dementia can develop when taking these drugs.
“In
a study of 3,690 older people taking anticholinergic medication, the
researchers discovered that mental functioning began to be affected
within 60 days”.
This 2020 study also confirms the link between anticholinergic drugs with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, “Association of anticholinergic medication and AD biomarkers with incidence of MCI among cognitively normal older adults”.
Even the UK’s Alzheimers Society is aware of this study because they too have published it. But then, like so many other patient support organisations they are heavily funded by the pharmaceutical industry!
Antihistamine and Allergy Drugs
Antihistamines are also anticholinergic drugs. The abstract of one study, published on the PubMed website, says the following:
“Antihistamines
are frequently administered to psychiatric patients for a variety of
purposes. Several large studies of schizophrenics have revealed an
extremely high prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease neuropathology compared
with that in the general population. The neuroleptic treatment of
schizophrenia appears to be implicated in this phenomenon. Many of the
neuroleptics have anticholinergic effects, some being antihistamines….
It is proposed here that anticholinergics, including many
antihistamines, either exacerbate the Alzheimer process or possibly
contribute to its etiology / pathogenesis through their effects on
cerebral cholinergic systems”.
Proton-Pump Inhibitors (PPI’s)
PPI’s
reduce the amount of acid made by the stomach, and are used to treat
acid reflux and ulcers of the stomach and the gut. The link between PPI
drugs and dementia is confirmed in several studies. One, ‘Acid inhibitors may raise risk of developing dementia’
found that they may lead to confusion, delirium and dementia, and
particularly that memory problems were seen in older black people, who
were chronic users. Another, ‘Risk of dementia in elderly patients with the use of proton pump inhibitors’
assessed the association between PPI use and the risk of dementia in
older people. It concluded that PPI patients had a significantly
increased risk of any form of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease,
compared with non-users.
“Due to the
major burden of dementia on public health and the lack of curative
medication, this finding is of high interest to research on dementia
and provides indication for dementia prevention”.
Yet this study, ‘Inappropriate prescribing of proton pump inhibitors in older patients: effects of an education strategy’ found that there was frequent prescribing of PPI drugs for older patients that was entirely inappropriate, and “independently associated with co-morbidities and dementia”.
Epilepsy Drugs
These
have been implicated as a cause of dementia in a Finish study published
in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, 2018;; doi:
10.1111/jgs.15358). It found that anti-epileptic drugs, known to impair
cognitive function, also raise the risk of dementia by 60%, and
Alzheimer’s by 20%, and that the risk is even higher if the regular dose
of the drug is higher.
Hormone Replacement Therapy. (HRT)
Researchers
from the University of Helsinki analysed the medical histories of more
than 84,000 women diagnosed with Alzheimer’s between 1999 and 2013,
comparing them with women without dementia. (BMJ 2019. 364:1665). They
calculated that women who had taken HRT for more than 10 years had a 17%
increased risk of contracting the disease.
This finding runs
counter to what the conventional medical establishment are now telling
us - that HRT had a ‘protective’ effect against Alzheimers’. Apparently
some of the compounds from HRT drugs have been seen in the brain plaques
that are common in Alzheimers.
H2 BlockerDrugs
H2
blockers, or H2 receptor antagonists, have been marketed since 1976 as
Tagamet. Impaired cognitive function is the most frequently reported
adverse effect of H2 blockers, especially with older people. They have
been found to cause delirium, hallucinations, confusion, disorientation,
hostility, psychosis and paranoia. (AnnInternMed, 1991:114: 1027-34).
Prostate Cancer Treatment
ADT
drugs (androgen deprivation therapy) is a standard treatment for
prostate cancer and has been linked with dementia. It lowers levels of
testosterone, which protects against the brain disorder.. A study of
nearly 17,000 patients showed the men using ADT doubled their chance of
getting dementia. (JClinOncol, 2015; doi: 10.1200/JCO.2015.63.6266).
