TRIAL OF ULTRASOUND TREATMENT FOR ALZHEIMER’S UNDERWAY

A PIONEERING treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, developed at The University of Queensland, is being tested in a small safety trial underway in Brisbane.

• Reflexology

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• long-lasting energy. They’re the key to endurance, and they’re what will keep us going, with the body needing around 20% of our diet to consist of ‘good’ fats (the unsaturated kind) to function well.

There are three main types of dietary fats which I’m sure we have all heard of.

Saturated Fat: Found in foods like meat, butter and cream (animal sources).

Unsaturated Fat:These are the ‘good’ fats found in foods like olive oil, avocado, nuts and coconut oil (plant sources).

Trans Fats: Found in commercially produced baked goods, snack foods, fast foods and some margarines.

Although bodies are complicated in their nutritional needs, meeting those nutritional needs is not complicated.

In fact it’s really quite simple… just eat real food.

The safety trial - with a limit of twelve participants - is the culmination of a decade of ongoing research led by Professor Jürgen Götz (pictured) at UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute (QBI)

Professor Götz said the study was an important step to determine whether the ultrasound could be safely delivered, following pioneering discoveries about its potential use to improve memory function.

“There is currently no effective treatment for Alzheimer’s, so it is hugely rewarding that we could in the future poten- tially treat the disease with ultrasound,” Professor Götz said.

The twelve-month trial is being conducted at Mater Hospital Brisbane and UQ and is being overseen by researcher and neurologist, Professor Peter Nestor.

“We’re treating an area at the back of the brain that is affected early in the course of Alzheimer’s disease,” Prof. Nestor said.

“Each participant receives four treatments which will be administered fortnightly, and after completing the course, they’ll have an MRI scan of the brain and a repeat cognitive test.”

Alzheimer’s disease is the most prevalent form of dementia and the second leading cause of death in Australia.

Ask An Expert

What are the benefits of Lymphatic Drainage Massage?

LYMPHATIC drainage massage supports the body’s natural detox process.

If you have tried fasting, fad diets, hours of exercise and still aren’t seeing the results they’re striving for, there’s a good chance your detox system could be clogged up.

Lymphatic drainage massage has become a popular form of massage due to its potential health benefits. This specialized approach focuses on the lymphatic system, which is part of the immune system. This type of massage aims to help the body maintain proper blood circulation, body fluid balance, and immune functions.

It is a gentle, rhythmical massage treatment performed by a specially trained lymphatic massage therapist to stimulate the circulation of lymph fluid around the body. This physical stimulation helps to rapidly speed up the removal of wastes and toxins from a sluggish lymphatic system.

Lymphatic massage can also aid in the prevention of swelling after injury or surgery. It may even provide a significant boost to your immune system.

Lymphatic massage aims to increase the efficiency of your lymphatic and circulatory sys- tem by reducing the volume of retained fluid and the pressure associated, it can reduce the risk of impeded circulation. This volume reduction increases your circulatory system’s capacity to rapidly remove retained fluids and toxic waste build-ups.

Sometimes, we have found that a patient feels quite “energised” post-drainage.

‘LANDSCAPE Matters’ to us all, even though it may not always be immediately obvious. Our lives, personal environment and lifestyle are constantly enriched by the landscape we regularly experience; not only through plants and gardens, but in many other beneficial ways. Each month on this page, one of the many aspects of landscape that make a difference to us will be explored – ‘landscape’ is a term certainly applied in numerous distinctive ways: Our wide Australian landscape is unique in all the world; the Glasshouse Mountains form a unique and dramatic landscape; an artist takes up brush and canvas to paint a landscape picture; a rectangular photo that is wider than it is high, has a landscape format; builders and demolition companies are busy changing the urban landscape of towns and cities; the suburban area in which we live is a landscape, sometimes natural, often newly built; we generally go out into the landscape for recreation and leisure; your private home landscape is most likely a lawn and a few garden shrubs or maybe vegetables; the best way for gardeners to save water is to grow a landscape with native plants; your garden terrace probably had a hard