9/6/2023

Book Review: Defeating Dementia: What You Can Do to Prevent Alzheimer’s and Other Forms of Dementia 2018  By: Richard Furman MD

Defeating Dementia Article inspired by Nora Ephron’s Book I Remember Nothing

I borrowed this book from Libby.  Amazon removed the book and now it can only be bought on a Christian website called christianbook dot com. Or maybe the publishers removed it from Amazon because its outdated information, although it was only published in 2018. Science moves fast.

“Defeating Dementia” is weird book by a vascular surgeon who follows the story of a woman whom I will call Mrs. X. I don’t know if Mrs. X was a real person. The reason I’m not using the name that he gave her which was Mrs. Something Else is I forgot what it was and I don’t feel like looking it up right now. He claimed that Mrs. X was a woman that he knew who started to get dementia but she said she refused to exercise particularly she didn’t want to jog. Because this Doctor is a vascular surgeon he really loves jogging. There’s even something in the book about starting a jogging program where you start walking and then you jog a little bit until you can work up to like jogging 1/2 an hour. Even though it’s actually been proven that jogging is terrible for your knees and most old people can’t do it. I don’t blame Mrs. X for refusing to jog. He should have asked her to walk. If anything (if this woman was real) it was his poor medical advice telling her to jog that caused her to get Alzheimer’s. I am not making this up. At one point the Doctor said, she did not want to jog.

 Mrs. X liked tend to garden the flowers in front of her house. She said that was enough exercise for her.  She refused to give up eating a pint of ice cream before bed whilst watching TV, and eating frequent ice cream bar snacks such as Dove Bars. Naturally her doctor (the author) did not approve of her eating any of those things nor of her not being on a a special low carb diet and low fat. Being a heart surgeon he absolutely hates cholesterol. The book doesn’t really make much of a distinction between good and bad cholesterol.  I eat both good and bad cholesterol. Maybe bad cholesterol isn’t all bad because my so-called good cholesterol is very high. So perhaps this Mrs. X received her divine punishment for refusing to exercise and eat in a special way? There’s also a lot of regret on the part of the doctor. The dementia of Mrs. X apparently happened in the past where less was known. And the doctor often says things like, if only we had known back then we could have stopped her dementia.

According to the book and all established guidelines the time to start dementia prevention is before you actually get it or before you have any sign of it. To prevent dementia you must go on a radical diet and do all kinds of exercise.  Exercising enough to be an athlete (even if you don’t want to be one) because you’re in what’s called the Longevity Olympics. The term Longevity Olympics was coined by one of my favorite authors and a brilliant man Michael Kinsey. His book is called Old Age: A Beginner’s Guide. He points out that living longer is better than being wealthy and also spiritually that after you die it’s better that people have good things to say about you for your everlasting Karma, so to speak.

When I said, the doctor says he could have stopped her dementia, I don’t mean that exactly. What he really means is if she had listened to what I told her and done what I said she would have stopped her dementia. And he thinks that if she had read her story in reverse like she could go back in time read what happened to her that surely she would change her mind and decide to take up jogging or whatever else. I think that’s probably true. Most people who are dying of lung cancer would go back in time and stop smoking. Naturally I was really interested in story of Mrs. X. I skipped over the parts that were in between. I’m not saying that I skipped over them completely. but the story of Mrs. X is heavily mixed in with self help dementia advice. I already know all of this information from reading a large number of longevity and anti-dementia books. I only skimmed his ideas which are very similar to other ideas. Quite a few of his suggestions are already outdated suggestions.

The story walks her through stages of dementia which the Doctor calls three stages, but I think there’s probably more than that. I see at least five stages of dementia. I’ll list these at the bottom of the article if you’re interested.

