60 Minutes - 11/22/2020: COVID's Long-Haulers; Where did they Go?; 90+

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

Months after contracting COVID-19, seemingly healthy, active, younger people are experiencing what some doctors have started referring to as Post-acute COVID Syndrome. Anderson Cooper explains. Enrollment data from 78 of the country's largest school districts found at least 240,000 students were unaccounted for as school began during the pandemic. Sharyn Alfonsi reports. Four of the eight men and women over the age of 90 -- who were featured in a 2014 60 Minutes story are still alive and participating in the 90+ Study. Lesley Stahl catches up with them on this week's "60 Minutes." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

. Both arms go up and over your head. Eight months into the pandemic, patients in their 20s, 30s and 40s who'd recovered from relatively mild cases of COVID I just got an MRI. are showing up in doctors' offices and emergency rooms around the world with mysterious and debilitating symptoms. There's thousands and thousands of people that are going through this,

and that's why it's so impactful. You believe it's not in their heads? Yeah, I have to because I feel those symptoms too, and I don't think it's all in my head. No one is keeping track of how many kids nationwide are not in school because of the pandemic. So 60 Minutes compiled enrollment data from 78 of the largest school districts in the country. The results were alarming. Districts reported that when schools started, at least 240,000 students were unaccounted for. Well, here in Hillsborough County, we're missing 7,000 students.

7,000 kids didn't come back. 7,000. What's going on, Lou? 60 Minutes has been following elderly participants in a study called 90 Plus. And as you'll hear tonight, what they're finding out about the science of longevity is evolving and amazing. Half of all children born today in the United States and Europe is going to reach their 103rd or 4th birthday. Half? Yes.

I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. nothing to grill when the in-laws decide that actually they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions,

and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over deliver. COVID-19 was initially thought to be a disease that was serious for the elderly and people with pre-existing conditions, a potentially tough but temporary respiratory illness for everyone else. But now, eight months into the pandemic, younger patients who've had relatively mild cases of COVID are showing up in doctors' offices and emergency rooms with mysterious and debilitating symptoms. It's not unusual for viruses to cause after effects, but as you'll hear tonight, doctors tell us they've never seen anything like this.

While researchers around the world are scrambling to figure out what's happening, Mount Sinai Hospital here in New York opened one of the first centers to study and treat people with what they're calling post-acute COVID syndrome. The patients we met have a less clinical term. They call themselves long haulers. It's like a viral tornado that goes in you and kind of just messes you up. And then like it kind of leaves,

but leaves something behind. It leaves the rubble that a tornado leaves behind. It leaves the damage behind. Sidi Nagamutu was 44 years old and a personal trainer in New York when she got COVID in March. She was able to recover at home, and when she tested negative in May, she thought her life would return to normal. It hasn't. There are days where I do nothing and just can't get out of bed. The migraines, they're like 10 times worse than a flu headache. Pains like muscular issues and

there are some times where my hands feel like they have pins and needles and I have to stop using them because I can't feel anything. Some people who are going through this call themselves long haulers. Do you think it's going to be a long haul? It has been a long haul. Eight months after getting infected, she says she can't work out or work in the gym. Just walking upstairs sends her heart rate soaring. The grocery store is like the dread for me.

What's hard about the grocery store? I cannot lift bags and walk. You're a full-time trainer, and you can't lift grocery bags? Correct. Sadie has seen half a dozen doctors in the past six months. Her bedside table looks like a medicine cabinet. Both arms go up and over your head. She's been diagnosed with post-viral fatigue, inflammation in the lungs, and tachycardia, a rapid heart rate.

But no one can tell her exactly why this is happening. It's got to take such a toll mentally to still be dealing with this. It's depressing, is really what it is. Nobody can really understand or relate to you except somebody else who's had the same problem. What's been worse for you, the initial infection or the aftermath of COVID? The aftermath, without a doubt. Nitza Roches also got COVID in March, and by May, the infection was gone. But 191 days later, she's still struggling. I was sick with COVID, but this post-COVID experience has been beyond the worst experience of my life.

