[originaltext] November is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month in the United States.

November is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month in the United States. Alzheimer’s is a frightening disease. It is frightening not only for those who suffer from memory loss, but also for their loved ones. But researchers in California say a new way of treating Alzheimer’s disease is showing promise for reversing some of that memory loss. The new treatment combines western medicine with eastern philosophy—ideas rooted in Asian religions.
    Dr. Dale Bredesen is with the Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research at UCLA. He says nine of ten patients suffering from either Alzheimer’s or other disorders of the brain noted improvements in their memory. He says the new practice treats the whole patient, not just parts of the patient. Dr. Bredesen says the traditional use of only one treatment just did not work with many patients.
    "They have either taken a single drug to try with Alzheimer’s and that has been failure repeatedly, or they have tried without any sort of background simply saying, ’Okay, try exercise, try changing your diet,’ these sorts of things, and there has not been any way to understand how these things contribute to the disease."
    Dr. Bredesen says there is a constant balance of the brain remembering and forgetting. He says many things, including a person’s lifestyle, can create an imbalance in brain activity. And this imbalance can lead to memory loss.
    "We identified 36 different parts of this network that contribute to the imbalance. So when you are chronically on the wrong side of that balance, you are in fact pulling apart the connections instead of making them. Then, in the long run, that can lead to Alzheimer’s disease."
    The thirty-six different parts or elements include a person’s diet, exercise and sleep. Dr. Bredesen creates an individualized treatment for each patient. He does this by taking images of their brain, testing their blood and asking many questions about their daily life. Treatments include lifestyle changes and even medicines or vitamin supplements. He describes this new treatment as combining western understanding of the human body with the eastern method of looking at the whole patient.
20. What does Alzheimer’s disease refer to?
21. According to Dr. Bredesen, what is the direct cause of Alzheimer’s disease?
22. What makes Dr. Bredesen’s treatment of Alzheimer’s disease special?