Yeah, I have a Ninja too, and it's great that way!

Ann, I just have to commend you. My mom had AD - except she never made it to 87. Her memory loss and symptoms began when she was about 56. By her mid-60s she was clueless about who anyone was, and her last 10 years (until her death at age 77) she was basically a bedridden vegetable. I was not an LC person 30 years ago when her symptoms began, but would have had no control over her eating anyway as my dad was her primary caretaker. And since he was a carb addict (as had been my mom) that was basically what he fed her.

And he fed her in *large* amounts - breakfasts of 2 bowls of oatmeal, a couple eggs, two pieces of toast with *margarine* and jelly. They did get her Meals on Wheels for lunch to help my dad a bit - but she got DOUBLE servings of the food, which always contained a starch of potato or rice or something, and a dinner roll. After lunch my dad usually gave her ice cream or cookies. My dad wasn't much of a cook so dinner was often take-out pizza or frozen lasagna, followed by pie, cake or ice cream.

Interestingly, on this diet - though being bedridden and getting no exercise of course - her weight went from 220 pounds to 115. How sad. All her life she moaned about wanting to lose weight, and only achieved it when she had no clue what was going on. When I discovered low carb I tried to suggest some changes to their eating habits - but I lived 550 miles away and only saw them a few weeks a year on visits, and as soon as I was gone they were back to their old eating habits.

I would come to their house and have to go shop for myself - as dad's fridge only contained carby stuff - but also filled with soft-tub margarines (he never had butter in the house) and "fat-free" half-and-half for his coffee. Grrr.

Anyway, I wish you lots of luck in dealing with your mom. It was hard to "lose" my mom when she was only 56. I do think searching for alternative foods is a great idea as there is no way to expect her to remember her promises about changed eating patterns. Hope you will see some benefits.

My mother, who turns 88 today, has "mild dementia", and we find her memory varies widely with diet. For the elderly, it is not just what they like to eat, but what they CAN easily make and eat, which tends to be carby. My mother has had rheumatoid arthritis since she was ~40, and refuses to get her old dentures fixed or replaced (she did this in the past and the result was disastrous so she went back to the old ones), so her ability to cut and chew good sources of protein is limited. With several hospitalizations (broken hip, concussion after a fall, vascular surgery, amputation) followed by rehabs that began right after my father died, it was no wonder that she was disoriented, even in her assisted living apartment surrounded by her own furniture, pictures, etc..

All these places had different designs of call buttons, some of which she did not have the dexterity to push, assuming she could find the thing, often on the floor or put to the side where she couldn't reach it; luckily we visited often to help her out. Only one of the facilities (geriatric-focused) recognized that she couldn't open the OJ & water cups and couldn't cut or chew meat - they served real food, but with the meat pureed. With better nutrition & hydration her mind was much clearer.

Back in her very nice assisted living apartment with 3 meals a day, she resorted to only eating what she liked & could chew and left the rest. After a few more falls (trying to transfer in and out of her wheelchair by herself), my sister volunteered to have Mom move in with her (with plenty of home-care help). She is a South-Beacher who also has problems with wheat, so her home is wheat free, and when I visit I do all the cooking (PP/Atkins). Having family around certainly helps, but we're convinced that diet/hydration plays a big part in preserving Mom's mental facilities. She eats what we eat, we just pop portions of each hard-to-chew food in the Ninja and then return it to her plate so it looks like ~normal food rather than a bowl of slop. If we're having stew, I pull out the meat, puree it and return it to the bowl of other foods she can chew.

She still beats us at Scrabble 85% of the time. And no, we are not "letting her win" - we are trying our hardest to beat her!.

Keep up the good work Ann, I am sure it helps!

Thanks Deirdra. I can give you scrabble lessons if you want.
You and your sister are wonderful daughters. My sister is fully on board with our wheat, sugar, and fat knowledge so we never clash over her diet. It's wonderful not to have to worry about her food when Gail comes to take over for a day. We're moving a tiny cottage on to our property for Gail to live in so she and I can be a more seamless team.

