Expert: Mary Gordon - 9/19/2010

Question
I heard there is a chewing gum that helps people with Alzheimer's. Do you know the name of the chewing gum and where it can be purchased?
Bill Whitt,  

Answer
Hi Bill,
I think this is the article you are thinking of.

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/alzheimers-disease/articlepage.aspx?cp-docum...

What this research found was that chewing gum MIGHT improve memory in healthy people - but it did not recommend any specific kind of gum and they didn't know why this might be. It DID NOT SAY that chewing gum helps Alzheimer's patients in any way.

You may know that there are many causes of memory loss, and cognitive decline, and Alzheimer's is just one specific cause. It is a nasty progressive neurological disease that causes brain damage to all parts of the brain. It is incurable, it is relentless, and it ultimately causes death. It is not just an illness that affects memory. Every aspect of brain function is affected - the person's memory, speech, muscular coordination, emotional control, personality, ability to reason and use logic, judgement, depth perception, ability to recognize people, objects and places, reaction time - even their ability to chew and swallow - absolutely everything. Basically the person gets dismantled, neuron by neuron. If it were only an illness that affected memory, it would be a much less devastating illness.

I would not recommend giving chewing gum to people with Alzheimer's. If they are in anything but very early stages, they will probably swallow it, and that wouldn't be good. You don't want them eating anything that isn't actual food. Gum might also be aspirated and cause choking.

If you have someone in your family who you think has Alzheimer's, make sure you get them seen and assessed by a specialist - such as a neurologist or geriatric psychiatrist with a dementia specialty. Because there are many causes of dementia, it is important to know what you are dealing with, so the person gets the best possible treatment. There are some forms of dementia that are more treatable than others, and some that are actually made much worse by the treatments for other kinds.

If the person has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's by a specialist who knows what they are talking about (I don't trust family doctors for this), the best current treatment for most cases is a combination of two drugs, Aricept and Namenda. This is not a cure. The two drugs do not reverse the damage, nor do they stop it from progressing. What they do is slow down the progress in many people, and give them the best use of what they've got left, thus improving their quality of life and keeping them functioning a little longer.

Hope this helps.

Mary G.