I HEALTH I Now Open... Fabulous Fashions & Incredible Accessories For the. Fuller Figured Woman SUGAR TREE PLAZA Sizes 14 Plus 6209 Orchard Lake Rd. West Bloomfield, Just N. of Maple 851-8001 10th and 11th Grade Students: SPEND A SEMESTER IN ISRAEL WITH PROJECT DISCOVERY The High School Program in Israel •Live and study at an American- accredited high school February - June 1989 •Study in English including preparation for S.A.T. as well as Hebrew, Judaica, history •Learn Israel's geography at first-hand •Develop friendships with Israelis and students from around the world Cost of program: $2,000 Registration $25.00 Subsidized by Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit Affiliated with Youth Aliyah Project Discovery Co-Sponsors: Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit, United Hebrew Schools REMEff6Sti . e 46 FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 1988 " E§ Alzheimer Patients Receive New Support DAVID LANDAU erusalem — The fam- ilies of the 50,000 Israelis suffering from Alzheimers' disease — a debilitating form of senile dementia that causes dis- orientation, loss of memory, hallucinations, paranoia and finally death — are about to receive the support they so desperately need. A national organization of Alzheimer's disease health care is being organized, and a seminar on the disease, open to the public and especially to relatives of Alzheimer pa- tients, was held recently in Jerusalem. The organizer of the seminar, Dr. Yehuda Op- penheim, a psychiatrist at Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek hospital, says the disease is an exhausting strain on the family. One patient, he said, wandered away from home, unable to find her way back. The frantic family eventually found her, lost and bewildered, near the house they had lived in years before. Another sufferer was sudden- ly unable to recognize her husband and asked her son: "Who is that man living in my house?" Oppenheim said that although a cure for Alzheimer's disease is still distant, despite optimistic reports a few years ago, some of the psychiatric symptoms can be alleviated. Drugs are being used successfully to calm the aggressiveness and hypersexuality common in Alzheimer patients, as well as restoring normal sleep pat- terns disturbed by the disease and decreasing the paranoid fears of patients. Four day care centers run by two other Shaare Zedek ex- perts, Dr. Arnold Rosin, a gerontologist, and Lea Abramowitz, a social worker specializing in geriatrics, pro- vide many Alzheimer victims in Jerusalem with daytime activities, thus lessening the burden of family members. Oppenheim teaches coping techniques to families who need help with patients who are often irrational, enabling these families to keep their relatives at home for as long as possible before the often unavoidable move to an in- stitution, such as the Ezrat Nashim Mental Health Center in Jerusalem. News of a possible cure was generated in Britain some j years ago by the discovery of a 70 percent deficiency in a certain chemical, acetylo- chine, essential for normal brain functioning. Doctors at the time thought that by supplying this chemical, they would be able to cure the disease, but so far they have been unsuccessful. Some 6 percent of those over 65 are stricken with the disease, and the proportion rises to 20 percent of peple over the age of 80. Incidence of the disease is extremely rare in younger people and, although Alzheimer does develop gradually over a period of years* there are no early warning signs. Oppenheim recommends a full medical assessment of elderly people whose mental functioning seems to be deteriorating, though he said that in his experience, most families do not seek help for anywhere between one and five years after the onset of Alzheimer characteristic symptoms. Jewish Telegraphic Agency NEWS Lawmakers Hit Anti-Semitism Washington (JTA) — One hundred and seventy members of Congress are ask- ing Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to formally in- vestigate the activities of new anti-Semitic nationalistic groups that have recently sur- faced under "glasnost." In an Aug. 8 letter, the lawmakers said that in the new era of openess, "anti- Semitic acts are currently be- ing organized against Jews in Moscow and other cities in the Soviet Union." They praised Gorbachev for recent human rights ad- vances but asked him to of- ficially condemn anti- Semitism and to halt further incidents against Jews. None of the estimated 2.5 million Jews in the USSR have been killed or injured in any of the incidents, but the lawmakers told Gorbachev that Jewish property, in- cluding 60 tombstones in Moscow, has been desecrated by vandals. A newly formed Soviet na- tionalistic group called "Pamyat" or "Remembrance" has been accused of being at the forefront of the anti- Semitic activity.