Posted on 08/31/2006 4:53:19 PM PDT by wagglebee
My sympathy to you about the nursing home operators stealing your money. Knowing how the universe works, they'll be finding out that "what goes around, comes around".
I'm sorry about your sister. That is very sad.
ping
"what goes around, comes around"
One can hope. I just think most of the homes treat old people more like animals in a kennel. They don't show very much respect to them.
My gosh, her Alzheimers started at forty? That's just tragic. I hope and pray a cure is found soon. I don't think that diseases that mainly affect the elderly are a real priority, though, do you? They're all too busy trying to cure AIDS, a self-inflicted disease.
Early onset Alzhiemer's happens fairly often. In our family alone it's about 25% of the females. The youngest ever documented (that I know of) started at age 25. I believe it's a genetic thing. I took care of my sister until the last 3 years when it was no longer safe for her to remain at home. But, when we finally had her admitted to the Veterans Home I was stunned how many younger Alzheimer's patients they had. On the floor of 18 patients, 4 were under 60, and 2 of them were under 50.
I do hope research helps prevent that illness, regardless of age. There are many horrible diseases I am sure will be knocked out in the future. AIDS does take a tremendous amount of money out of play in research. One thing I try to look at is that sometimes, a cure for an unrelated disease is found inadvertantly while researching a different one. And, they learn various mechanisms about all diseases that can make cures more attainable. So, although AIDS may be self-inflicted in many cases, it is such a complicated illness, much is being learned that is applicable to other illnesses, too.
How the money is prioritized for various research grants is quite political, and with that I will agree 100%. I also agree that often times euthinasia is committed for convenience, not mercy. The future looks bleak to me on that last one. One is a matter of discovery, the latter is a mind set. The "right" to die will soon become a "duty" to die. I don't like that.
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