Oxybutynin (Ditropan)
This
drug is an ‘antimuscarinic’, a family of drugs derived from mushrooms
designed to control an overactive bladder. It is regularly prescribed by
doctors even though it is known to trigger dementia. Indeed, WDDTY
state that research has found Oxybutynin has been “consistently linked”
with dementia and cognitive impairment. Yet despite its known side
effects, it is still prescribed to 27% of elderly people with an
overactive bladder.
Poly-pharmacy
Mixing
drugs, or taking many drugs at the same time, as so many older people
do on the advice of conventional doctors, is also implicated in causing
dementia. As the WDDTY website says:
“Multiple
medications - known as poly-pharmacy - can fog the brain, while diabetes
and high blood pressure (hypertension) drugs can also accelerate
cognitive decline, say researchers from the University of Michigan
Medical School. It’s a difficult balance to get right, say the
researchers, but doctors and patients shouldn’t overdo the
pharmaceutical response to hypertension and diabetes. Low blood pressure
and low blood sugar are directly associated to cognitive performance”.
Perhaps
in order to avoid dementia, ‘getting the balance right’ is easier than
these researchers believe. Recognise the culpability of pharmaceutical
drugs in creating the current epidemic of dementia, refuse to take, and
look for safer alternative treatments!
Drugs for People who already have Dementia!
Older
people who already have dementia are often ‘treated’ with
pharmaceutical drugs that themselves are known to have a negative effect
on cognition, according to data from approximately 13 million
individuals presented at the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) 2024
Annual Scientific Meeting.
“Classes of
medications including anticholinergics, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines,
and non-benzodiazepine sedatives (Z drugs) have been identified as
potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) in patients with dementia,
according to the American Geriatrics Society Beers Criteria for
Potentially Inappropriate Medication Use in Older Adults.”
Other Drugs
Long as this list of drugs is it is not an exhaustive one but it should be a precautionary warning.
Nor
should it be a surprise that powerful and toxic pharmaceutical drugs
can cause dementia. The brain is the most delicate organ we have, and
the most easily damaged.
The connection is usually not shared with us by the Conventional Medical Establishment. But any cursory examination of the British National Formulary, or websites like Drugs.com,
demonstrates that most pharmaceutical have ‘confusion’,
‘disorientation’, memory loss, and many other symptoms of dementia, as a
drug ‘side-effect’.
So there is strong evidence to connect dementia with drugs. Yet this study, “Drug-induced cognitive impairment: delirium and dementia”, provides this admission, and this advice.
“Because
cognitive impairment caused by drugs is so frequently overlooked, it is
important that when symptoms of confusion, altered concentration or
difficulty thinking occur that you and your physician review any medications you are taking to determine if any of them might be the cause.” (My emphasis).
CT Scans
Nor
is it just pharmaceutical drugs that can cause dementia. Researchers at
the University of Southern Denmark found that having two CT scans in a
lifetime can start to change our brain at the molecular level. They
found that even low radiation doses, the equivalent of two CT scans, can
trigger molecular changes in the brain that cause cognitive
dysfunction. This was reported in WDDTY (February 2017), reference
Oncotarget, 2016; doi:10.18632/Oncotarget.12376.
The NHS website says that most types of dementia cannot be cured. “There
is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, although medication is
available that can temporarily reduce some symptoms or slow down the
progression of the condition in some people”. So the website
deals mainly with ‘care plans’, ‘palliative treatment’, ’supportive
measures’, and cognitive behavioural therapy to reduce depression. All
these recognise that there is no treatment for dementia other than its
management.
There are some drugs that Conventional Medicine
sometimes uses, such as Donepezil (Aricept), galantamine (Reminyl) and
rivastigmine (Exelon). These ACE inhibitors are prescribed for people
with early to mid-stage Alzheimer’s disease. When describing these
drugs, NHS Choices described their action as follows:
“A number
of medications may be prescribed for Alzheimer’s disease to help
temporarily improve some symptoms and slow down the progression of the
condition”.
