My father (a psychiatrist and researcher) believes nicotine is a prophylactic against alzheimer -- he now chews nicorette, though he never smoked. This probably

My father (a psychiatrist and researcher) believes nicotine is a prophylactic against alzheimer -- he now chews nicorette, though he never smoked. This probably won't help your mother, but if you're worried about coming down with alzheimer's yourself you might look into it. A lot of people in my family unfortunately got this disease. I don't know of anything that can reverse its course and I've looked. There are some drugs that are supposed to help a bit but no silver bullet. Google is your friend here (can't recall what they're called, but there are ads for them in all the psychiatric trade journals.) So much for the wonders of science. I further suggest you might join an alzheimer's support network to see how other people cope with a loved one that has this. I'm sorry to say, in my experience, alzheimer's can almost be harder on the caregiver than on the afflicted. So your top priority should be taking care of yourself, so that when you are around your mom you can give her the love and affection she needs and be tolerant of her lapses.