Dementia Treatment with PBM Therapy
Improve Your Brain With NovoTHOR PBM Therapy
Mum was diagnosed with Vascular Dementia and Aphasia in August 2021 following episodes of forgetfulness, poor memory and jumbled/unclear speech.
Since starting the sessions she herself has felt more confident to interact with people and to initiate conversations. As a family we have noticed that her speech was less jumbled and her friends have also noticed this, both face to face and on the telephone. As a family we feel her memory has remained stable. One of the most noticeable changes has been with her handwriting and how much it has improved in a short space of time (see below) .
Initially this lady had two sessions a week for 12 weeks and following a review appointment her sessions were then reduced to once a week. She has subsequently changed to fortnightly sessions and she and her family feel her memory has remained stable on this regime.
The before image is the patient trying to write ‘Elliot’ on a birthday card for her grandson. You can see that the word is not fully formed, it’s uneven, and unfinished forgetting the horizontal parts of the letter ‘t’s.
After a course of tPBM Therapy using our NovoTHOR whole body PBM Therapy Light Bed you can see her amazing improvement! In the ‘After image’ you can see she is writing full sentences, fully formed words with joined up writing and with the correct syntax (meaning and order).
This improvement has been mirrored in many other aspects of her daily life – as an example she was able to go on a cruise with her husband, and then on another holiday to Ireland – activities that would not have been possible before her NovoTHOR whole body PBM Therapy Light Bed treatment. She is able to enjoy life more fully with friends and family with less stress and anxiety for everyone.
Brain Aging
We are living longer than ever, average life expectancy in the UK has gone up from 76 to 82 in the last 25 years so it is no surprise that the aging population can suffer not only from the physical decline we are all familiar with, but also brain ‘aging’ problems too. Most of us will be familiar with Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia but, especially initially, symptoms can show as comparatively Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) such as:
- Slower thinking
- Poorer articulation (finding the right words)
- Lack of recall (e.g. names, places, direction, numbers)
- Slower reactions and being ‘clumsy’
- More easily confused
- Losing train of thought
- Feeling mentally overwhelmed and mentally fatigued
PBM Therapy has an increasing body of evidence showing it can help all sorts of brain and brain related disorders – but reading about research in a population over the other side of the world is one thing but a local real case brings the reality into a sharper focus. In our clinic we are seeing lots of patients with age related brain disorders and after receiving PBM Therapy for this are also noticing many other health benefits, such as:
- Less Rheumatic, Arthritic and muscular pains so they can do more
- More mobility so they are able to function more independently
- Better sleep, waking up more refreshed
- Visual improvements as can occur in AMD
- Improved mood
- More energy so they can keep going and carry out the daily tasks
- Better skin
This post is specifically about a patient who was diagnosed with acute onset dementia. In a short space of time this patient went from symptom free to struggling to function independently with difficulty forming sentences, and lots of her most cherished memories ‘erased’. She came to see us quite a number of months after the diagnosis with no real signs of change (so mother nature had not stepped in to help her improve) she was brought to us by her daughter to see if we could help.
There are so many clinical ways to measure how someone is cognitively – such as the MCOG and the Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination so it is possible to do a before and after treatment assessment to monitor improvement. In addition, seeing how someone copes with everyday life can be equally powerful. The first signs of improvement were subtle, her son and family (who live abroad) noticed mum was more coherent with improved understanding, recall and memory on the phone and facetime. Perhaps the most powerful objective evidence we can see in the before and after images which have been echoed in other aspects of her health.
To read more just search the site and watch the videos on our PBM Therapy You Tube channel. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call us on 01332 224829
Authors note: Our experience using PBM Therapy for chronic conditions with complex symptoms, is improvements made with PBM Therapy are unlikely to last ‘forever’*. In research trials using PBM Therapy for Alzheimer’s patients significant improvements are seen however 6-weeks after the treatment was stopped patients had regressed*.
Regression of improvements after treatment is stopped completely is not unusual (in our experience) in very chronic conditions such as arthritis, skin conditions (Psoriasis) chronic fatigue etc. Slow deterioration in improvements has also been observed in controlled trials such as in this Fibromyalgia Random Controlled Trials after treatment was stopped.
So what can be done to help maintain improvents?
*To prevent this sort of deterioration, we have found top up treatments help maintain the improvements. It’s also likely some symptoms may well respond better than others and others just not respond at all and similarly, responses may vary from patient to patient e.g. one patient’s ‘brain fog’ may be improved with treatment, while another patients may not do as well. PBM Therapy for cognitive decline is still in its early days but each month sees the publication of more research articles and trials refining our knowledge about how this treatment can help us live better lives in our latter years.