after 100 lives the ideals of the bronx are more relevant today than they were. visionaries reshapes things to come the fall of people interested in the way of shaping society. small 3 part documentary starts made on t w. hello and welcome to the check i love to swim it brings back all my childhood memories all those present memories of my youth what about you do you feel the same but what if he would lose all those memories because you were affected by

a disease called alzheimer's disease in colombia this disease affects villages. by condo lives in the small village of palmetto in colombia but he doesn't really know where he is. where are we. where are we at home. i can't oh doesn't even recognize himself in the mirror he has a rare genetic mutation which is associated with early onset alzheimer's disease. who you laughing with now what are you laughing at. i'm i don't know who is joking with. you. i began noticing it when he was about 45 now he's got alzheimer's just like his father did.

he cried when he got the diagnosis. but as we're all very. very much i cardoza brothers have come over for lunch the outside of his mutation has been passed down through his family for generations you know his father died of it 2 of his brothers and one sister have also been affected they all developed the condition and usually around 40 i cut o's other siblings are currently healthy but there's a 50 percent chance they too have inherited the gene mutation and they also know that anyone with it seems to invariably develop alzheimer's. to be honest if we don't get it it will be like winning the lottery. alzheimer's disease today the condition has a name but for generations people here talked of a debilitating curse because so many families were affected word of a cluster of people falling prey to memory loss in bell mira and the surrounding

villages made its way to francisco look ere at a university in their teens. that 1st we were just curious we didn't know what to make of it all but one thing was clear to us that this was very significant. paris team set to work combing through death certificates going back centuries talking to local priest some family members they were stunned by what they found is that this one had it this one died of it this one didn't this one did. they found that in a handful of villages over 25 extended families comprising over a 1000 people who are carrying the genetic mutation that leads to alzheimer's a distressing find but a unique opportunity for the 1st time that doctors can work with healthy people who they know are likely to develop alzheimer's nowhere else in the world is there such

a concentration of cases perfect conditions for studying the disease and maybe even finding a way of preventing it. we might be successful or we might fail either way both outcomes would be very interesting from a scientific point of view. but if we succeeded with that we could be on the road to finding an answer to alzheimer's. scientists believe that protein deposits build up between nerve cells in the brain eventually causing the cells to die they want to know whether these deposits can be impeded or even cleared. they are microscopic but the damage they cause is all too visible here we have a healthy brain and it is easy to brain. so. you can see the difference quite clearly the disease brain weighs 600 grams the healthy one weighs about twice that you can see at a glance what has happened to the patient. you know if we

turn it over once again you can see the difference here we see a cavity has developed while here it's all compact. but. back to and i was driving. the medical team regularly visits the affected families who are keen to support the research and help fight the disease any progress will come too late for a carde but it could help his son or even his grandchild who's due to be born soon . i don't want to think about it our child will be healthy with god's help. there is currently no cure for alzheimer's this study in columbia has raised hopes of a breakthrough that's not happened yet but the marrying team is still working on it i mean. i'd like to be there when that happens just for the family's sake but it could also lead to further studies into curing or preventing this disease that's

the goal. but i'd love to be part of it if that's possible let's hope so. that when . if those hopes are realized the project could help tip the scales in the fight against scientists. as we've seen alzheimer's not only affects patients but their families as well how to care for patients and their families this is what i'm going to talk about. from the journey alzheimer's society and i'm going to be turnout. at a miss was the ultimate disease it's also called a family disease why is that. people with dementia need more and more help when the

mentor progresses and the family members organize everyday life they make appointments with the doctor. they care for activities they care for care for financial matters and many more things. at the same time maybe they go to work maybe they have own families with little children so. they need lots of commitment and they don't have really much time for themselves and so they are under high social pressure physical psychological pressure yeah so you see a lot of affected people so what their main problem. relatives have problems in dealing with the changing behavior off the pace. because this happens when the mentor progresses right so when you feel some memory loss there's a big question is it just a mild forgetfulness or is it also in the cities. you

don't seem quite harmless at 1st beveled village golf began to experience memory problems a little later she was diagnosed with early stage alzheimer's i'm fine in the beginning i was often very sad and down. but then i realized well it has to happen at some point and life has to go on you can't change that it is what it is. that was 18 months ago the 70 year old cat always find the right words or remember what she wants to buy when she's out shopping but by and large she still manages to get by. sometimes i have problems with my friends for example or forgetting things that happen sometimes. but nothing really bad i don't forget to turn off the tap or anything like that. so touch wood i haven't done anything

serious yet. but babble builds doff knows that things won't stay like this she used to be a nurse and later managed a retirement home so she knows that her memory problems will increase. but no one can say how quickly the disease will progress and how severe it will become. i don't know what things will be like by the end of the year i'd like to visit the baltic on holiday weekend and maybe somewhere else but i definitely want to do that . and i'll do that sooner rather than later. today she's meeting susanna sachs and from the german alzheimer's society recently babble vilest off got involved with the organization it gives her the opportunity to compare her experiences with those of other people with the disease several bills to offer likes to stay active. the german alzheimer's society works to

