When I finished my training I was taught that the vast majority of dementia was Alzheimer's disease, with occasional cases of multi-infarct dementia as well as odd syndromes such as Kreutzfeld-Jacob disease and genetic, traumatic, toxic and tumor related syndromes. Parkinson's disease, we were taught, caused a tremor and freezing up of a person's movements and only very rarely was associated with any kind of memory loss. These teachings helped us modern doctors leave behind terms such as "senility" or "hardening of the arteries" to explain cognitive loss. We still had no useful tools to change the course of dementia, but we were more scientific in our description of it. In the last several years, however, neurologists have determined that there is a very common dementia that is associated with Parkinson's disease. Lewy body disease or Lewy body dementia was a condition that I had been taught was not only uncommon but only accurately diagnosed a...
The cost of health care in the US is higher than anywhere else in the world, and yet we are not healthier than our peer nations. In fact, in terms of such measures as infant mortality and life span, we don't measure up. Why is this? Many people involved in providing or receiving care have some pretty good ideas about what costs so much, and what we can do to reduce costs and improve quality. Sharing these stories is an important step in creating affordable universal health care.