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Selects: How Dementia Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Good morning everyone. I hope you're enjoying yourself and having
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a great weekend with friends, family, loved ones, or I
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: don't know, even people you might dislike a little bit.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: How dementia works. This is a pretty brutal episode, everybody.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: This is from November fourth, twenty fifteen, but there's some
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: really good information in it. If you are suffering from dementia,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: or someone in your family is suffering from dementia, you
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: have our deepest empathy because it is tough stuff, and
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: we hope this episode can bring you a little bit
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: of comfort because knowledge is power and understanding things is
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: what we're all about, and that can really help sometimes
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: when you're dealing with something as devastating as dementia.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: So how dementia works, right here.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Right now, Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: of iHeartRadio.
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: Charles w Chuck Bryant and Noel. The Stint of Noel continues.
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: Everybody's like, stuff you should Noel. No, No, that's not
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: what we're calling it. It's the Stint of Noel. All right,
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: Stuff you should Knowel. That's too clever.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a little cutesy. Yeah, that's all all right.
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: It's my only aversion to it. All right, all right?
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: What do you are you with? Stuff you should know?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Changing the name of our show after eight years?
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: No, just the Noel's stint the name of it. Remember
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: the Summer of Sam?
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah? Yeah, sure, why not?
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: I don't like it?
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: All right?
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: Should we come up with the third idea?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: The stint of nol sounds too much like something's wrong
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: with Noel.
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: That's why I like it. It's hilarious. There's nothing wrong
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: with Noel, my god. And if you think there is,
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: you need to answer to me.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: There's something you should know.
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: I see, that's what I'm saying. It sounds like something Strickland.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: Would it come up with?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? You know? And we haven't been in a flame
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: war with Strickland in a while.
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: It has been a while. It's been too long. I've
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: gotten soft. You just launched one across the bow, so.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Chuck.
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: Yes, are you familiar with dementia?
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: Sure, are you running? Your family doesn't.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Run in the family, But my grandmother, who lived to
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: be one hundred, had dementia at some point, which you know,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: when you love to be one hundred. That's I don't
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  Speaker 1: know about likely, but it's not surprising.
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  Speaker 4: It's probably pretty likely. It's not from what I understand,
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: it's not a just a natural consequence of age, right,
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: but it's pretty prevalent.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Sure.
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  Speaker 4: And dementia's actually super misunderstood. It gets confused with Alzheimer's
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  Speaker 4: a lot, or there's a lot of different kinds of dementia,
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  Speaker 4: But dementia is actually it's not a disease. It's a
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  Speaker 4: set of symptoms that's brought on by disease.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I think that is widely misunderstood. Yeah, but you are
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: totally correct.
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  Speaker 2: A set of symptoms, and.
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  Speaker 1: It is not just your garden variety forgetfulness that comes
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: as you age.
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  Speaker 4: No, because that is age related and that is normal.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: The totally age related things called age associated memory impairment,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and that is uh. I think, I mean that happens
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: to everyone, right, It's just.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: Like you forget your keys more often, that kind of stuff. Sure,
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  Speaker 4: But when you do forget your keys more often, you
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: snap your finger and go, ah, I forgot my keys again,
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: what is wrong with me? Yeah, that's normal.
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  Speaker 1: One of the big tells of true dementia is when
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: you don't realize that you're forgetting right.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: So that's when it gets scary.
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  Speaker 4: Right, And we said that it's not a natural consequence
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: of age. And one of the things that I turned
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: up in researching this is we're not exactly sure what
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: causes dementia. We don't even know if some of the
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  Speaker 4: telltale signs of dementia are the cause of dementia in
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  Speaker 4: some cases or the result of dementiae. Not entirely certain,
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: but it is very widespread among the aged population. In
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: the United States. I think five point three million Americans
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  Speaker 4: have dementia right now.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 4: And as our population ages, because the baby boomers are
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  Speaker 4: starting to get older, I think they're expecting something like
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  Speaker 4: sixteen million Americans are going to have it by twenty fifty.
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  Speaker 4: Sixteen million is I think how many? About how many
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  Speaker 4: people have it around the world right now? And in
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  Speaker 4: America alone, we're going to have that number in twenty fifty. Yeah,
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  Speaker 4: and it's very expensive, Actually, how much money a lot?
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  Speaker 4: You ready for this?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah?
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  Speaker 4: In twenty fifteen, we have spent two hundred and twenty
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  Speaker 4: six billion dollars on healthcare for dementia a while, and
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  Speaker 4: they're expecting by I believe twenty fifty, when we are
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  Speaker 4: caring for sixteen million in twenty fifteen dollars, not futuristic,
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  Speaker 4: much more inflated fifty do right in twenty fifteen dollars,
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  Speaker 4: We'll be spending about one point two trillion dollars on
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: dementia if somebody doesn't do something.
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  Speaker 2: Man.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very expensive. It's also extraordinarily sad as far
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: as diseases or symptoms of diseases. Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And I also want to recommend our May twenty eleven episode,
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  Speaker 1: A podcast to remember. Our memory episode ties heavily into this,
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  Speaker 1: So if you haven't listened to that one yet, go
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: listen to that one, either before or after.
