Free Republic

So they said on TV today that Donald Sterling is suffering from dementia and had diminished cognitive abilities. Doesn't this mean that he is a sick and cannot comprehend what is currently happening with his situation. So lets break it down: a mentally handicapped person is secretly taped making statements that he may or may not understand and goes on TV and does the same. Shouldn't the concern be with his health and mental well-being. If he was a drug addict or alcoholic (ok, lets face it, and not white), that's what the media would be focusing on. I feel...

Cynics are three times more likely to develop dementia than those who have faith in humanity, a study has shown. Believing that others are motivated by selfishness, or that they lie to get what they want, appears to radically increase the risk of cognitive decline in later life.It could mean that grumpy old men and women should be screened more closely for diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Cynicism has previously been linked to health problems such as heart disease, but this is the first time it has been associated with dementia.“These results add to the evidence that people’s view on life...

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney may take another run at the White House, "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer said. "I have a source that told me that if Jeb Bush decides not to run, that Mitt Romney may actually try it again," Schieffer said during a panel discussion on the CBS Sunday morning news show.

Surprise benefits of humble coconut oil - Reversing Dementia.

Is ObamaCare a fundamental right that our Founding Fathers would have envisioned for the country? House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi recently suggested that the founders would have supported ObamaCare. Fox Business Network’s Elizabeth MacDonald said that the Founding Fathers wouldn’t have even given Pelosi the right to vote back then. MacDonald said they wanted the states to govern themselves and wouldn’t have wanted the central government to control health care.

A spokesman for Republican House Speaker John Boehner called Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "unhinged" on Monday, after Reid charged Republicans may have had a helping hand in emboldening Russia to annex Crimea. "Since a few Republicans blocked these important sanctions last work period, Russian lawmakers voted to annex Crimea and Russian forces have taken over Ukrainian military bases," Reid said on the Senate floor Monday. "It's impossible to know whether events would have unfolded differently if the United States had responded to Russian aggression with a strong, unified voice." Reid was referring to the stalling of a Ukraine aid...

Election '14: Chief House Democrat Nancy Pelosi says her party can win this November by asking, "Where are the jobs?" That's like Bill Clinton running for re-election asking, "Where are the interns?" Former House Speaker Pelosi supposedly had been celebrating the fourth anniversary of the enactment of ObamaCare last week. She was, after all, standing before a placard touting "The Affordable Care Act Four Years Later," which featured photos of happy-looking, satisfied patients. "We just couldn't be prouder," she said of the health reform that has been separating Americans from their preferred doctors, their health plans and lots more of...

Centuries after Shakespeare wrote about King Lear's symptoms, there's still no perfect way to care for sufferers of dementia and Alzheimer's. In the Netherlands, however, a radical idea is being tested: Self-contained "villages" where people with dementia shop, cook, and live together—safely. We, as a population, are aging rapidly. According to the Alzheimer's Association, one in three seniors today dies with dementia. The process of finding—and paying for—long-term care can be very confusing, unfortunately, and difficult for both loved ones and patients. Most caretakers are underpaid, overworked, and must drive far distances to their jobs—giving away some 17 billion unpaid...

Older women with higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids in their blood had slightly less brain shrinkage than women with low fatty acid levels in a new study. The results may suggest that omega-3s protect the brain from the loss of volume that happens with normal aging and is seen more severely in people with dementia, the researchers say.

A first-of-its kind study set to be released Monday finds that older adults who engaged in brain training drills retained measurable benefits up to 10 years later, suggesting that such interventions may help stave off impairments of aging that rob seniors of their independence. The latest trial found that nearly three-quarters of those who participated in reasoning exercises and information-processing drills still displayed those abilities a decade later.

On MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry show Saturday, a few minutes after the host's emotional apology for a racially-charged segment on last week's show, panelist Katrina Vanden Heuvel renews the charge that Republicans are racists. [video goes here] The panelists are discussing populist sentiment in America as part of a discussion about the election of Bill de Blasio in NYC. The discussion spans a commercial break, and in the second half, Katrina Vanden Heuvel is addressing the idea that Republican populism has been successful in stirring up emotion and movement based on a message of lower taxes and limited government. Vanden Heuvel...