Nitza loved to run. Three years ago, she completed the New York City Marathon. The following year, Berlin. At 43, she was training for another race when she got infected. This is slight unsteadiness. Now, she tells us she has trouble walking more than a few blocks down the street. Nitza says she's had so many strange and unrelenting symptoms, she started documenting them on her phone.

She got tremors in her hands and had problems with her balance. I had headache, dizziness, blurry vision, double vision, heavy limbs. It's a lot. It's a lot. For months, she experienced memory problems, trouble finding words, and confusion, something many long haulers grapple with. They call it COVID brain fog, and Nitze says it made everyday tasks nearly impossible. It's an odd sensation.

It's as if I've taken Benadryl, kind of like a disconnect, a cloudiness to my head. But Nitza says the most terrifying symptom was when her legs started to give out. I moved in with my sister, and she said, why are you walking like that? And I said, I don't know, maybe I'm just tired. And I think three to four days after she mentioned that, I woke up, and my legs felt so heavy, as if though a weight was pulling me down, that I just, my legs didn't support me, and I just kind of like fell. I just got an MRI. She went to the emergency room and requested an MRI and a full blood workup. Everything came back normal. The doctors were like, you're fine, you're having anxiety attacks, you're just nervous, breathe. They thought it was in your head. They thought

it was in my head. And it's one of those moments that I'll never forget, because how could I possibly be fine? And when I left the emergency room that day, I was like, I'm just going home to die. Sorry. Sorry, sorry. You don't mind. Even recounting that is emotional. To be told what you're feeling is not real. Precisely. She eventually found her way to Mount Sinai Hospital's Center for Post-COVID Care in New York. There are 40 doctors working with the center, most of them specialists,

focused on treating and studying long-haulers. The average age of patients who are feeling this post-acute COVID syndrome are 20s to 40s. They were relatively healthy before. Dr. Dana McCarthy is a rehab specialist at the center, which has treated a thousand patients since it opened its doors in May. There's a wait list to get in. The vast majority of the patients that you see here at the center were never hospitalized. Correct.

So they weren't on ventilators. This is not ramifications from being in the hospital. Correct. Yep. Dr. McCarthy is treating her patients' symptoms as best she can, but isn't much closer to understanding what's causing them. Do we know now what's going on? No. No.

No, we still don't know. Yeah. I think it's a little bit of a mystery. And well, let's take a little bit out of it. I think this is a mystery. Dr. Zijian Chen heads up the center, which Mount Sinai modeled on the hospital's approach to another public health crisis, the September 11th attacks.

This virus has many different effects on the human body, just like what 9-11 did to, you know, those survivors. So as a kind of catastrophic event at one time that causes a large group of special patients, you know, in a way, this is very similar to 9-11, but on a much grander scale. The pool of patients is much larger. Absolutely.

Mount Sinai is studying commonalities among that pool of patients using data they've compiled and is scanning the long haulers brains lungs and hearts using high resolution imaging to see exactly what damage the virus might have done. The lack of answers and the skepticism many of these patients face have contributed to high levels of depression and anxiety. But Dr. McCarthy says that's not what's making them sick. You believe it's not

in their heads. You believe them. Yeah, I have to because I feel those symptoms too. And I don't think it's all in my head. Dr. McCarthy had what she considered a mild case of COVID in March. But eight months later, she says like so many long haulers, she still finds it hard to get through the day. I basically do my work and I go home and I go to sleep. That's what I'm capable of doing right now. And at the end of the day, do you feel way more tired than you normally would? So at the end of this day, because of what's happening right now and because of the meetings that I have after this, I will have probably the most excruciating headache. And I will just take some Tylenol and curl up in a ball and go to sleep and hope I feel better tomorrow. Dr. McCarthy knows better than anyone there is no clear roadmap for recovery.