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: Or if you listen to it and forgot, go back
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  Speaker 4: and listen to it.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: So dementia itself is not diagnosed. It's not simply memory loss.
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  Speaker 1: It's memory loss along with one of the following at
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  Speaker 1: least one of the following one or more. Aphasia, which
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: is if you can't understand or produce language any longer,
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  Speaker 1: a praxia, and all these are super sad if you've
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  Speaker 1: ever seen.
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  Speaker 2: Them up close.
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  Speaker 1: A praxia if you cannot make certain movements even though
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  Speaker 1: your body physically is healthy, right, agnosia, which is you
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: don't recognize objects like the remote control or your grandkids,
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  Speaker 1: stuff like that. And then executive dysfunction when you have
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of troubles planning and organizing and reasoning. So
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  Speaker 1: that along with the memory loss or at least one
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  Speaker 1: of these, you could be diagnosed with dementia, right.
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  Speaker 4: And so, like we said, dementia is a set of symptoms, right, Yes,
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  Speaker 4: it's actually brought on by disease. And the most common
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: cause of dementia I think something like sixty or seventy
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  Speaker 4: percent or something like that of dementia cases is brought
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: on by Alzheimer's disease.
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  Speaker 1: I could have sworn we did one on Alzheimer's, but
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  Speaker 1: we have not. Yeah, I don't think we have.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know. We've talked about it enough.
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  Speaker 4: I think, yeah, it's popped up plenty of times, but
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  Speaker 4: we've never just done a straight up Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's brings
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: on dementia through something called neurofibrillary fibrillary tangles also known
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: as beta I'm sorry, tau protein tangles. Yeah, and beta
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: amyloid plaques, right.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the plaquesa's like a just a protein build up,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: a sticky protein build.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: Up, Yeah, which is so when you when your neurons
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: fire and you have a thought, it's an electrochemical process,
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: and there's residual that is left behind, and these residuals
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  Speaker 4: can build up in your synapses and cause your synapses
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  Speaker 4: to not fire as well. And when your synapses don't
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  Speaker 4: fire as well, they start to die off, and the
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  Speaker 4: neurons that are there that lead from these synapses or
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: lead to these synapses, die themselves and you have neural loss.
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  Speaker 4: Like literally the brain cells in your brain are dying
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  Speaker 4: off at a rapid rate. Yeah, and when it's caused
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  Speaker 4: by beta proteins and TAO or beta amyloid plaques and
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  Speaker 4: tau proteins in the cells, then what you have is Alzheimer's.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And they aren't sure the cause of Alzheimer's still,
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  Speaker 1: Genetics is they think has a lot to do with it.
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  Speaker 2: And you can live with Alzheimer's for while.
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  Speaker 1: Up to a decade, although they said in this article
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  Speaker 1: many says three to five years is more common.
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  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it definitely shortened your lifespan.
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  Speaker 4: And like you said, genes are definitely part of the
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  Speaker 4: risk factors. A polypo protein, a polopo protein. E okay,
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  Speaker 4: I think, which is weird. If you have a mutation
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  Speaker 4: on this gene, you have a higher risk of Alzheimer's,
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  Speaker 4: even though the gene just codes for a protein that
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  Speaker 4: carries cholesterol through your bloodstream. Yeah, doesn't have anything to
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  Speaker 4: do with the TAU protein tangles or anything like that
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  Speaker 4: as far as I know. That's weird. Also, if you
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  Speaker 4: have a family history of dementia, you're you have of Alzheimer's,
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  Speaker 4: you have a higher likelihood. And then if you have
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  Speaker 4: down syndrome, you are at a higher risk of developing
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  Speaker 4: Alzheimer's in middle age.
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  Speaker 1: Oh really yeah, interesting, So that's and we will do
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: one on Alzheimer's. But that's how Alzheimer's can call dementia.
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  Speaker 1: There's also vascular dementia, which is that was the case
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  Speaker 1: with my grandfather who he had a stroke, and it
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  Speaker 1: accounts for about twenty percent of dementia cases.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, stroke is when.
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  Speaker 1: You have a loss of blood supply to the brain
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  Speaker 1: or a hemorrhage or a blood clot and it can
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  Speaker 1: be either one big stroke event which causes a lot
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  Speaker 1: of damage. And that's a single INFARCD dementia, or it
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  Speaker 1: can be a lot of the accumulation of symptoms because
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  Speaker 1: of a lot of little mini strokes you have over
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  Speaker 1: the years.
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  Speaker 4: Right, and then the damage just builds up and you
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  Speaker 4: finally once that last one that does the straw that
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  Speaker 4: breaks the camel's back. Yeah, and you have dementia that
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  Speaker 4: happens pretty rapidly after that last that last one, that
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  Speaker 4: last stroke you have.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's a multi infarc when it's a bunch
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  Speaker 1: of them, and little many strokes are common a lot.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes you have them and don't even realize you've had them.
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  Speaker 1: Right with my grandfather, he had the big one and
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  Speaker 1: oh really, Yeah, we talked about this before and I
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  Speaker 1: think something about speech, but yeah, he lost his ability
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  Speaker 1: to speak, you know, English.
