Phone Line Established for Patients with Alzheimers

The phone number 734-936-8803 connects those diagnosed with Alzheimers,their families and friends directly to services that will assist them. The line was established by University of Michigan Health Systems and leads patients to the U-M Memory Connection.

Patients frequently have to make lots of phone calls to get the information they want to know after being diagnosed with Alzheimers, and the situation is stressful enough without knowing who to turn to. Lots of time when patients call to get information they are directed to another phone number, and this cycle continues until they finally give up without any answers.

"We need to do a better job of helping our patients and families find their way," says Henry Paulson, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Michigan Alzheimer's Disease Center and professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School.

The U-M Memory connection informs patients of what they need to know. It designed to be a one stop destination for information about dementia services and memory loss. Memory loss services are then provided to patients from the line in an easy and non-stressful way, or at least that is what the U-M Memory Connection is aiming for. Services like the Silver Club Programs at U-M Geriatrics Center, community programs and social workers are provided to the patients. Patients can also be connected to research studies on different topics involving memory loss.

"This is a huge health problem that affects all of us. We need to do a better job of making the diagnosis but also implementing care … it can be very difficult for patients to navigate their way," Paulson says.

Patients call are answered by trained professional who has comprehensive knowledge about mild memory loss, Lewy Body disease, Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, and vascular dementia. The line is open to phone call Monday through Friday, 8:30 am to 4:00 pm, and patients who leave messages will be gotten to the next business day or sooner.

"Many people experience changes with memory as they age. Some changes are normal, but other changes could be a sign of memory loss and we know it is important to understand that difference. Our call center specialists can answer some of the difficult questions you may have at the time of a diagnosis and beyond, " says Cassie Starback, coordinator of the Michigan Alzheimer's Disease Center.



U-M Memory connection was put together by the U-M Dementia Consortium that was founded by the Michigan Alzheimer’s Disease center. The composition of the consoritium includes various U-M departments, including Neurology, Geriatric Center, U-M School of Social work, U-M school of Public Health and local chapters of the Alzheimer’s Association.

Police Track Cell Phone to Catch Perp. In Denver

When is it okay for the Police to Resort to Tracking Date from cell phones of citizens?

Two men point a gun at the worker of a Lakewood convenient store and told him to empty the cash register. The owner gave them the money, but the robbers made the mistake of also taking the victim’s iPhone.

The next day, a team of local cops and Denver cops had caught one of the men by tracking the iPhone. The cell phone provider AT&T released the information to the cops as to updates to the iPhone location.

In this case the owner of the iPhone, the man robbed, gave permission to the police to track the location of his phone. The problem becomes what process do police need to go through to be allowed to track cell phones.

The Supreme Court Ruled on a vote 5 to 4 that police tracking people via their real time data from their cell phones without a search warrant was a potential violation of our fourth amendment right.

Cell phone providers can provide historical data and real time data, so should they be able to provide certain data and not others? None of these questions have easy answers. Everyone has an opinion about it. Here is one:

"Cell providers can locate every smartphone at any given moment. The question becomes who's privy to that information and under what circumstances," said Tom Raynes, executive director of the Colorado District Attorneys Council. "Because you're giving that information to the cell provider — a third party — when you buy the phone, does that invalidate a right to privacy?"

No one really has made a decision about what circumstances are okay and what situation it is unacceptable for police to check up on. In the case of the robbery, it seems like a pretty obvious answer. Other cases will not be as cut and dry. Police everywhere go by different rules, if they follow any, but there is no national standard.

Obtain cell phones data has become an initial step in many investigations, said Lakewood Police Department spokesman Steve Davis.

"Every law enforcement agency I'm aware of uses this kind of technology to locate people," Davis said. "We have technology available to us today that certainly wasn't available just a few years ago."

Even within different departments of Denver there are different methods of approaching cell phone tracking. Nationally there is no protocol, but one can imagine how much it varies.

This will be an issue to keep an eye on. How much do you want cops being able to poke into your lives without a search warrant or even probably cause?

Mobile Operators Are Set To Lose Voice Services To Mobile Platforms

With the tendency now being for services to move away from the traditional SIM card login services and move towards more mobile login authentication methods like the ones used on iPods when linking up to iTunes services.

What the future holds nobody can be one hundred percent certain of what the future will bring for mobile services but there is no doubt that customers are looking to improve the simplicity of connecting up with all the online services such as email, Facebook and Skype. The ultimate plan is to allow a customer to purchase a phone and as soon as you turn it on you would be able to log into your Google / Apple account; then you would have the phone ready to use for voice calling through Google Talk or Skype and instant access to email, Youtube or Facebook.


When you get home with your phone it will automatically connect up to any WiFi you have in your house and will connect to any of the available 3G networks, without a care which specific network it joins to; instead focusing on the problem of the best and cheapest service coverage; finding decent service hampers a lot of people’s usage and being able to log on to whichever service provides the highest level will solve a lot of issues.

Taking a look into the future sees the potential abolishment of phone numbers instead using the already heavily used Facebook profile and just dial directly to that instead of traditional methods. The change is almost inevitable and could start soon; all it would require is for one of the carriers to crack and provide bandwidth available to purchase by either Google, Microsoft or Apple and the floodgates will have opened and be unable to close again. As soon as one sells they will all have to; it is simply impossible for one carrier to stand alone against a giant company.

It may take a while for the transition to occur but eventually the mobile network will turn into one as all services begin to merge into one account offering the best service and also value for the customers and after all the customers drive the business in the direction that they want and need.

There is lots of money to be made when the change does begin to happen but it may well be a case of the company that jumps first either wins out, or faces the risk of being isolated out of the market. Nobody quite knows exactly when the change will happen, but all we do know is that it is coming.