Stage One: Mrs. X just forgetting a few things. These things weren’t noticeable and didn’t make any difference in her life until she moved into Stage Two. Stage Two: Mrs. X went for a drive somewhere and got lost. At this time her husband took away her driving privileges and hired her a caregiver to make sure she didn’t go for a drive while he was at work and to help her around the house. She would still go outside and take care of the garden.  Eventually she stopped being able to take good care of it.  She just began to water the same plants over and over again with no meaning because she had forgotten how to garden. The caregiver they hired was named Kate. Kate had infinite patience and took really great care of Mrs. X. Mrs. X got along great with Kate and was never difficult so everything was running smoothly in Stage 2. Unfortunately at that point Mrs. X husband died of a heart attack because he probably failed to listen to the vascular surgent who wrote this book. After her husband died it was a good thing that she had Kate her caregiver to take care of her.  I don’t know how they paid for round the clock 24 hour live in care because that is too expensive. Let’s just pretend it’s a fictional story. Money is no object or Kate agrees to work for a very low wage because she only does it for how much she loves Mrs. X and out of the goodness of her heart. Let me just tell you right off the bat you’re never gonna find a woman like this fictional Kate when you’re looking for a caregiver, but I digress.

Kate reported to the doctor a troubling symptom that Mrs. X exhibited. She believed her husband was still alive and he was on his way home from work. Kate had to keep telling her that her husband has actually died. Mrs. X later progresses to Stage 3 where she has to be moved into a Memory Care facility. Mrs. X couldn’t say her name. Mrs. X was was almost a complete vegetable who seldom spoke eventually she died because she was bedridden. So after you read all this and you get to the ending you realize that it’s just a warning book to scare you into doing what the doctor wants you to do. Some of the things he said are obviously good ideas like not smoking, and it’s good basically to do everything he says, except for the jogging.

Bonus Material: Five Stages of Dementia. Stage One: You don’t think you have a problem but maybe you start to misremember names. You have to look up things more frequently in Google Maps when you’re trying to drive somewhere. No one thinks there’s anything wrong with you.  You feel like there might be something wrong.  If you you talk to your doctor, he’s like don’t worry about it there’s nothing wrong with you.  Are you like an insane hypochondriac? Stage 2: Your working memory is getting a worse. Your long term memory may be still great. You remember your childhood.  You’re forgetting more and more things and your executive functioning is no longer working.  If you had to follow a recipe to make a meal you won’t want or you just can’t do it.  You will go for an easy microwavable dinner or take out food. Stage 3: You’ll forget how to use the microwave or you’ll possibly put metal in your microwave and have it explode. But you’ll still be able to remember your family and people you see every day such as your caregivers or people who are closest to you. This is not the case in Stage 4. In Stage 4 you’ll probably forget about everybody you know except for someone you are extremely close to who you might see every day like a partner or a child. But sometimes you may remember your close family and friends but sometimes not which is very painful for those people. In Stage Five you will have forgotten absolutely everyone including yourself. You won’t be able to talk very much.  Maybe you’ll be able to make like some guttural grunting noises but you probably won’t be able to speak. If you do speak it’s will be nonsensical and people won’t be able to stand to understand. At Stage Five you are no longer able to eat by yourself.  Someone will have to hold a spoon for you. At this point they’re probably gonna put you on Hospice care and it will be determined by your relatives or the Hospice Paperwork you signed, how long you’re gonna live. Your relatives may decide to starve you to death if you can’t eat on your own. This is actually considered an acceptable thing to do to somebody. I feel that is extremely barbaric. Nonetheless it’s Stage Five, so you probably won’t notice or care. I’m sure you’ll still feel physical pain from starving to death but hopefully it won’t be that traumatic. Nobody really knows how it feels because nobody in Stage Five ever comes out of it to talk about how it felt. Stage Five people are unable to walk and sometimes bedridden. At Stage Five you may not even able to turn over in bed like Mrs. X. Eventually you will not be able to shallow food and you will die unless they insert a feeding tube. Dementia is worse than death.

Publishers Notes copied for reference

“Drawing from the latest medical research, Dr. Richard Furman helps readers understand dementia and Alzheimer’s and shows them how to make three powerful lifestyle changes that can help decrease the probability of developing this disease. He explains how eating the right foods, exercising, and sustaining an ideal weight can dramatically reduce the likelihood of developing dementia in the first place, and even how it can slow the progression of the disease in someone who has already received a diagnosis.”

• Book Reviews