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  Speaker 4: So that would be a phasia.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, he couldn't produce language, well, he produced, Yes, he
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: cannot produce language. He said things, but it you know,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: it didn't make any sense, gotcha. But he had an understanding.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: You could see the frustration. Yeah, you know, I know
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: how to how I'm supposed to. My grandmother is driving us,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: let's say, and she doesn't know how to get there.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: He does, and he can't tell her, but he's telling her. Yeah,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: it's just coming out all mixed up.
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: And that's that's a hallmark of dementias. There's emotional changes
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: in the person because they they're not communicating like they
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: want to say, people aren't responding like they want the
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: people to and they'll get snippy and then ultimately say withdrawal.
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: They'll just give up on communicating at all because it's
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: too frustrating or just too sad, you know, yeah, which
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: is it's one of the common results of dementia. It's
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: a comorbidity. No, it's a complication.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: And then and with the single stroke event or actually
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: or with the multi strokes, it's.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Different for everyone.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: There isn't any single like, well, this is going to
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: happen because this person had a stroke, right, It could
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: be a variety of different things from you know, paralysis
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: on one side of the face or body bowel and
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: bladder control problems. He didn't have any of those. He
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: looked totally the same physically, He walked and talked the same,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: except for the fact that they weren't real words.
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: That was like the most noticeable thing.
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: I remember you telling me about your grandfather before I
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: don't remember what it was.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: It was a long time.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: We were talking about speech, like where Nicky's area or
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: broke his area? Yeah, yeah, something like that. So with Alzheimer's,
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: it first attacks the hippocampus, which means that it's going
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: to take away your episodic memory, which is your memory
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: of recent events, right, Yeah, and then it starts to
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: move its way into other areas of the brain where
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: your judgment is affected, your speech patterns are going to
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: be affected. Your personality is very much affected and changes
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: with Alzheimer's. With Alzheimer's, but not as much with the stroke. Yeah.
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: With vascular dementia, you know, there might be some other
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: things where like part of the faces sagging, or the
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: patient can't move their arm or something like that, but yeah,
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: the personality will remain intact because those regions of the
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: brain aren't affected like they are in Alzheimer's.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: And then in about five to fifteen percent of dementia
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: cases it stems from something called Louis body dementia.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Which we were just talking about. They think Robin Williams
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: might have suffered from.
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: He definitely did.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: He definitely did.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah. They found in his autops that he had I
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: think he was diagnosed with it before he died. No, okay,
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: that was one of the reasons why he took his life.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because that can cause severe intense hallucinations.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah big time. Did you look up?
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, man, very scary stuff.
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: You like, very apparently A typical one is very brightly
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: colored animal or person. Yeah, that you see in great
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: detail for many minutes on daily a daily basis, like
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: just intense hallucinations.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you think you're you know, losing it, right.
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: And that's one of the first symptoms of Louis body dementia.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: And it was discovered by Frederick Louis and nineteen twelve.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: And it has has nothing to do with your body.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: A Louis body is there are deposits again protein deposits
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: of the alpha.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Sinucleon that appear on the brain.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: So don't think of body in the terms of like
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: your physical body, right. And this is also president Louis
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Body's and Parkinson's. So as a result, not only are
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: you going to have symptoms similar to Alzheimer's with Louis
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: body dementia, but also some of the tremors and balance
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: issues of Parkinson's right, which is super sad as well.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: Is that what Michael J. Fox has Parkinson's?
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's that's what the movie Awakenings was about.
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: When they wasn't it like a group of Parkinson's patients
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: that like L.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Dobo worked on, was that Parkinson's I can't remember.
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: I think they didn't. They didn't realize what they thought
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: they were locked in or something in there. I realized
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: their Parkinson's strummers were so acute that they were like
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: they were not even shaking, they were just fretly. Yeah. Interesting,
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: They're just their muscles were totally contracted rather than contracting
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: and relaxing again and again.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: And Robert Williams, Yeah, how about that?
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, then we have something that used to be well
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: it's called now fronto temporal dementia. It used to be
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: called Pick's disease, but now Pick's disease is a specific.
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: Version which I couldn't really suss out what the difference is,
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: could you know?
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: I couldn't either, as.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: Long as it wasn't just me, I feel better.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: But ft D is really an umbrella term. It's about
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: five percent of dementia cases, and it's going to affect personality,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: behavior and language, like big time, big time, and it's
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: where your frontal and temporal lobes are actually atrophying and shrinking.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: Right. And the reason why is you remember with Alzheimer's
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: you have beta amyloid plaques and tau protein tangles.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: Well, with the fronto temporal dementia, you don't have the
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: beta amyloid plaqs. You just have the tau protein tangles.
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: But it's enough to cause massive neuronal loss.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: And this is like I think a lot of people
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: at first think they might have tourette Yeah, because you
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: can yell things out inappropriate behaviors.
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Like if your grandfather suddenly becomes hyper interested in
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: sex and likes to talk about it in public, or yeah,
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: exposes himself to people in public, there's a pretty good
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: chance that he has developed fronto temporal dementia.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Or if I did, because it's unusual in that it
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: attacks younger people. It's gonna onset between forty and seventy
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: five years old, which distinguishes it from their types of dementia.