I am happy to be posting this update. When I first saw Dr. Newport's video, I was really on fire to do the CO for Mother. But, she didn't like the way it made her coffee oily and it was hard to get enough in her all at once without that. The candy was pretty good but hard to make enough of it to amount to several TBS for each morning. So, I slacked off of that, also because A)She said she was having very loose bowels, almost to the point of diarrhea and B) I wasn't seeing much in the way of results. I also thought I wasn't seeing much other corroboration on the web from other families.
Fast forward to August of this year. For some reason, I thought I was seeing some improved personality and cognition (slightly) so out of the blue, I asked Mother to draw a clock face for me. She did this last summer when we went to the library in town and they had a rep from the Alzheimer's Association doing informal screenings that day. She did very poorly and I was amazed at how badly she did on the clock thing. It really puzzled me that she couldn't look at her result, see how it didn't resemble a clock very well and try to fix it. Anyway, she drew as good a clock as you or I would do, this time around. She can also intelligently discuss what county we are in and some other things they ask them on those screenings. So I started prodding my brain as to what could have done this for her, since I could not claim to have really given her a good trial of the CO. I finally hit on eggs. Eggs have lecithin, a really good source of choline which is very beneficial for brain health. I Googled and found that indeed, they are getting good reversal of some symptoms of AD from eggs. It isn't getting as much press but I have known about lecithin, eggs, and the brain since the late 70s when Mother went to a local osteopath for her weight and health. Any wild guesses what diet he put her on after testing all her macro levels (and I mean ALL of them, with a spit test)? 70% protein and 30% carbohydrates. He didn't stress fats but told her not to worry about what naturally occurred in her foods and he did add that she should not fear eggs at all. She was just supposed to avoid frying her foods. I think that was due to fried foods having crusts so often, but also I think he was suspicious of highly heated oils.
Anyway, I digress. She is much brighter and sleeps better at night. No more sleeping in until 10:30 or 11:00 to make up for insomnia. She never has down mornings anymore and she carries on slightly more intelligent conversations. All of this because I ordered and read Dr. Newport's book, rather than relying on her YT videos. I learned that you can build up to the dosage and that as long as you are having as much as you can tolerate, it doesn't have to be such a large amount. Oh, and despite the shocking improvements in Mr. Newport's condition, he actually didn't show improvement in short term memory for six months. I assumed he had memory improvement along the same schedule as the other things. Mother has never been as impaired as he was, so her improvements correspond pretty well to his. I was concerned that it seemed that all of MN's focus was on the ketone fueling of the brain and no attention to the evidence of the presence of amyloid plaques. However, I watched her TED talk before I finished the book and found reference to this as well. In the later book chapters, she does say that the participants in the trials for the ketone ester food, there was a decrease in these plaques. She (MN) gives a chart that shows the ketone readings achieved by various approaches and a ketogenic diet results in the same measure as the level achieved by taking the ketone ester drink. So, I decided to go the ketogenic route with her. I explained why we were going to further restrict her carbs, what foods that would involve and why. She understood very well and is fully on board. I also find I don't have to explain very often. Just a quick reminder along the lines of 'carbohydrates block ketone production and this is a high carb food" usually does it for us. Pretty good for an 87 y/o with over ten years of AD symptoms, I would say.
I am also adding MCT oil and limiting her carbs much more. As for her coffee, I asked her to let me add cream to buffer the CO and she said she used to drink cream in her coffee but quit due to the calories, when she was younger and battling her weight. It has made a big difference. I also am making sure she doesn't lose weight while lowering her carb values to keto levels. So far, so good on that front. I know this was another long post but there was a lot to tell. There is much more, regarding our future, but I'll save it for later.

What exciting news! I'm so happy for both of you.

What great improvements in such a short time!! I am so pleased for you both

oh my gosh, what a happy outcome. Very happy for you both. And excited to see what comes next.

Why not give her some low carb treats from the sweet treats section? You can keep her ketogenic and give her something to look forward to. It is also a good way to get some coconut oil into her. Add it to the treat.

I wouldn't throw out good enough (coconut bark) simply because it isn't perfection. As your mom progresses--assuming a ketogenic diet can't arrest the progression, just slow it down--it is going to become harder and harder to reason with her and trying to be perfectly ketogenic and pure isn't going to be possible if she just stops eating.

I gave my mom coconut oil in smoothies.

I also suggest getting the sugar free jams. A tsp or two has only a few carbs, but then again, she'll want bread for it. How about flax crackers?

I wish you luck! I went through this with both my parents and decided I wasn't in a position to try to get them on a ketogenic diet. You really can only do that if you're cooking for them.

