Our Seniors Are Not Supposed to Forget | Ayati Mishra | TEDxUCIrvine

foreign [Applause] was my neighbor who was about 12 times my age I called her Miss Margot and she was one of the sweetest people I ever knew she made sure that my family never ran out of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and she loved telling me stories from her own childhood a couple of years passed by and Miss Margot started to change she started forgetting it

happiest memories of my life some of the coolest stories I'd ever heard were nothing more than a beautiful fever dream fast forward to today and I am a high school student so yes I needed my dad to call me out of school early today so I can make it here pretty good but yes I am standing here at UCI and I'm honored to be sharing this

stage with a group of really incredible people because I want to debunk one of our most common assumptions our senior citizens are not supposed to forget Miss Margot had developed Alzheimer's Disease an increasingly common disease around the world which forces people to experience memory loss and even snatches away the ability to perform basic necessary tasks I am here because I want to raise necessary attention for

the Alzheimer's disease epidemic I've actually interned here at the UCI school of medicine for a little over a year now and I've been able to learn about a new live model of Alzheimer's disease this project is in partnership with multiple universities and actually a part of a national mission to create a model of the most common form of Alzheimer's disease but today I want to tell

you about a new revolutionary project more recently I've interned for the Harvard aging brain study which aims to identify the earliest physiological changes in the brain that can detect Alzheimer's disease early on and how it relates to cognition so let's first talk about Alzheimer's disease itself as you can see in this diagram there are two main changes that occur during Alzheimer's disease the formation of amyloid

beta plaques and Tau protein tables the amyloid precursor protein is naturally occurring in our brains and usually it dissolves however in Alzheimer's disease it folds differently and becomes very sticky aggregating into the plaques you see here tau is responsible for binding and stabilizing the little pipes in our brains that transport nutrients across however in the Alzheimer's brain the Tau has broken off and Tangled Up so

amyloid beta plaques and Tau protein Tangles both inhibit neuronal connections which cause the symptoms we can see on the external side so the earliest symptoms of Alzheimer's disease are forgetting common details but more severe Alzheimer's disease features extreme memory loss confusion and the inability to perform basic necessary tasks and these three symptoms are more commonly referred to as dementia patients in the later stages of Alzheimer's

disease will need very high levels of care and eventually caregivers need to consider supporting a dignified end to the patient's life unfortunately Miss Margot is one of Millions according to the World Health Organization over 10 million people were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease yearly and further the World Health Organization reports that 60 to 80 percent of these cases were caused by Alzheimer's disease the CDC reports that

Alzheimer's disease is the seventh most common cause of death in the U.S however Alzheimer's disease is international it affects the older population across the world regardless of gender race or class International treatments and equal access to proper care is severely limited by social economic and geographical factors the Harvard aging brain study takes a preventative approach by trying to recognize the earliest biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease and

how it relates to cognition um under the lab that I work for my mentor has found in her research group that is very common for older participants to have memory complaints although some of these participants may go on to develop some form of dementia it is not the case for everyone so memory complaints are not correlated to Alzheimer's disease on the other hand it appears that

not complaining about your memory might have some correlation in fact several Studies have shown that not complaining about one's memory is actually a significant has a significant correlation and is a better predictor of Alzheimer's disease progression but then this raises a unique question how is someone supposed to detect the earliest cognitive changes of Alzheimer's disease when there is a clear opposite relationship between self-awareness of one's

memory and Alzheimer's disease progression So currently scientists are studying exactly why these individuals are not complaining about their memory is it because they just think that they're cognitively able or is there some type of early alteration in brain networks that um deal with self-awareness of one's memory right now it's believed to be the latter scientists believe that the pathological changes that occur during Alzheimer's Alzheimer's disease

impact the neuronal networks that deal with self-awareness and memory which inhibits these individuals from updating their awareness about their own memory so because of this it's actually more common to see informants like friends and family complain about an affected person's memory I definitely noticed the changes that Miss Marga was going through all those years ago Miss Margo's diagnosis didn't just affect her it affected everyone who

cared about her which included me and my family it affected me so much that I have spent countless hours studying Alzheimer's disease and debunking the myths around aging and Alzheimer's disease because forgetfulness is not normal aging if you notice someone is somehow developing some type of memory issues as they get older it is not just normal aging it could be a tragic indicator of Alzheimer's disease

today over 6 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease globally over 55 million people are living with Alzheimer's disease I want to encourage you all to help me debunk all the myths around Alzheimer's disease forgetfulness with aging because really recognizing these memory problems in someone else could save a life you can make a difference in your local community being raising awareness raising funds for research or

simply advocating for your views and in turn 55 million people around the world can benefit thank you foreign [Applause]