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And if your grandfather used to do that stuff already,
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: then that's not the case. The key here is that,
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: like this has come out of the blue, somebody is
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: really just completely changed in their personality. They might get
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: into really risky behavior like gambling all of a sudden.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, shoplifting Yeah, and like risky investments are like pulling
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: all their money out of the bank.
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And with picks disease too. Apparently apathy is a
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: big indicator of this. There's a big personality change and
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: the person is no longer they have no empathy, they
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: have blunted emotions. Yeah, and then they may also be
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: engaging in risky behavior. So basically your grandpa or your
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: grandma has just turned into like the transporter you know,
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: or me or you well, yeah, you're five. You lack empathy.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: No no, no, I'm just saying, oh, I see, because.
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: It affects you sing like they turned into you. Oh no, no, no,
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: you have blunted emotions and amble.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: There's also Huntington's disease.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: This is it seems like much more physical in nature,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: uncontrollable movements, although there are changes in personality, but real fidgety, herky, jerky.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Your brain loses the ability to control coordination essentially, right,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: which is I think fifty percent chance of inheriting the gene.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: But you can live with it for up to twenty years. Yeah,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: which seems like, as far as dementia go, is one
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: of the longer life expectancies.
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: But again, I mean, like I would guess this has
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: kind of become clear. The hallmark of dementia is memory
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: loss paired with some other problem like not being able
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: to create speech any longer recognize speech, or not being
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: able to move that kind of thing, or not being
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: able to plan. And like we said, well we should
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: probably take a break. Huh.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we got a couple of more types that we'll
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: talk about and then some other good stuff. Okay, right
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: after this, the last two, actually the last three we're
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: going to talk about, because there are many many other
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: kinds of dementia, Like, we could spend hours and hours
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: talking about all the different kinds hours, But we have
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: talked about kreutz felt yakup disease and I.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Can't remember which one, and we say that all the time.
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: Is there a disease that kills by preventing sleep?
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: Is that the one which we should have rightly called
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: how prion diseases work?
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because is a prion infection. It's very rare, about
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: one out of a million people will be affected in
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: any given.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: Year, like mad cow disease or KU Yeah, exactly. It's
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: a sponge of form disease. Yeah, so crazy, it is.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: It's very interesting. It could be genetic. But and I
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: thought we also talked about it in an organ transplant.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I think so, because it can occur because of infected
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: tissue that you are implanted with or from an organ.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And this is neuronal loss due to the like
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: holes literally being eaten into your brain by this disease. Yeah.
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: And then you can also get dementia from when you
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: have HIV. If you are a boxer or say a
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: football player in the NFL, you may have dementia from
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: a traumatic brain injury like a concussion of repeated concussions.
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: And there are plenty of diseases. There's also reversible dementia too.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: If you have a vitamin deficiency, if you take certain medications,
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: you can develop dementia, but this is reversible for the
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: most part. Though, age associated dementia is not reversible. And
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: like we said, it's kind of tricky to diagnose this
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: stuff because it is normal for people to become more
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: forgetful as you age, and then to make it even
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: more confounding if you're a diagnostician. Not only do people
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: get more forgetful, there's an intermediate stage between dementia, a
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: dementia diagnosis, and just normal age related forgetfulness, and that
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: is called mild cognitive impairment. So if you can catch
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: this from what I understand, and we'll talk about treatments
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: and everything later, but if you can catch things like
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: Alzheimer's and other diseases that lead to dementia early, although
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: there's no cure for any of them, you can manage
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: them a lot better and delay to death like the
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: real devastation associated with it. Yeah, by a significant amount
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: of time. Catching is the tricky part, and especially if
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: you have dementia, you don't really realize that there's any
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: kind of problem. So you're probably not going to take
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: yourself to the doctor.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: No, but you what you should do is listen to
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: your loved ones because they are going to be looking
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: at you a little more closely then you can.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: You know that they have more perspective. Yeah, exactly, that's
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: what you're looking for.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: So don't get you know, don't get offended if a
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: loved one says, let's go get you checked out, because
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: you can do something if you catch it early on.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: Right, unless you're very wealthy and it's your no good
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: nephew that you've never trusted anyway, you know, very true,
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: then maybe bring a lawyer in on it's right, see
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: what's up.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: So if you do go get checked out.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: From the second you walk in the door, your doctor
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: is going to be eyeballing you and looking for any
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: signs just from their their trained eye, like you know,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: from how you walk to the way you answer questions
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: to how they interact with you.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: They want to know you.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: They're gonna have to know your history because they need
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: to have some context to compare it to right.
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: Like were you always a compulsive gambler? Is just like
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: new behavior?
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it helps to bring you know if if
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: you're older, maybe bring your grown son or daughter with you.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Or whoever has a lot of fountact.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Sure, although your spouse you never know what, I don't know,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: maybe trying to get read of you.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, like that no good nephew, Yeah.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Exactly, I'm just kidding, of course, although I'm sure that happens.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Then there are a couple of tests that they usually
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: do in conjunction with one another. The many mental state
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: examination the MMS just a lot of basic questions there
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: for mental tasks.