improve the lives of people with dementia the organization helps the patients themselves and their families. and we've put together information online if someone gets to mention before the age of 65 it can be especially difficult for the family if children are still at home yeah. i think it's important that people make provision for the time when they can no longer cope alone will build stoff has already done about. that. point i made a plan with a friend who i've known for a very very long time i work together with him in the hospital. he's the boss there now if something happens to me he'll see to it that i get a. place in a nursing home. before that it's good to have something like that and that. there is no cure for alzheimer's patients and their families have to adapt to the

disease as best they can one of the worst things is not knowing when your condition might suddenly deterioration. i think everyone fears that that's why it's important to make the most of each day. that. shouldn't be said that's pointless. and you need to meet up with other people and. that's another reason that she got involved with the alzheimer's society bevel village store hopes to meet new people to go out and do things with. my dad that i've always liked to dance but 1st you have to find someone to go with and i don't have a partner even if you have a nice bunch of friends none of them go dancing with me. so if you happen to come to berlin and like to dance with this stuff feel free to

contact us we heard a lot about the german alzheimer's society so what actually do you do in this association how do we help patients and families we ourselves help organization and as the german i'm a society we are the federal so she ation off 230 out some associations in germany and to gather our main aim is to improve the life and the life quality of persons with dementia and their families and what is your advice if a patient would phone you or would contradict you. it depends on the situation he or she is in at the moment so. people that are calling us are mostly the relatives and they ask for help because. behavior off persons with dementia is changing. when he or she has a dementia and this causes lots off conflicts so you giving advice to both to

patients and the family of course right and it's not always alzheimer's patients losing his memory it's the other forms of dementia so so you do advice in this direction as well yes we do when someone notices the symptoms of maybe dimentia so memory problems for example we. we advised to go to the doctor because just the medical examination can provide clarity at this moment but i mean time is disease is life changing when for both for the patient and for the family so what kind of device can you really give a family to adept with a situation in which you think yeah to adapt with this situation to talk about the situation and to think about the future because dementia progresses. so one of the main problems in every day of life is that is it really

like financial matters so much driving lessons with. yeah most problems are caused by the changing behaviors so some persons with them and sometimes get angry or loud or they still want to drive even though this isn't possible anymore some have the feeling of being dropped and accuse their relatives and handling those mistrust is really hard it's a heavy task so the. disease is not curable right now and it's very hard to treat anyway so one of your advise you confused try to adapt to the next situation but is it really possible to adapt to this kind of serious illness yes it is but it is a process and this process took a lot of time and. the family members. have to inform themselves about the dementia when i know dementia or memory problems are

part of dementia than i can better understand that my husband does not know anymore where we went for holidays 2 months ago and then i i don't take this personal and react the less emotional maybe but it is hard it stays hard and there will be days where my patience breaks because i'm going to be asked the same thing 10 times in 5 minutes not long ago there was hope on the horizon for alzheimer's patients there was a drug which was a little antibody but the studies were stopped. we sent our chief reporter peter shortcuts to find out what is new in the treatment of alzheimer's. here at the lights exude the apes are a source of fascination for visitors. perhaps it's because our primate relatives are so similar to us. they laugh they play games and express affection much like we

do. they also get many of the same illnesses like colds diabetes and even depression but one condition they don't get is out timers. why is that did something go wrong in the evolution of the human brain. neurologist thomas our friend heads the power flexes institute of brain research in my sig he spent the last 40 years studying alzheimers disease is. this host. you might have a certain genetic disposition which makes it more likely that you'll develop alzheimer's. but it seems that even then the onus only develops if on top of this predisposition other factors come into play such as environmental influences and possibly stress. there's a rise a bit in this place for. as the human brain develops certain areas became particularly pronounced this led to new abilities that are unique to human beings.

languages one of them. another is our self-awareness our sense of our own existence. and our ability to process memory is it's precisely these abilities that are affected by alzheimer's memory is the 1st to go followed by language then the individual self-awareness changes and in the end is lost completely. in numerous possible explanations for. this phenomenon have been proposed it's often seen that a potential treatment was within reach but to this day there's been no decisive breakthrough. i with those. one of the reasons for that is that we don't up sufficient understanding of the functions that are affected by alzheimer's such as language memory and self-awareness even in the

brains of healthy individuals. once you realize that you can appreciate how difficult it is to find out why such processes are being disrupted. when you don't fully understand how they work normally. and. studies have focused in particular on 2 protein deposits in the brain beta amyloid plaques and neuro fiber larry tangles made up of a protein called tau. both occur naturally in the body but in alzheimer's patients they disrupt the communication between the nerve cells causing them to die that was long thought to be the cause of the condition but it's quite possible that these plaques are merely a side effect or a consequence of alzheimers. so the challenge remains to find the root causes of alzheimer's i would not assume that the amyloid deposits of the calls. the

