Because of rapidly aging populations, the number of people worldwide experiencing dementia is increasing and the projections are grim. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars invested in medical research, no effective treatment has been discovered for Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia. The Alzheimer Conundrum exposes the predicaments embedded in current efforts to slow down or halt Alzheimer's disease through early detection of presymptomatic biological changes in healthy individuals. Based on a careful study of the history of Alzheimer's disease and extensive in-depth interviews with clinicians, scientists, epidemiologists, geneticists, and others, Margaret Lock highlights the limitations and the dissent implicated in this approach. She stresses that one major difficulty is the well-documented absence of behavioral signs of Alzheimer's disease in a significant proportion of elderly individuals, even when Alzheimer neuropathology is present in their brains. This incongruity makes it difficult to distinguish between what counts as normal versus pathological and, further, makes it evident that social and biological processes contribute inseparably to aging. Lock argues that basic research must continue, but it should be complemented by a realistic public health approach available everywhere that will be more effective and more humane than one focused almost exclusively on an increasingly frenzied search for a cure. --- from the publisher Reviews and Endorsements: "[A] diligent survey of research, literature, conferences, and interviews. . . . Lock proves that the science of the disease is just as compelling as poignant accounts from caregivers and those suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Lock highlights just how much we don't know, from problems with Alzheimer's pathology, testing, and diagnosis to the search for a drug treatment. . . . While science plugs away at solving the Alzheimer's conundrum, Lock's call for improved care and social support takes on a new urgency."--Publishers Weekly "[Lock] delivers key concepts in epidemiology, neuroscience and genetics in a way that is both scholarly and free of unnecessary technical details. Lock's bird's-eye view and mix of diverging sources of information is refreshing. . . . For its wide scope and balanced critical evaluation, The Alzheimer Conundrum is an inspiring read for everyone working in the field."--Eus Van Someren, Nature "Comprehensive, cogent, and densely detailed, The Alzheimer Conundrum provides a useful antidote to media hype about 'silver bullets' that are 'just around the corner' and makes an important contribution to our understanding of an achingly tragic disease that touches virtually all of us."--Glenn Altschuler, Psychology Today "The Alzheimer Conundrum: Entanglements of Dementia and Aging is a welcome addition to a body of work that has so productively explored the historical contingencies, cultural specificities, and philosophical dilemmas that surround and shape bodies and people's understandings and inhabitances of them."--Aaron Seaman, Somatosphere Table of Contents: Acknowledgments ix Orientations 1 Chapter 1 Making and Remaking Alzheimer Disease 26 Chapter 2 Striving to Standardize Alzheimer Disease 51 Chapter 3 Paths to Alzheimer Prevention 76 Chapter 4 Embodied Risk Made Visible 100 Chapter 5 Alzheimer Genes: Biomarkers of Prediction and Prevention 132 Chapter 6 Genome-Wide Association Studies: Back to the Future 156 Chapter 7 Living with Embodied Omens 174 Chapter 8 Chance Untamed and the Return of Fate 207 Chapter 9 Transcending Entrenched Tensions 229 Afterword: Portraits from the Mind 243 Notes 247 Bibliography 277 Index 301 About the Author: Margaret Lock is the Marjorie Bronfman Professor Emerita in the Department of Social Studies of Medicine and the Department of Anthropology at McGill University. Lock's many books include Encounters with Aging, Twice Dead, and An Anthropology of Biomedicine. |