Ready to get started? Yeah. Nitsa Roches is seeing a physiatrist, a neurologist, and a cardiologist. She's been prescribed physical therapy, breathing exercises, and dietary changes, as well as blood pressure medication and steroids. So at this point, it's not that we're doing anything in terms of rocket science. It's not like people come here and there's some drug that nobody knows about that you give them? Absolutely not, but that's what makes it even more difficult, right?

It would be so easy if that was the case. There are patients who come to the center with diagnosable damage from COVID, especially in their lungs. But as many as 85 percent of patients here show no clear cause for their symptoms. One theory is that the immune system, which was fighting the virus during the infection, is still in overdrive. So there's a foreign invader, right? Your immune system's the army. It's never been met with anything like this before, right? So it builds up a massive army, and then it goes and fights this. And even after the battle is done, the army

is still chomping around. So it's very possible that the immune system didn't quite calm down. Doctors are looking into whether a ramped up immune response, both during and after the infection, could be wreaking havoc inside patients' bodies. Because the virus kind of goes everywhere after it goes to the lungs, the immune response actually goes everywhere as well. So part of the damage is from the virus itself, but your immune system is also doing damage to your organs. What does that mean, that the immune system is doing damage to your organs? So your immune system, when it's active, what it does is it starts fighting the virus by activating these cells that kill the virus.

But what happens is sometimes these cells, they damage the organs that the virus is next to. So it's almost like collateral damage. Sometimes the only way to spot that damage is on the autopsy table after a patient has died. What can you learn about the living by studying the dead? Because we don't know anything about this disease, an autopsy is the most useful because it will help us determine how this virus is actually making people sick. As head of autopsy and neuropathology at Mount Sinai, Dr. Mary Foulkes examined more than 100 people who died from COVID. Early on, she was stunned by how widespread the destruction was. So people think of COVID as a respiratory illness, but you're seeing damage all over the body.

So there's damage in lung, heart, brain, kidney, liver. Dr. Foulkes told us some of the damage could be caused in part by the amped up immune response, but she also spotted something else. We saw small and very microscopic blood clots in the lungs, the heart, the liver, and significant blood clots in the brain. Is that something you expected to find? No, not at all. Nobody's seen it like this. Blood clots can lead to strokes, which Dr. Folks frequently found in the brains of COVID victims. So this is the right side of the cerebellum. The cerebellum is responsible for our balance. So that indentation, that brown wedge? Yep. DANA MCCARTHY, Yes. WILLIAM BRANGHAM That's a stroke.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM That's a stroke. WILLIAM BRANGHAM Dr. Folks' patients may have been the sickest of the sick, but her work might offer clues for Mount Sinai researchers who are collaborating with colleagues around the world to figure out what's causing symptoms in living long-haulers. DR. DANA MCCARTHY, I will see you in six weeks, OK? WILLIAM BRANGHAM Dr. Dana McCarthy hopes her patients won't have to wait for answers.

DR. DANA MCCARTHY, We have the expectation of patients getting better. Why? Because there's nothing to say that they won't yet. Have any of your patients made a full recovery? Not full. I have some that are around 90, 95 percent. But as new infections keep rising, so do the numbers of long haulers. There's thousands and thousands of people that are going through this. The numbers are enormous, and that's why it's so impactful.

Impactful not only on people's lives, on the economy, on... Correct, on the health care system. How about the burden of care for the health care system that now has young patients, right, who if we don't do something now to try to get them better, can have a chronic-type illness that then requires consistent and persistent money and care. Nitza Roches says she has made some progress in recent weeks, but still has a long way to go.