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: But they're coded.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: The tasks are yeah, and they're scored individually.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and when you say question three, this person got
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: an eight on you can go over and be like, yeh, dementia.
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: And it's actually pretty effective, actually it is. And there's
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: another test that ties into the MMSEC that they both
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: indicate one another, which apparently they're both really good at
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: indicating dementia because this other test called the clock drawing test.
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: Did you look this thing up? Yeah?
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I thought this was pretty fascinating, It really is. It
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: seems really like why would someone tell someone to draw
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: a clock at a certain time.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Of the day.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Usually they say draw a clock showing that it's
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: ten after eleven. Yeah, And it makes a lot of
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: sense in a lot of ways because it draws on
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: all these different kinds or different regions of the brain,
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: different skills. Right, So, like, first of all, you have
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: to remember what a clock is and what it signifies.
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: That's a big one. What it looks like, Yeah, is
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: a clock isn't made of like squiggly lines or anything
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: like that. You have to remember how a clock is
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: laid out the order that the numbers go in that
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: it doesn't keep going after twelve to thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: And then once you got all this, you have to
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: show the hands showing that it's ten after eleven, So
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: the hands won't be pointing at ten and eleven. It
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: should be the longer hand should be pointing at the two,
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: and the shorter hand should be just past the eleven. Right,
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: that's right. This requires a tremendous amount of brain power,
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: even though it's very simple and straightforward, and you can
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: tell a lot about a person's mental faculties just by
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: having them draw this.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the four specific things that requires are verbal understanding, memory,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: spatially coded knowledge, and constructive skills. And if any of
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: those are off in conjunction with the MMSC, then they're
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: going to have a pretty good idea where you fall
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: on the dimention scale.
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: If you don't have the constructive skills to pay the bills,
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: you may have dementia.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: That's right, and they actually I looked at one study
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: about the clock drawing test. Basically I think it was
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: just a more recent like, hey, let's go in and
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: really look at this thing again, and it checks out.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they stood behind it and said, yeah, it's actually
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: a really good indicator.
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like it really holds up. And I think they
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: developed it in the sixties, but it didn't take off
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: until the eighties, and then they.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Like it as sixties thing.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: It does, you know, but it's something you can do anywhere.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: And now they're starting to gather these different clocks that
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: people with different types of dementia are drawing and basically
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: compiling them into a data base so you know what
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: to look for. Even more like, oh, somebody draws a
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: clock that has like a thirteen, fourteen, fifteen on it, right,
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: they may have this type of dimension.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Right, and this one looks like Sabad or Dahli drew it, right.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Then they might have this kind of dementia, yeah, or
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: they might just be super talented creative.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you never know. All right, let's should we take
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: another break?
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: Why not? Is it time? Sure?
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: All right, we'll be back after this to talk about
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: treatment and some of the other pitfalls of dementia.
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: So, Chuck, we've kind of I think it's almost goes
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: without saying, like the problems associated with dementia, like you
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: lose your ability to reason in a lot of cases,
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: you lose your ability to move and take care of yourself,
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: You lose your memories, you have trouble forming new memories,
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: you have trouble recognizing people. So living life is extremely difficult.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: But there's also like other complications that you may or
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: may not think of. Right, So, let's say you're an
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: elderly person and you have a battery of medications that
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: you need to take for unrelated heart disease. Do you
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: think you're going to remember to take those medications? Probably not.
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: Even if you have like a time or set or
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: some sort of calendar or something like that, you may
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: have trouble even remembering that you have a calendar that
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: you need to go check out to see what's on there,
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: let alone to take the medication that's indicated that's on
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: that calendar.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a big problem. Nutrition itself is a big problem.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Either you forget to eat altogether, or you think you've
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: already eaten, or you.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Physically have deteriorated so that you can't control the muscles
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: to chew and swallow.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Any good joke, right, it's real danger.
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: So when people die from Alzheimer's, it sounds kind of strange.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: If you think about it, it's like, well, no, they
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: forgot they lost their memory or whatever, right, No, the
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: brain is actually being slowly destroyed, yeah, periodically, and eventually
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: it's going to reach the parts of the brain where
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: you can't swallow any longer. Then you die from that
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: kind of thing. You also can lose your sense of hunger,
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: like you just aren't hungry anymore. Yeah, it's kind of
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: tough to eat, especially when you're not thinking or remembering
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: that you should eat, when you're just not hungry.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Ever, Yeah, it's a tough one. Hygiene Reduced hygiene is
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: a big one. A lot of times in severe dementia cases,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: you either are unable to bathe and dress yourself and
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: brush your teeth, or you forget to it just falls
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: by the wayside. I know that was the case with
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: my grandmother. She needed, you know, she needed to be
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: bathed by my dad.
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: Because she lost interest in it or because she just
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: couldn't do it anymore.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Uh, I think both.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, that's another indicator. You said that when you
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: go in for a diagnosis, the doctor is going to
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: be watching you and just kind of sizing you up.
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: One of the things I look for is whether you
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: look disheveled. Yeah, that's a big one. And especially if
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: your son or daughter is saying like, this is really
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: bizarre behavior because mom always like dressed to the nines.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when now she left the house.
