Fake Alzheimer's

50 patients were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease by mistake

Anna Stavina, XX2 century, based on Gizmodo: Dozens of Patients Are Suing a Clinic That Gave Them Fake Alzheimer's Diagnoses

Imagine that the doctor told you that your brain is slowly starting to collapse. Soon the neurons will stop functioning normally, and you will gradually lose touch with everything that was dear to you, and then with reality in general. And now imagine that the doctor from whom you heard all this turned out to be not a doctor at all. Probably, you would be very upset by this situation, right?

Unfortunately, this is exactly the scenario that events unfolded in one of the Ontario medical centers. Now the clinic for the treatment of memory disorders is closed, and about 50 patients who received a false diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease are suing the former owner and director of the institution Sherry-Ann Jenkins (Sherry-Ann Jenkins, pictured).

As it turned out, Jenkins had a degree in physiology, but she had neither a medical license nor the right to diagnose or prescribe treatment. Nevertheless, Jenkins studied the brain scans of patients and diagnosed – usually mistakenly – certain diseases. And her husband, a doctor, signed the diagnostic results, despite the fact that he had never seen any of the patients.

Most patients went to the clinic complaining of cognitive decline, for example, due to traumatic brain injury. Approximately 50 patients were told that the cause of memory impairment and other problems is Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia.

After receiving a terrible diagnosis, people radically changed their lives. Many left work, started spending more time with family and friends, being fully confident that soon the life they were used to will end forever. Some patients decided to undergo treatment at the Jenkins Clinic, where she suggested using the so-called "holistic approach". "Holistic therapy" included memory training games and regular intake of coconut oil. One of the patients who received an erroneous diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease committed suicide.

Holistic medicine is one of the trends of alternative medicine, focused on the treatment of "the whole person", and not just a specific disease. According to the holistic approach to human health, all the needs of the patient should be taken into account, including psychological, physical and social, and they should be considered as a whole. Some representatives of holistic medicine use exclusively alternative methods of treatment, but sometimes "holistic treatment" can mean taking into account all the features of a person's condition when prescribing conventional therapy. Periodically, "holistic medicine" is called a combination of alternative and traditional methods of treatment.

Some of the patients, however, turned to other doctors for a second opinion, who refuted the diagnoses made by Jenkins. Lawsuits against the holistic clinic began to accumulate, with each of the patients demanding damages in the amount of about a million US dollars. The clinic's lawyers confirmed that the center's activities were not licensed, but they did not agree with the rest of the complaints. No criminal case has been opened against Jenkins yet. Whether it will appear in the future is still unknown.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  14.02.2017