Do you think he'll run again? Yes. I was expecting to be running by now, so it's kind of a sensitive subject for me in general, but I'm hopeful, yes, I will be running again. It's a mental battle, it's a physical battle, and you're still trying to get across the finish line. Yeah, that finish line seems very far away. This past week, Dr. Mary Foulkes, the head of autopsy and neuropathology at Mount Sinai,

died suddenly of a heart attack. Her work helped inform Mount Sinai died suddenly of a heart attack. Her work helped inform Mount Sinai's COVID treatment protocols since the beginning of the pandemic. Sometimes historic events suck, but what shouldn't suck is learning about history. I do that through storytelling. History That Doesn't Suck is a chart-topping history-telling podcast chronicling the epic story of America, decade by decade. Right now, I'm digging into the history of incredible infrastructure projects of the 1930s, including the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, and more.

The promise is in the title, History That Doesn't Suck. Available on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Going back to school this year has been a lesson in patience. Since the surge of COVID cases this fall, many cities, including New York, Detroit, and Philadelphia, have suspended or postponed their plans to hold in-person classes. The delays and ever-changing schedules have been frustrating to parents and students, but also worrisome to educators, who told us at the start of the school year, hundreds of thousands of students did not enroll. They're not logging in or coming in.

We wondered, where did they go? To find out, we went to Tampa, Florida, where one of the state's largest school districts, Hillsborough County, saw an unprecedented drop in enrollment. What do you hear from teachers? Are they saying to you, we're missing kids, he should have been in my class, where is he, he's not showing up? Do you hear that? Well, in here in Hillsborough County, we're missing 7,000 students. 7,000 kids didn't come back? 7,000. How does that 7,000 number compare to previous years?

We've never had that happen. Laura Tucker is one of 235 social workers at the Hillsborough County School District. At the beginning of this school year, their job wasn't just checking in on kids, it was finding them. To have that many kids with a question mark next to their name. Where do you begin? Well, every student attended some school last year, all 7,000 of them. So we start there. You know, what about their emergency contacts? You know, maybe grandma or grandpa is on the emergency card and grandma and grandpa can tell you where they are. You know, we find kids because another one went to a birthday party and they saw them and so yeah they're still in Tampa. Okay, you know, we find kids because another one went to a birthday party and they saw them, and so, yeah, they're still in Tampa.

Okay, you know, we're energized to keep looking for that student. This is detective work. Right. And I think that being willing to talk to friends and neighbors is also helpful. The clues take her to public housing. Hello, pumpkin. And suburban cul-de-sacs. Hello, hello. Sheriff's office. housing, and suburban cul-de-sacs. Laura Tucker has also gone with sheriff's deputies to check on reports of families

staying in this encampment in the woods. This past week, she found a seventh grade boy living here with his mother. I'll try anything to find students who need to be in school, but this is uncharted ground. We've never had to look this hard for kids in my career. Last month, she agreed to allow us to spend a day with her as she searched for students around Tampa. Our day began in a parking garage. So this is your makeshift office? It is. I've worked out of my SUV for a while now. Yeah. Yeah, all summer long. So that's your list for the day? Yes. She read us the list of the students she was going to try to find that day. Well, we have Jeshua, who is six years old. We have Mackenzie who is seven. Seventeen children who for some reason

have not come back to school this year. We have Ryan who is seven. Stuart is six. They're young. Yes, yeah, a lot of little ones. Florida state law requires parents to enroll their child in school at age six or notify the school district about an alternate homeschooling plan. Right now, students who are enrolled in Hillsborough County can attend brick-and-mortar school or join class virtually. The students Laura Tucker was looking for hadn't done either. They were marked as missing. I guess somebody could say,

well, it's probably paperwork. I don't know if it's paperwork. I think a portion of them moved away. I think a portion of them are doing their own thing, their homeschooling, and they just haven't notified our homeschool office that that's what they've decided to do. Then some of them just aren't doing school.

And you can get away with it right now. And that's really scary. No one is keeping track of how many kids nationwide are not in school because of the pandemic. So 60 Minutes compiled enrollment data from 78 of the largest school districts in the country. The results were alarming. Districts reported that when schools started, at least 240,000 students were unaccounted for. And the two largest teachers' unions in the country, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers told us their members have seen significant drops in student attendance, especially in disadvantaged communities without access to computers and the internet for online learning.