So perhaps the best advise that
conventional medicine can give you about the safe and effective
treatment of dementia is for you to stop taking pharmaceutical drugs!
However, I suspect you no one will ever be given this advice.
Anyone suffering from any form of dementia should realise that when conventional medicine says there is ‘no treatment’ for a disease (which they often do) it actually means that there is no conventional
treatment for the disease. It also means that conventional medicine
does not want people to get to know that there are other forms of
treatment available to them!
Homeopathy is a medical
therapy that avoids the side-effects and adverse drug reactions of
conventional medical treatment. Homeopathy is the second most popular
medical therapy in the world, and the most popular holistic system of
medicine. Homeopathy is based on remedies made from a variety of
substances, all of which are known to cause symptoms of illness when
taken in their normal form. However, homeopathy has discovered that
substances that cause symptoms of illness can also be used (in
homeopathic potency) to cure those same symptoms of illness.
This is the principle of “Like cures Like” on which all homeopathy is based.
The
task of the homeopath is to find a remedy whose symptom picture matches
the same symptoms of a person’s illness. Remedy symptom pictures have
been developed over the last 230 years.
Homeopathy does not
differentiate, it does not need to differentiate, between the different
type of dementia. The selection of a homeopathic remedy is based on the individual’s symptoms of illness, not on the basis of any broad conventionally-defined illness diagnosis.
It is important to stress that homeopathy does not treat conventionally diagnosed illness or disease directly. It treats patients who have individual symptoms.
So the homeopathic treatment of dementia, including Alzheimer’s
disease, individualises the process. The following remedy descriptions, taken mainly from the Hpathy website, describe some of the dementia characteristics the remedies are known to treat.
Alumina
An
excellent remedy for those who are depressed and afraid of losing their
minds. They become confused with their identities and experience
rapidly changing moods. Patients are often chilly, constipated, and very
hurried in their actions and movements.
Baryta Carb
Helps
those who have regressed back to childish behaviour. They may be
fearful, timid and shy and lack confidence. There is loss of memory and
some patients may suffer from chronic glandular disorders.
Calcaria Carb
Complete lack of development of brain and other organs with forgetfulness. Slowness and inability to acquire knowledge.
Chamomilla
Sensitiveness; irritability, peevishness; very easily angered and suffers profoundly as a result thereof.
Ignatia
Extreme mental sensitiveness due to grief, disappointment in love affairs.
Lycopodium
Great
depression of spirits; despondent; worried about his salvation; about
being able to perform his duties; about passing in examination, fretful,
irritable, morose, very vehement and angry. Constipation, eructations
of sour food.
Mercurius
Complete loss of
all sense of decency; filthy in body with grovelling mentality; great
weakness of memory; impaired vision; foul breath; heavy coated tongue.
Natrum Sulph
Can
often bring relief to those who are fixated with and dwell on past
hurts and unpleasant events. They may feel sad and lonely, be filled
with self-pity, or be unable to express the love they feel for others.
These people often have headaches and painful joints.
Nux Vom
Often
angry, quarrelsome, irritable, disposition to find fault with
everything and every body. Extreme sensitiveness to the words and
attention of others, easily hurt, can be insensitive to other’s
feelings. May want to commit suicide but is too cowardly to do so; very
irritable, quarrelsome, vindictive.
Staphisagria
Sleeplessness. Coward with shamefulness, disgust, humiliation, despair, shyness with desire for solitude
Tarentula
Rages
over something and throws whatever in hand and whatever he could reach.
On slightest contradiction or objection he will hit the person with
whatever he can get hold of.
These are very short definitions of
remedies that are much more complex. It is always advisable to consult
with a qualified homeopath who will have much greater, and more precise
knowledge of the kind of issues particular remedies can deal with, and
linking the individual with the most similar, and thus the most
effective remedy.
These are some longer, more detailed descriptions of three few homeopathic remedies that have been developed.