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: She just wears this dirty old bathrobe all the time
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: and doesn't ever want to take a shower. Yeah, that's
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: usually an indicator of dementia.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not like she just gave up and doesn't
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: care anymore, right, it's part of the symptoms.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, taking hold.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: Although another problem with dementia and one of the confounding factors,
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: is that depression can be a byproduct or co morbidity
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: of dementia. Because you recognize that your life is changing
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: in ways that you're not happy about. You can't communicate anymore,
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: you forget stuff all the time, you can become depressed.
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: So then that could lead to you giving up on
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: taking showers and dressing as well.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and not only depressed, but agitated and aggressive riddle
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: with anxiety. A lot of your emotional well being and
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: emotional health will be slipping away from you.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And again this can be a direct result of
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: chemical changes in your brain due to dementia, or it
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: can be like this is the result of you recognizing
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: these changes and just becoming upset about them.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: We talked about communication and the hallucinations. You're going to
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: have trouble sleeping as well in a lot of cases. Yeah,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: and then personal safety. A lot of people die every
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: day because of accidents that happen as a result of dementia.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: Right, People who shouldn't be driving to get into cars.
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: And there's this there's a push that's going on now,
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: I think in the last year or so as part
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: of the Council line Aging, like the United States Council
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: line Aging, there's a new initiative called the Dementia Friendly
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: America Initiative.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: Really neat.
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah. It's basically saying, look, we've got about one in
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: eight people over sixty five in the US have dementia.
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: We're about to have way more than that in the
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: next couple decades. We need to be prepared for this
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: kind of thing. So let's start training America how to
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: recognize the signs of dementia and then how to react
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: to it in a friendly and helpful manner so that
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: people who are wandering around with dementia don't withdraw eighty
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: thousand dollars from their bank account and walk around with
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: it in their pockets outside.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and how do you do that.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: You get some money from the government as a grant
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: to go out and hire people to literally go to
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: businesses and go to restaurants and talk to waiters and
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: waitresses or should I just say waitrons, go to banks
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: and talk to tellers, go to anywhere where there's interaction
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: with another human, grocery store check out people, and literally
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: train them on, like you said, how to recognize it
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: and how to kindly deal with these people.
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: Right exactly. Apparently one of the things you teach people
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: in service industries is not take it personally. Right that
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: if somebody's behaving irratically or they're using incorrect words, and
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: they're of a certain age, the chances are they probably
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: have dementia, and there's ways of dealing with it. Apparently,
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: responding to it in a soft, friendly manner tends to
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: get results from the dementia patient, especially if you are
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: not being an aggressive jerky, right exactly, Just being nice
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: will yeah, frequently get good results. And yeah, it is
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: a pretty neat initiative.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Absolutely and necessary. Yeah, you know, but.
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: It's it's I'm stricken by the idea that people are
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: planning out this far ahead. Yeah, for this kind of thing.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: It's exceptional, it is, and it's scary but awesome. So
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: if you do have a family member, one thing that's
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: important to remember. There's something called the caregiver burden that
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: my dad and his wife definitely experienced. It is really
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: really tough on you, on your family, and it can
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: actually take a physical toll. They have some stats here
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: if you your risk of death as a woman if
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: your husband has dementia increases twenty eight percent eight percent
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: in the first year after they're diagnosed. Yeah, and only
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: twenty two percent for a husband whose wife is diagnosed,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: and then.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: Still pretty significant incag sure, just from the dementia diagnosis.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: And what they recommend in this article is to take
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: care of yourself first, because they found that if you
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: are not going into this with the right attitude and
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: you are upset or have anxiety, you're just gonna do
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: more harm anyway.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: So get yourself right, take care of yourself.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: And go into it in the right frame of mind,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: and you'll actually be able to help better.
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And this caregiver burden or caregiver burnout is a
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: very real thing physically too, Like you have low energy,
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: you're you have low productivity, you become snippy, resentful, angry,
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: and you can end up basically mistreating your own parent
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: or spouse. Yeah, because you're so upset with this horrific disease.
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: One of the all of dementia is that there's no
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: two days that are alike. And when you're dealing with
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: the dementia patient, what worked yesterday isn't going to necessarily
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: work today. Well, if you can no longer predict what
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: your life is going to be like from day to
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: day and you're spending I think I saw this one
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: study that found an average of twenty two hours a
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: week of unpaid care by spouse's wives, daughters, that kind
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: of thing, you can very easily get stressed out. The
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: main thing you have to do is ask for respite care.
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: Like you can't do it by yourself. You have to
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: have other family members, members of your church, your community
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: come and give you a break so you can go
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: do other stuff for a while. Absolutely, and I mean
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: you could totally see how you could just very easily
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: evolve a really unhealthy dynamic if you're just trying to
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: do it yourself. Because you lose perspective. This becomes your norm,
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: even though it's totally abnormal.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and boy, you talk about a really sad way
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: to damage what previously was a good relationship with a
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: parent or something is devastating, you know.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: So there are drugs that they use to help stave off.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Dementia, mainly right now. They are colon esturays inhibitors, and
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: they suppress colon esterrays, which is an enzyme that breaks
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: down acetylathena colin, which we've talked about before. That's what
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: helps transmit messages between neurons.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: So that will help, Yeah, because if you're not communicating
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: as much as you were before, at least the communication
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: that is going on can stick around longer, exactly. You know.