Reading the book about the improvement that Mr. Newport achieved, I am hopeful that not only can we slow the progression, but she can possibly look forward to some level of returned function. To me, that's different than the slowing that Aricept and Namenda offers. They don't ever speak of reversal of symptoms. If you didn't have to keep the oils going, I would call it remission. It kind of compares to insulin for a type I diabetic. The insulin they take keeps their systems working but they can't make their own. I don't believe there is time for a patient in her late 80s to improve enough to overcome insulin resistance of the brain so you have to continue providing ketones forever, to feed the brain. And yes, I'm really glad that I am cooking for her. I would watch what she ate before she came to live with me and it just upset me so. My sister knew she needed to do things like go off of bread and breakfast cereal but neither of us knew the connection between leaky gut and the blood brain barrier as it relates to toxins. We just thought it would be a general health improvement. That was also before she broke her hip and she was not at the stage that she couldn't ever be left alone, and my sister has to work part time, as she is a widow. So, she was free to browse my brother's sorry selection of food in the kitchen at will. I do give her smoothies with MCT oil, as it does not harden up and stick to the sides of the blender cup. I drink them myself.
As for the treats, we do them, but I was trying to use cocoa rather than the chocolate bars and I was shooting for MY idea of what is good. I am finding that she doesn't taste what I taste and for her they are fine. She understands the ketogenic thing when I tell her and I only have to reinforce it periodically and that reminds her what it's all about. The thing is, we are on the verge of starting a business from the house and there is potential there for her to contribute by transcribing voice messages and possibly even answering the phone just to prevent us from missing calls. I can always point out that she has to get better so she can help when the business cranks up. The little house Gail will live in will have a sign out front and we will have a website and videos with tours of the inside (also shown by appointment) to sell to families who need a place for a loved one if they don't want to make them a ward of the state by signing over all their assets. It's only big enough for one, or for one and a caretaker. A couple could live there as long as they keep their 'stuff' footprint really small. They will be super affordable, as the loans would be for ten years at 350.00/month. It's a huge business in Australia as so many families are choosing to keep their loved ones out of government care as they age. There are about six or seven other applications for them as well, so we hope to be selling small 16X20 tornado proof, fire proof houses that are delivered ready to live in and can be very good for people who need wheelchair accessible housing for cheap. The point of all this is that she has a purpose to look forward to. If nothing else, we can give her lists of things and she can just type them into the computer and maybe they'll get used and maybe not, but if she isn't actually improved enough to do real work, she'll at least be happier and quit wishing she could live in her own place again.

I'm still getting caught up on this thread, shouldn't have posted until I finished it, but I'm happy to hear your mom is doing better.

Choline! That reminds me. Look at all her medications and make sure none are anticholinergenic. That can make things worse. You can also supplement too. I've supplemented with several different sorts of choline when I've had brain fog caused by antihistamines (an anticholinergenic drug).

You might want to look into nootropics (supplements that help the brain). Just another interesting thing to stick into Google.

Another thing you might want to look into is music therapy for Alz. It is supposed to bring a lot of joy to people when they hear music from their past. I know your mom isn't that far gone, but it could help. Who knows?

She really only takes Dinepozil, Namenda, Thyroid and iron. Other than that, it's only vitamins. She gets a multi in liquid form, a liquid D3 in mct oil suspension, and sublingual B12. I guess the two AD meds could be anticholinergenic. Time to Google, I guess. I will look into nootropics. She goes to a senior program on Thursdays where they do oldies karaoke. She really enjoys that, too.
In the last couple of hours, I followed through on my resolution to find episodes of the old PBS series "Sit and Be Fit" and we watched that to see how we should set up the living room for her to do those exercises. Also, there is a specific episode for brain fitness exercises. They are about mind-body coordination. It could absolutely be a part time job if done right but no one thinks there is any hope for AD patients so they don't develop any such program.

Antihistamines are the most notorious anticholinergenic drugs. But there are others. I doubt they'd prescribe anti-dementia drugs if they were AC's.

The eggs make sense since they are such nutritional powerhouses, a whole food (not extracted from their parts)....really the perfect food.

I have an aversion which kicked in after many years of LC. Now I only get them mixed in other recipes for the most part.

Reading this reminds me that I need to find a way to eat more of them.

You can't taste them in smoothies, for a start. I will be supplementing with choline pills, unless some research says not to, or don't bother.

Good article in the Times about medications and the elderly, especially those with dementia:

http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/...ted/?ref=health


They have very little, arguably no, effect.