111–120 of 175 posts
“We have no cure. I don’t want to know.” If astronomers announced that a large asteroid might strike Earth in twenty years, and that we currently had no way to deflect it, nobody would respond by saying, “Come back when you already have the rocket.” We would immediately build better telescopes to track it precisely, refine its trajectory models, and begin developing propulsion systems capable of interception. You do…
Alarm bells go up. 94.5% in itself is suspicious. It insinuates precision. I highly doubt you can go anywhere near 0.5% correctness.
> 94.5% in itself is suspicious No it's not, that's a reported mean, presumably with the right number of significant digits. If you want to criticize the variance/stddev, do so, but you picked the wrong metric if that's what you wanted to complain about.
def has_alzheimers(patient):
return False
“We have no cure. I don’t want to know.” If astronomers announced that a large asteroid might strike Earth in twenty years, and that we currently had no way to deflect it, nobody would respond by saying, “Come back when you already have the rocket.” We would immediately build better telescopes to track it precisely, refine its trajectory models, and begin developing propulsion systems capable of interception. You do…
I want to know so that I can make plans. Including end of life plans, in all senses.
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I want to know so that I can make plans. Including end of life plans, in all senses.
Exactly - there are things that I would change now to make sure I make thing easier for myself and - more importantly - easier for the people around me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cure is the wrong word. Alzheimer’s can be best described as a failure of a system and "debris" accumulates faster than it can be "cleared". There are many moving parts and everyone is unique about the cause of their system failure. Wrote up my current systems understanding here https://metamagic.substack.com/p/the-alzheimers-equation , but it makes clear why treatments that target only one variable are mathematicall…
This is some personal opinion that I would bet the vast majority of Alzheimer's researchers would not actually agree with. The current consensus is that Alzheimer's is a particular disease, or a cluster of similar diseases. I'm not saying your wrong, just that the level of confidence in your assertions is not warranted.
But that is sort of the point of science, you take all the evidence you have and create a hypothesis and iterate as you get more evidence. If I find evidence that suggests something else then I will be happy to tweak or abandon this. My level of confidence comes from the existing evidence and lack of evidence otherwise.
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Notarizing any wishes against some medical procedures in case a sudden accident ruins your ability to dissent prevents doctors from being forced to keep your body alive as long as possible.
That doesn't apply to Alzheimer's disease directly though. If you don't want to live when your conscious life is limited to short flashes of awareness among a deeply terrifying melange of visions of the past and hallucinations, DNR laws don't in any way force or even allow doctors to euthanize you. You can persist in this state for many years without ever triggering a DNR check.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is some personal opinion that I would bet the vast majority of Alzheimer's researchers would not actually agree with. The current consensus is that Alzheimer's is a particular disease, or a cluster of similar diseases. I'm not saying your wrong, just that the level of confidence in your assertions is not warranted.
After spending years tracking through the genetics, conditions, lab work, research papers and seeing individuals years into the condition, this model is the best I have and explains everything I currently know. Why the cluster of conditions result in the same outcome, why some treatments help some folks, but not others. But that is sort of the point of science, you take all the evidence you have and create a hypothes…
It is a tale as old as time. See the story behind the term. ultracrepidarian: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ultracrepidarian#English
PSA to those with family affected by dementia/Alzheimer's at a relatively early age (say Left untreated for a very long time (decade+), it spreads to the brain and causes dementia among other things. Older generations with stigmas, taboos, or from lower educational backgrounds seem (to me) less likely to get tested, so it seems plausible. Source: Have recently discovered this myself with a family member from their ne…
Lenin famously died from it, you could see that obscure blank stare of a crazy person on his later photos
“We have no cure. I don’t want to know.” If astronomers announced that a large asteroid might strike Earth in twenty years, and that we currently had no way to deflect it, nobody would respond by saying, “Come back when you already have the rocket.” We would immediately build better telescopes to track it precisely, refine its trajectory models, and begin developing propulsion systems capable of interception. You do…