
- With Mayo Clinic health education outreach coordinator
Angela Lunde
read biographyclose windowBiography of
Angela Lunde
Angela Lunde is a dementia education specialist in the education core of Mayo Clinic's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the Abigail Van Buren Alzheimer's Disease Research Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Angela Lunde
The transfer of information about dementias, as well as understanding the need for participation in clinical trials, is an essential component of the education core.
Angela is a member of the Alzheimer's Association board of directors and co-chair of the annual Minnesota Dementia Conference. She is a member of the Dementia Behavior Assessment and Response Team (D-BART), a multidisciplinary outreach service assisting professional and family caregivers in understanding and managing difficult behaviors often present in dementia. She facilitates several support groups, including Memory Club, an early-stage education and support series, and more recently, helped to develop and now deliver Healthy Action to Benefit Independence and Thinking (HABIT), a 10-day cognitive rehab and wellness program for people with mild cognitive impairment.
Angela takes a personal interest in understanding the complex changes that take place within relationships and among families when dementia is present. She is particularly interested in providing innovative and accessible ways for people with dementia and their families to receive information and participate in valuable programs that promote well-being.
"Amid a devastating disease, there are tools, therapies, programs and ways to cope, and it is vital that families are connected to these resources," she says.
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Get StartedAlzheimer's blog
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Dec. 20, 2008
No link between Alzheimer's and flu shots
By Angela Lunde
A few of you have asked about the relationship between the flu vaccine and increased risk of Alzheimer's disease. I went to my colleagues in the Department of Behavioral Neurology for some help with this question, and Brad Boeve, M.D., suggested sharing the following:
There is absolutely no evidence that flu vaccines contribute in any way to Alzheimer's disease, and it is hard to imagine a mechanism of how this could affect amyloid or tau. One blogger referred to excitotoxicity, but this idea came from a non-physician making wild claims and selling a book for profit.
Consider also that thousands of healthy people die from the flu each year, and the vaccines clearly reduce the potential of developing the flu, and lessen the severity of the flu if you still get it. The public must balance what is proven and could keep them from getting very ill or dying as opposed to an unfounded theory by a layperson.
If this theory keeps one person from getting the vaccine, and then he or she becomes very ill or dies from the flu, those who write or support such claims have contributed to that person's illness or death.
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