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: It seems primitive as far as like brain drugs go,
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: but it makes sense, you know. Yeah.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: And then there's another one, and are they still using
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: this belief mamantine and it inhibitates inhibits glutamate, which we
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: talked about before, which causes neuron death when overstimulated.
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: I can't remember where we talked about that one either.
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: I just remember glutamate from the Umami episode.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was definitely that one.
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: And then there's also stuff you can so these drugs
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: will help some.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: That's for non vascular dementia.
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: Right. With vascular dementia, you're gonna want to take blood
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: thinners that's superagulates, yeah, to keep more strokes from coming
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: along and making the whole thing worse. And then with
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: like Louis Body disease, to deal with things like the
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: hallucinations and stuff, you will probably also be given anti
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: psychotics as well. And one thing that they're starting to
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: realize more and more is very difficult to really figure
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: out what kind of dementia people have just from what's
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: the scan MRI scan, and you can really go back
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: and accurately identify types of dementia from autopsies right right,
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: And so for more and more autopsies, they're finding that
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: there's a lot of what's called mixed dementia where you
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: have Alzheimer's and vascular dementia, or where you have Alzheimer's
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: and Louis Body's disease. And so it can be really
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: tough to suss out all the different kinds of dementia
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: a person might have. But if you can do that,
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: then you can you can put them on a drug
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: regimen that could really kind of help more than just
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: treating the Alzheimer's, letting the Louis body go unrecognized and
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: rampant they're unchecked. There's also preventative stuff you can do too.
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, like what crossword puzzles?
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I told you. Emily's grandmother, Mary is ninety five. Yeah,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: and very sharp. Yeah, and she does.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Word puzzles all the livelong day and is soku.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah she does. She does all kinds of word puzzles. Yeah,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: things that I have never even heard of.
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: Supposedly that helps stave it off. Yeah, apparently this one's great.
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: Alcohol moderate alcohol consumption, which is two a day or
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: for men or one a day for women. Okay, it
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: has a protective effect. It staves off, stays off dementia.
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: They're not sure why, they're not sure what kind of
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: alcohol is the best. They just know that for some reason,
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: alcohol has a protective.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Effect, probably up to that two drinks, and then it's
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: probably bad after that.
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: Yes, then it becomes very bad after that. Yeah. So
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: you want to just moderate them.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Ount right, in all things, people, moderation, moderation, And then
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: there are some things that you can do.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Here's the thing.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: There's a debate on whether or not you are tricking
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: your loved one by doing things like giving them an
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: appliance that doesn't work, so they can pretend that they're
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: ironing or something because they used to love to take
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: care of their laundry themselves. So here, let me remove
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: the cord from this iron and and is.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: That tricking someone?
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: Is it not?
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: And a lot of people think, no, that's what you
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: should do because it makes them feel like they're being useful.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: They're not gonna get hurt or hot iron, so it's
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: all good. Other people say no, that means that they're
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: not hanging on to that last bit of reality they
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: may have.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: I think it's fine.
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: I think it's fine too. And there's actually there's a
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: an entire village set up in I think like just
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: outside of Amsterdam.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is awesome, called Hojuwei.
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, how would you say that?
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: I have no idea, because Dutch is the weirdest, the
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: weirdest language.
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: We'll say that, okay, okay, And it's a it is
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: a it's an what's called the dementia village basically, yeah,
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: where everyone who lives in this village. I think one
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: hundred and fifty people all have dementia, and they live
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: in group houses.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: They're well, there's caretakers that live there too, but.
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: Okay, yes, you're right. Yeah, and they live in the
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: group houses with them. Yes, And a lot of the
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: people realize that this is their nurse or just think
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: it's a good friend of theirs. Yeah, they don't really
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: remember where when they became friends, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: the houses they live in have different themes according to
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: how the people lived, depending on whether they're blue collar,
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: whether they their memories go back to the seventies. This
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: whole place is basically set up so that it's a
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: very non threatening safe place for these people just kind
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: of live and move about within sure safely, yeah, safely.
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: And so they can go to the grocery store, they
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: can go to the movies, they can go ride a bike.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: And everyone, the people at the movie theater know that
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: the people there have dementia, right like every they're real
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: movie theater workers and real waiters in the restaurant, especially
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: trained exactly. So it's a less clinical setting than say
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: a nursing home. And a lot of people say this
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: is awesome because it's as close to real normal life
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: that they were used to as they're going to get Yeah, exactly.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Then of course there's other people that poopoo and say no,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: you're tricking these people.
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: But you can say, hey, okay, here's the big difference
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: with this place. If this, If this dementia patient gets
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: lost in Manhattan and they run across a city worker
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: who's collecting garbage, that city worker may do absolutely nothing
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: to help them.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: In HOJV village, Yeah, that city worker especially trained to
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: get that person back to their house or alert their
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: caretaker that this person is having a crisis or something
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: like that.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: It's what we're trying to train people to do in
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: the future. Yes, they've just isolated it to a community.