Alumina
The
remedy Alumina, or Aluminium, is perhaps the most well-known of the
homeopathic treatments for dementia. Patients who need Alumina are very
absent-minded. They find it difficult to concentrate on anything and
their memory is poor. They can appear generally slow and dull,
especially when they first wake up, and can get very upset or angry if
you try to hurry them along. As the disease progresses they become
confused and disoriented. Physically, Alumina patients are often slow
and unsteady on their feet. They shuffle or stagger as they walk. Their
legs feel heavy and almost paralysed. The same paralysis affects the
digestive tract and the patients can find it difficult to swallow and
also to pass even soft stools. They can develop a craving for
indigestible things such as coal or earth.
Anacardium
One
of the main themes associated with Anacardium is that of duality; the
patient is split into two personalities or feels pulled in two
conflicting directions. This makes it particularly appropriate for
patients who switch from periods of clear thought and normal behaviour
to times when they do not recognise family or friends and appear
extremely fearful or aggressive. At times they appear as if nothing is
wrong with them. They are happy to see their loved ones and will talk
easily about their plans for the day, what they have been watching on
TV, places they have visited. On another day that personality seems to
have disappeared and is replaced with somebody who yells “Who are you?
Why am I here? I want to go home.” They lash out at their family members
or their carer. They recognise nobody and are terrified that everybody
wants to harm them.
Anacardium has a terrible feeling of
inferiority. In dementia this can manifest itself as a feeling that they
have no control over their life. They know that their memory is weak
and that they find it hard to make decisions. But they resent the way
that other people seem to organise and control them. They want to choose
their own activities and pastimes, but they can’t remember what they
enjoy doing. When somebody offers a suggestion they are angry and
abusive, often using bad language and even biting or spitting.
Baryta Carb
This
remedy has been described as a gentler version of Anacardium. Like the
Anacardium patients, those needing Baryta carbonica have no
self-confidence. However, unlike Anacardium, these patients have often
displayed an obvious lack of confidence and low self-esteem all their
lives. Anacardium are strong-willed and even appear arrogant as they
strive to hide their feelings of inadequacy.
Baryta carb is often
used as a remedy for children but it is equally relevant to adults who
display childish behaviour. They are tremendously shy and, when
approached or spoken to they may grab tightly onto the arm of their
carer, or in some cases even hide behind them. As the dementia
progresses they seem to revert to childhood. They wander around
clutching a doll or a teddy bear. Once they feel reassured enough to
talk to you they will tell you all about their toy – its name, what it
likes to eat or drink, whether it has been good or naughty.
Baryta
carb patients are generally very emotional. They can burst into floods
of tears about the most minor upset. The cause of the tears may be so
slight that you struggle to work out what has upset them.
Baryta
carbonica has a marked effect on the cardiovascular system. It affects
the muscular walls of the heart and the blood vessels, causing
palpitations, distended arteries and aneurism. It can therefore be a
useful remedy for cases of vascular dementia.
Cannabis Indica
The
homeopathic remedy Cannabis indica is completely legal and available in
the UK because of the amount of dilution involved in producing
homeopathic remedies. As you might expect from a substance that affects
the nervous system (and in its raw form can create a feeling of euphoria
as well as hallucinations) Cannabis indica has a profound effect on the
mental state. It is a very important remedy in the treatment of
dementia, particularly where there is tremendous fear of insanity. The
patients know that their memory is failing and they are are terrified
about what will happen to them.
Cannabis indica has a very notable
effect on the patient’s communication skills. People who need this
remedy can be very excitable and talkative, and yet they have difficulty
remembering words or phrases. This makes it seem as if they are
gibbering and talking nonsense. They stammer or stutter as they speak.
During a sentence they struggle to find the correct words, or even
completely forget what they were about to say. They can’t finish the
sentence or they seem to change from one subject to another before
reaching the end. They have similar problems with writing; they have to
stop mid-sentence because they can’t remember the point that they were
trying to make. Either they write very slowly and haltingly or they
scribble quickly but what they have written doesn’t seem to make sense.
