Monterey, CA Dementia & Alzheimer's Link To Depression In Mid-Life Analyzed By Kaiser Permanente : Hoping To Find A Cure, There Is A Reason To Hope

View From A Non-Profit Serving Carmel, Carmel Valley, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Gonzalez, Greenfield, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, Seaside And Soledad California A study released this week and published in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that people that suffered from chronic depression in mid life were at greater risk of suffering from vascular dementia in their later years.  That's bad news given the recent depression the economy has felt.  With such high unemployment and many people losing a fortune in the stock market and real estate, there have been plenty of reasons for people to be depressed.  Vascular dementia is the second-leading cause of dementia behind Alzheimer's disease and researchers are hoping that this study will encourage doctors to treat depression more aggressively so that developing something worse later on won't be a side effect.  "It's quite clear depression late in life can be an early sign of Alzheimer's," said a researcher from the study, Rachel Whitmer from Kaiser Permanente Northern California's Division of Research.  "There's a lot of debate whether depression is really a risk factor for dementia, or if it just shows up," she told the Wall Street Journal.  The non-profit health company Kaiser Permanente has done a number of great research projects in recent years by analyzing their huge database of health records, and I applaud them for this.  This particular study looked at 13,535 long-term members of Kaiser Permanente who had enrolled in a study from 1964 to 1973 when they were 40 to 55 years of age.  They were able to look at this data and later medical records to see if there was a link between depression in mid-life and developing dementia in later years.  It's great to see technology being used to try and find causation and hopefully eventually a cure for a devastating illness for which there is no cure.  Both of Hands To Help Seniors' Platinum Sponsors, Alliance Home Health and Family inHome Caregiving of Monterey, provide in-home help to a number of senior citizens with Alzheimer's disease or some other type of dementia.  It's very sad to see them deteriorate mentally, which often causes them to slide downhill physically if they don't receive the help and encouragement they need to stay active and get physical and mental exercise.  Both my father and my grandmother had Alzheimer's disease when they passed away.  It's one of the most terrible things in life, to watch a loved one's mind slip away right before your eyes.  I hope that one day a cure will be found for Alzheimer's and other types of dementia.  With all of the various research projects being carried out and increased funding for Alzheimer's research from the Obama Administration, there is a reason to hope.