scientists at the power flex institute study tissue samples and neurons they're particularly interested in to questions what regulates the life cycle of nerve cells in the brain and what might interfere with it and what roles do genes play the researchers found that all timers patients exhibit increased numbers of neurons with genetic abnormalities but is that a cause or an effect of the disease it's still unclear. thomas aren't believes that some people are born with a predisposition for us timers what is certain is that changes occur in the brain 20 or 30 years before the. 1st symptoms of alzheimer's appear in some cases perhaps even earlier. this leads to the question of whether the disease could be arrested at this early stage but how do you detect affected people if they don't display any symptoms 6. dozens these are going to be your model for this is where you turn to biomarkers. this is an area of research that seeks to find biomarkers that can help

you to identify patients that are particularly at risk of developing this disease. his team came up with a blood test for rapid diagnosis which is being developed by a group of biotech companies it focuses on the early phase of alzheimer's before cognitive symptoms appear scientists believe that's where the key to the disease and to potential treatments lies. realistically i have to assume that on the basis of what we know right now we would have to wait at least another generation maybe 30 or 40 years before we have a really effective treatment that addresses the causes of the disease if indeed that's even possible. under doubts about. hops we'll never be able to intervene in the process of alzheimer's disease the way that we would like to. see. what really happens in nerve cells in the brain what role is played by genetic

variations and environmental factors these things need to be better understood perhaps then we'll know why we're so different from our closest animal relatives when it comes to timers. no adequate therapy for the next 30 to 50 years so it's very important that we take care of all alzheimer's patients and their relatives today to make their lives a little bit easier and you trying to do this for example with discussion groups like you to this because family members get to know their other family members that experience the same things in their daily life and they learn that they aren't alone with this disease and they. they get tips and hints from the other families and yet here how they tried to deal with some conflicts in everyday life you have a lot of conflicts in the families with the patients and their relatives like

aggressive behavior so how do you cope with that. aggressive behavior caused by. the fact that persons with the mental assess a situation differently than their family members and they insist on their opinion when the family members also insist that different opinion then we have those conflicts and relatives are the only one that can change those situations so they can try to react patiently they can try to take the fear persons with the mention feel seriously and yeah maybe calm down the situation yes especially in the beginning of the disease said a lot of fear anger and grief so how can you cope with all of the dimensions. first of all of the listen. to try to find out what in this situation

is really. makes the here the person with dementia all the family member and so we also can try to. i know what could be relieving which arthur could be helpful at that moment i mean it's a very special disease alzheimer's disease it's a very emotional disease so many of the caregivers simply burned out. giving care so how can you prevent a brain know. with help and support and with help and support from the beginning of the disease on. because so we can somehow counteract the overwork on the own onus of the caregivers at some point it may not be possible to keep the outside as patient inside the family so you have to give them away to a nursing home to professional caregivers and this is a big huge step because the dress is not

a conflict so so what's your advice to. the families don't make their decision easily easily they make it when there's no alternative anymore they're in their conflict stays of course and again. it helps to go to a self-help group to exchange with other. relatives or to use a counseling service or something like that which you like to know if you later in your life will get alzheimer's disease no i don't want to know it because there's no there's no adequate therapy right now i don't want to know if i'm going to get them into well i do understand this. if you've got any questions you like need to ask our experts be sure to write me an e-mail. in good shape your weekly health show on d w that covers many aspects of health care we look at what's new in medical treatment nutrition fitness and beauty we just cus these topics in depth with specialists and

offer you opportunities to pose questions so get in touch. with many people. or fraid if they have relatives with alzheimer's disease alzheimer's themselves so so what you suggest. it is important to know that. most of the. diseases are not caused by genetic reasons. age. the highest risk factor. and if you want to do something. guarding. it is important to yeah to have exercises by then to stay active socially. to treat known diseases like treasure our something like that thank you so much for

this very interesting talk on this very difficult matter. and that's it for today see you next week and until then let's all try to stay in good shape.

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themselves. $3000.00 and. 30 minutes on d w. 2 live on stray. dog wilson and the radio quiet creative biographical while ringback ringback they are. using the great reformers untaxed and music by johann sebastian bach. dancing with a gong no heaven without help. in 60 minutes w. . this state of emergency is the normal. people around the world are documenting these traumatic times. they're keeping the corona diary.

and welcoming us into the hot sun. they let us get as up close and personal as the pandemic will allow. diaries. starts many. rooms more all week. long conflict in the philippines between the muslims and the christian population last slayer's fighters occupied the city center in 2017 president to church's response was cut by the terrorists will never again put a bold move into. the reconquest turned into tragedy this is not the kind of freedom that we won 70 didn't become a gateway to islamist terror. an exclusive report from a destroyed city. filled in the sights of fire starts may 20th

on g.w. . plain. play . this is g.w. news a live from russia reports a record daily lot risin coronavirus cases as more and more medics to come in fact said there are fears the health care system a could be overwhelmed also coming up on the shot australia is it says in a week a lockdown we travel to mozart's birthplace and all its baggage to find out how people are using their new freedoms.