Page 1 of 11 Developing a Modern Mythology for Alzheimer’s Disease Mario D Garrett* San Diego State University, USA Received Date: June 20, 2019 Published Date: June 26, 2019 Review Article Copyright © All rights are reserved by Mario D Garrett ISSN: 2641-1911 DOI: 10.33552/ANN.2019.04.000580 Archives in Neurology & Neuroscience *Corresponding author: Mario D Garrett, School of Social Work, San Diego State University, USA. Introduction When Alois Alzheimer identified plaques and tangles in the brain of 45-year-old Auguste Deter as the possible cause of her dementia this observation quickly became enshrined as a new disease: Alzheimer’s disease. Today Alzheimer’s disease attracts the third most funded research in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) [1]. while in contrast Auguste Deter died a painful death from infection from bedsores, an easily preventable disease. Still today, while investing in research on Alzheimer’s disease we are overlooking the need for palliative care and enhancing the wellbeing of the individual living with dementia. In an 18-month study [2] where half of the 323 nursing home patients living with dementia died, most died of eating problems (86%), followed by high fever (53%) and pneumonia (41%). While dying they expressed shortness of breath (46%) and pain (39%). In their last 3 months of life nearly half (41%) of these patients underwent an invasive intervention (hospitalization, emergency room visit, parenteral therapy, or tube feeding) [2]. Caregivers still rarely link palliative care to dementia [3]. While concentrating on finding a cure we are ignoring the person living with dementia. Understanding the dominance of this intervention/cure approach in contrast to a more palliative/ wellbeing approach requires a broader investigation of Alzheimer’s disease history and how the disease has become a political as well as an economic commodity. Dementia is an umbrella or superordinate category that encompasses many types of specific brain diseases that include Alzheimer’s disease and are likely to have multiple causes and different paths of progression, most remain unknown [4]. After a century of studying Alzheimer’s disease an overall understanding of the disease eludes researchers [5]. Appreciating that the search for a cure cannot be achieved without understanding its true cause, our current approach relies on myths to replace this void in our understanding. These myths are: that a simple biological mechanism causes Alzheimer’s disease; that everyone will eventually get the disease; that the prevalence of the disease will stress our health care system; and that a cure is imminent. All these myths point to one option only, to find a cure. Although these myths are related, by distinguishing them it will make the task of highlighting specific inaccuracies more manageable. While acknowledging that the aim for a cure is commendable, in the interim millions of people living with Alzheimer’s disease and their caregivers and family, remain without effective management of the disease. Since research relies on funding an essential element is garnering public support by providing simplified stories with a clear narrative. In Alzheimer’s disease research this has developed into myth in order to allow researchers to conduct their work while gaining public support and public funds. But after repeated scientific failures, this mode of communication is untenable. Scientists remain perplexed by Alzheimer’s disease while the general population has become increasingly fearful of it. Although scientists appreciate the complexity of the disease, the public myth has had broader negative consequences. The public believes Alzheimer’s disease to be random while similarly clinicians are resigned to the futility of intervention. Scientifically, the methodology for studying Alzheimer’s disease requires a framework that establishes clinical parameters that impact the disease how they interact with each other and within the environment. Instead what we have is a piecemeal framework promoted by the U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA) that focuses on very specific simplified biological attributes of this process [6,7]. Such “Myths of science are unquestionably seductive…But they are misleading” [8]. Whether as a simplified story [8] or as “explanatory models” [9] scientific myths ultimately provide a This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License ANN.MS.ID.000580.