By MELISSA LEONG
National Post
Friday, March 17, 2006

Roberta Bondar captured photographs of Earth while aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1992. She hoped the images would inspire people to love the planet and care more for it.

Today, she is embarking on another mission to move man.

Canada's first female astronaut and the world's first neurologist in space is lending her name and voice to a new public awareness campaign called Mission for Memories which seeks to educate Canadians about Alzheimer's disease and the importance of early diagnosis and treatment.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the identification of the disease by Dr. Alois Alzheimer.

Dr. Bondar compares the exploration of space to a researcher's foray into the human brain.

"We're making baby steps in both. We have no idea what's out there, we have no idea what's inside the brain," the 60-year-old Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., native said in an interview with the National Post.

"We look at the kabillions of stars that are out there and we look at the kadrillions of neurons inside the brain and we still don't know how to connect all the stuff together."

In 1974, when she wrote her post-graduate thesis on Dr. Alzheimer's work, medical professionals were not able to image or look into live brains, she said.

"The brain was in a black box and the only way to get to it was either an autopsy or doing surgery -- taking a piece of tissue out. It was a very difficult organ and it still remains a very complex organ, but we have better imaging and better ways of developing standards for assessing things like memory," she said.

"The difference now is, we are making diagnosis to help families with planning but also to provide them with the option of medications that can stave off some of the difficulties that will ensue in the course of the disease," she said.

Within a decade, she said, better drug treatments will likely exist to help postpone the ravages of the incurable disease.

"People are working on this now. We have to keep that level of hope for the people."

She said one of her professors became afflicted with Alzheimer's disease.

"It was extraordinary to see this person fail. It was very difficult to see this very, very capable man deterioate. He became confused," she said.

Alzheimer's disease is a progressive, degenerative disease which causes tread-like tangles within brain cells. Brain cells shrink or disappear and are replaced by dense plaques, affecting a person's mental, emotional and physical abilities. Simple tasks that have been performed for years will become more difficult. Loved ones may be forgotten.

"One of the things that we see is that people become disoriented and they get lost," Dr. Bondar said, referring to an early symptom of the disease. "They go to a shopping mall and you'll say, 'Okay, Mom, I'll meet you at the side door of Loblaws in an hour.' You go and they never show up. They're found wandering around outside in the parking lot."

About 290,000 Canadians over 65 have Alzheimer's disease.

"There are people around us who remain undiagnosed. Alzheimer's is a disease, not senility," Dr. Bondar said.

Warning signs of Alzheimer's disease (provided by the Alzheimer Society of Canada):

• Memory loss affecting day-to-day function
• Difficulty performing familiar tasks
• Problems with language
• Disorientation of time and place
• Poor or decreased judgement
• Problems with abstract thinking
• Misplacing things
• Changes in mood and behaviour
• Changes in personality
• Loss in initiative

© National Post 2006