Researchers say vitamin E might slow the progression of mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease -- the first time any treatment has been shown to alter the course of dementia at that stage. In a study of more than 600 older veterans, high doses of the vitamin delayed the decline in daily living skills, such as making meals, getting dressed and holding a conversation, by about six months over a two-year period. Vitamin E did not preserve thinking abilities, though, and it did no good for patients who took it with another Alzheimer's medication. But those taking vitamin E alone required less help...

The Belgian Senate voted today 50-17 to extend euthanasia to children with disabilities, in a move pro-life advocates worldwide had been fearing would come and expand an already much-abused euthanasia law even further. The vote today in the full Senate comes after a Senate committee voted 13-4 to allow minors to seek euthanasia under certain conditions and the measure also would extend the right to request euthanasia to adults with dementia. There is still a chance to stop the bill in the House of Representatives, though pro-life campaigners fear it will become law. “Currently the Belgian euthanasia law limits euthanasia...

There is nothing quite as difficult to predict as the future. In my lifetime I have already lived through an “inevitable” ice age that never materialized and “inevitable” mass starvation (through overpopulation) that also never happened. When I was in Central America I remember reading a book called Inevitable Revolutions by the historian Walter LaFeber, but more than a quarter of a century later the inevitable still had not taken place. By now, according to predictions, most of us should have been dead from AIDS, that is if variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease or Ebola virus had not got us first. The...

Regular exercise can play a significant role in reducing the risk of dementia, according to new a major new study by Cardiff University. The research, which followed the health habits of more than 2,200 men aged 45-59 in Caerphilly over a 35-year-period, looked at the impact of five healthy behaviours that are integral to healthy ageing. These included taking regular exercise such as walking two or more miles to work each day, cycling ten or more miles to work each day or "vigorous" exercise as a regular habit, not smoking, a low body weight, a healthy diet and a low...

<p>Should children have the right to ask for their own deaths?</p> <p>In Belgium, where euthanasia is now legal for people over the age of 18, the government is considering extending it to children — something that no other country has done. The same bill would offer the right to die to adults with early dementia.</p>

Sen. John McCain has hired a controversial Syria analyst who recently was fired by one D.C. organization and resigned from another after it emerged that she inflated her academic credentials. The Republican senator's office confirmed to Fox News that Elizabeth O'Bagy was hired as a legislative assistant, and will start work next week. "Elizabeth is a talented researcher, and I have been very impressed by her knowledge and analysis in multiple briefings over the last year. I look forward to her joining my office," McCain said in a statement.

It’s an inconvenient truth of aging: In our 30s and up, it gets increasingly harder for most of us to recall names, faces, and details from the past. Scientists have long debated whether this gradual decline is an early form of Alzheimer’s disease—a neurodegenerative condition that leads to severe dementia—or a distinct neurological process. Now, researchers have found a protein that distinguishes typical forgetfulness from Alzheimer’s and could lead to potential treatments for age-related memory loss. Previous studies have shown that Alzheimer’s disease and age-related memory loss involve different neural circuits in the hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped structure in the brain...

Kim Min-woo, 15, started having memory problems recently. He started flunking tests in subjects that required heavy bouts of memorization. And then he couldn’t remember the six-digit keypad code to get into his own home. He had to call the code up on his smartphone to get in the door. Kim’s mother took him to a doctor and the diagnosis was shocking: Kim had symptoms of early onset dementia due to intense exposure to digital technology. Since the age of five, Kim was tethered to either the television or the computer. He is an avid computer game lover. “His brain’s...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Former President Jimmy Carter said on June 28 that both Christian and Islamic religious leaders share the blame for mistreating women across the world. During an international conference on women and religion, Carter’s examples of religious authorities continuing doctrines of male superiority included the Catholic Church’s practice of banning women from the priesthood and some African cultures’ mutilation of the genitalia of young girls. Describing these doctrines as theologically indefensible, Carter said they contribute to an environment in which political leaders passively accept violence against women, sex-trafficking, and inequality in the workplace. “There is a great aversion among men leaders...