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so there's I mean, when you break it down
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: to that distinction, I don't really see anything wrong with it,
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: especially when you are protecting the patients themselves. It's not
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: like you're doing it to experiment on them, no, no,
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: you know, or because they'll produce gold in their urine
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: or something like that. You know, like this is strictly
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: for their protection, yeah, but also allowing them to live
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: a free life outside of a clinical setting, right, I
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: don't see much wrong with that, I do get what
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: the bioethicists are saying, like, yeah, sure, you're robbing someone
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: of their dignity by lying to them, by diluting them,
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: or playing into their fantasies. Strictly speaking, Yes, in the
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: real practical world, I think this is great.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: If I'm at that point, then and play into my
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: fantasy exactly, please.
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: It is nineteen eighty four all the time.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: In fact, one of the people that work there say
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: that people that do criticize it at a very good point.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: He's like, they don't understand what we're doing here. These
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: aren't actors. They're like real employees of these places. They're
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: just helping out right, you know.
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: And so Hojvei village. I hope I'm saying that right
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: because I'm really putting myself out there.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sure you're not.
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: It's become this kind of ideal standard of care. But
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: it's also really expensive.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure.
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: So in a country where there's a lot of socialized medicine,
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: it could do pretty well, like in the Netherlands or
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: in Canada.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when they take care of people even though they
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: don't have money, right, Exactly.
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: There's one called in Canada. It's called Pentanguishani Pentanguishini, Ontario.
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: They have one, it's a little smaller than the one
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: in Amsterdam. They're also building one in Miami as well.
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: So it is starting to take hold. People do believe
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: in it, and apparently the patient's families are very happy
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: with this kind of thing too well.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: And hopefully with the initiative of what's it called All.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Dementia America DFA, yeah or yeah, hopefully with those efforts,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: more and more people will because it's coming.
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's coming.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: A lot more folks are going to be out there
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: that we need to take care of.
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we don't know how to cure dementia. We just
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: know it's coming.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be one of them, you think, so
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: sure at some point if I make it that long.
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: But you know, not everybody gets dementia no matter how
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: long you live.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: I got a feeling really, yeah, it does run in
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: my family a little bit. Yeah, and I have my
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: father's family jeans more than my mother's. I feel like,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: so if if I had my mother's jeans, they all
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: died from heart attacks and strokes and heart disease.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: Young, not a lot of cancer. Yeah pretty young.
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so if you make it past sixty five, yeah,
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: you beat the heart stuff.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: Than the Bryant jeans.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Well we're all going down one way and they love.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: To be a hundred.
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah you know, yeah, man, I thought it was something.
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I wonder, Chuck, if like our specific like us,
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: you and me specifically, creaming all this information in every
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: week is actually beneficial, or if we're just setting ourselves
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: up for massive cases of dementia because we're just pushing
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: stuff in and getting it out, pushing in new stuff
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: and getting it out, Like are we abusing our brains
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: or are we exercising it? I question that sometimes.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: I bet someone out there, I bet there's a neurologist
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: who has a good gut instinct answer to that.
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: Let us know. I want to know good news are bad? Okay, neurologists.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: There's going to be a subject a line that just says, neurologists, guys,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: you're screwed.
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I have bad news. If you want to know
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: more about dementia, you can type that word into your
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: favorite search engine and it will bring up tons of
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: information and great resources. You can also type it into
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: the search bar house to works and it'll bring up
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: a great article. Since I said search bar, its time.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: For listener mil I'm gonna call this when Hecky Krasnaw
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: lives okay, although I don't think he is with us. Hey, guys,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: only just started recently listening to the show. It's been
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: a fantastic way to pass time and learned something interesting.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: I'm a home taught high schooler.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: So every time I listen to an episode of your show,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: I get a history or science credit.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: How about that.
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: That's pretty great.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: But as great as that is, it's not why I'm emailing.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: I actually have a fun fact for you guys from
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: your playto episode in which you mentioned Captain Kangaroo. Well,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: my great grandfather worked on that show. He produced the
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: songs for it, as well as several Christmas carols, including
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Frosty the Snowman and his biggest claim to fame.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: That is awesome.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: I've always thought it was.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Very funny that a Jewish guy was responsible for the
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: popularity of Christmas carols.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: My family all still.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Jewish watches the Claymation Rudolph movie every year. Begare because
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: of that our own little taste of that irony.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't want to tell.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: You what to do, because I'm sure you have a
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: lot of episodes on your plate already, But I'm just saying,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Hecky Krasnaw was a pretty interesting person. There might just
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: be enough material for an episode on him up to you.
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: Thanks for helping me with my school work. That is
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: from Aiden in Maryland.
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: Awesome, Thank you very much. Aiden.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: And when I say Hecky Krasnew lives, I mean lives.
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: On sure like Viva La Hecky. Yeah, if you want
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: to tell us about someone interesting in your family, we
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: love that kind of stuff. Also, if you are caring
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: for a dementia patient, we want to hear the highs
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: and the lows of that. Just kind of bringing on
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: home for us. Will you? You can send us an
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: email to stuff podcast at house Stuff works dot com
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: and as always, joined us at our home on the web,
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: Stuff Youshould Know dot com.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio up, Apple Podcasts,
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: Mm hmm