A New Threat !

Babies born in these early years of the twenty-first century will live many years longer than those born a hundred years earlier.  Not only have medical skills advanced to take care of diseases that led to early death, our lifestyle has changed for the better and now the average person can expect to reach the age of eighty.  There is the expectation that those born today will live even longer.

Unfortunately, one of the afflictions that go with advanced age is Alzheimer's disease which is also termed " Dementia " !   It often manifests itself by memory loss and progresses to the point that the victim needs constant care in a nursing home.  Despite many promising research breakthroughs, no cure is yet in sight.  It seems to be a disease that has random affliction and dementia is just as likely to strike down a country's king or president as it is to affect a commoner.

Now science has discovered a new threat that will put fear into those who have at some time in their life needed a blood transfusion.  It is quite possible that the threads of dementia may pass from person to person in the blood that is used in surgery to make many operations possible, despite the detailed screening that already takes place.

The clues fell into place when researchers at the University College of London noticed that patients who developed Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease  (CJD) after treatment with human growth hormones also showed signs of Alzheimer's after death.  It was reasoned that this blood link contained misfolded proteins capable of setting off this deadly chain reaction.

Obviously, research is urgently needed to improve the screening of blood donated by the public to keep the blood bank supplied.  Given the propensity of dementia to be already in progress in the aged it seems possible that donation age may be further reduced and offers rejected from those where a family history of dementia is present.

For most people, blood transfusions are a calculated risk.  A patient would be unwise to reject a procedure to reverse a life threatening situation because of fear of dementia. In its mildest form it usually is present in most aged  people in one form or another and it is a form of age degeneration that we expect.  To die at an earlier age would not be an acceptable form of dementia avoidance.

What does seem possible is preparation for a coming procedure by storing blood from an acceptable age group of people to avoid this dementia risk.  This would be both cumbersome and costly and it would reduce the value of the public donations that are crucial to keeping the blood bank supplied.

A very similar fear erupted across the community when AIDS first arrived on the medical scene and the blood screening process was quickly re-evaluated to remove that threat.  Hopefully, medical science may quickly be able to introduce new procedures to eliminate this risk and restore the public confidence on the blood banks ability to save lives - risk free !