When they read all the letters on the page seem to blend into each
other.
Cannabis patients suffer from confusion and disorientation.
They lose their way even when in familiar surroundings and can’t
remember how to get home. In a care home they may wander around looking
lost and afraid; they don’t remember where they are or have forgotten
how to find their room. They can suffer from delusions and
hallucinations and are often frightened of the dark.
Graphites
Graphites
is a remedy for cases of dementia where the patient suffers from severe
short-term memory loss but the long-term memory is good. They are
reliving past memories. They believe themselves to be children and
wander from one room to another, asking “Where is my mum?” Or they
imagine that they are in their 30s or 40s and are in the middle of their
working life. They say “I have to leave in a minute. I have to go to
the office.” or they describe over and over again the tasks that they
used to do in their job.
Because these patients imagine themselves
to be in another age, they don’t recognise their own family members.
They show no interest in their (grown up) children, because they do not
fit the images that they have in their minds. They turn away from their
husbands or wives because they imagine themselves to be youngsters and
they have no memory of their spouses. This is how the “indifference” of
Graphites can manifest itself in dementia.
Graphites patients are
usually very weepy and can sometimes be confused with Pulsatilla,
especially as they are often overweight and like to be out in the fresh
air. But unlike Pulsatilla they are chilly and complain about the
slightest draught. Graphites affects the skin and these patients might
also suffer from dry skin that cracks and bleeds. You will find their
carers applying cream (often Cetraben) to the patients’ skin after
bathing.
Hyoscyamus
This remedy can be very
effective for dementia patients who are highly sexed and display
themselves with complete abandon. They masturbate openly in front of
other people, show no embarrassment and, when reprimanded for their
behaviour may laugh gleefully. They understand that such explicit sexual
behaviour is “naughty” and that is one of the major reasons for doing
it. They love to shock other people and get great enjoyment both from
the masturbation itself and the reactions that they get.
This same
desire to shock and offend can lead them to use bad language and rude
gestures. They swear at their family members or carers when it is time
for bathing or for their medication. Hyoscyamus patients are very
suspicious and imagine that the carers are trying to poison them or harm
them in some way.
Patients that need Hysocyamus can be quite
malicious towards other people. They may kick or hit out at the people
who are trying to help them, or at other patients (particularly those
that are timid or easily bullied). If they make somebody cry they show
no remorse and may even laugh uncontrollably. They think it is funny
that the person is upset.
There is a significant and growing amount of evidence confirming that homeopathy is a safe and effective medical therapy.
The most important proof is clinical experience,
that is, the many millions of patients who, having suffered serious
illness, have been treated successfully with homeopathy. This is going
on throughout the world, and been doing so for over 230 years.
Homeopathy has also developed a voluminous Materia Medica.
This contains intricate details of the healing properties of several
thousand substances that are used to make homeopathic remedies. The
short remedy pictures above are just a tiny part of this knowledge.
Scientific
studies are the third most important evidence for the safety and
effectiveness of homeopathy. There have been studies suggesting that the
progress of Alzheimer’s disease can be slowed by homeopathic treatment.
These studies have been discussed here. It concludes that a Homeopath should be consulted in the treatment of Alzheimer’s.
The
German homeopathy company, Heel, has also been working on the
homeopathic treatment of dementia, and in its article on a 2011
Neuorscience convention in Washington presented several studies on a
multi-target medication based on low dose natural substances that had
proven to positively influence both symptoms as well as disease-related
mechanisms of Alzheimer’s. This concludes with this statement:
“All
studies have confirmed our earlier observations: this medication has
proven to enhance the learning and memory performance significantly in a
dose-dependent fashion”, says Dr. Bernd Seilheimer from Heel. “It
showed at least as effective as the Gold Standard at all tested
behavioural models. In addition, it is very well-tolerated. No negative
side-effects could be documented with the natural preparation. Following
the new paradigm, multi-target preparations could become a natural
alternative to conventional preparations for treating complex diseases
such as Alzheimer’s.”