One student on Laura Tucker's list this summer was a high school senior named Kiera. School administrator Roslyn Brown went with Tucker to go see her. Hi, Kiera. Kiera was a good student who wasn't logging in and suddenly started failing classes when school went virtual. But with this new technology, I think it's going to be a lot easier. They found her 30 minutes outside of Tampa. It's so good to see you. It is really good. I miss you guys. I miss going to be a lot easier. They found her 30 minutes outside of Tampa. It's so good to see you. It is really good. I miss you guys. I miss going to school. Kira was here caring for her grandmother

during the pandemic. We have your number. Do we have mom's number or does mom have a working number? She doesn't have a phone. Today we made sure that she knows that we know that she's coming back to school. Her plan is to do well. Her plan is not to disappear. All right, Kiera, I'll be in touch. All right, bye. A few months ago, Kiera moved again to this motel. Her mother agreed to let her speak to us. Kiera's story helped us understand how so many students

have gone missing during the COVID crisis. How many times do you think you've moved? I moved a lot around Tampa, so I'd say maybe about eight, nine times. Kira told us her family has bounced between motels and relatives' couches since she was in elementary school. Her stepfather lost his job

at the beginning of the pandemic. Who lives here? Me, my sister, my mom, and my stepdad. All in one? All in one room. What was it like in the spring when you couldn't go to school? Not having that teacher to really talk to was kind of difficult. And just really not having a laptop at the time was difficult doing it on my phone, which is such a small screen. You were doing your e-learning, your virtual learning on a phone?

On my phone, yes. How was that? It was very difficult because my phone was really skinny at the time. I didn't have glasses so I'd have to like slide to the left and slide to the right and slide up. So it was just really iffy. And she said working in the crowded motel room was almost impossible. So you sometimes escape so that you can study, right? Definitely. I definitely come outside. I'll sit here and study, but sometimes, you know, the mosquitoes are coming, you know, it's hard.

Or she would walk a mile to this park. You were coming out to places like this to get some peace and quiet, but then you don't have Wi-Fi, you don't have an outlet. Definitely. It was very difficult, but I tried to make it work as best as I could. Is it easier for a kid to slip through the cracks right now because of the pandemic? Yes.

Prior to the pandemic, if you were driving down the road and you saw a school-age child hanging out, riding their skateboard, a social worker such as myself might stop and say, Why aren't you in school today? Today we'll see children on the sidewalk and they may be in school. They may be doing online learning. They may be homeschooled. There certainly are some trancy issues out there, but it's not like it was before. Other children who should be in school aren't so easy to see. Good morning, Joshua. You doing all right this morning? Laura Tucker found six-year-old Joshua living with his grandmother, his legal guardian. Joshua's aunt agreed to come out to talk to us. So what was going on with Joshua? He was

supposed to be in kindergarten this year? Yeah. My mother was having a hard time putting them through e-learning. And due to the COVID, we didn't want to send him back out because he's still so young. Great. Do you have any questions for me? Laura Tucker offered to get Joshua enrolled in virtual learning and promised a teacher would call to work out a plan. The concern there is it's not that he's losing a couple weeks. He could have lost a year. He could have absolutely lost a year.

And my fear would be he would enter in first grade, he would then struggle. And then by third grade, when he's taking those high stakes tests, he may not be able to progress in order to pass. Thank you, Joshua. I'm sorry. So if we can get him back in school,

get him back on track, we can avoid all of that. We're not the big, bad social workers. We're the good, healthy social workers. School districts we spoke to said they saw their largest decrease in enrollment in pre-K and kindergarten. But it's too early to know how the disruption caused by COVID will impact student learning. Florida's biggest industry, tourism and hospitality, was pummeled by the COVID crisis, and low-wage workers were hit the hardest. This fall, Tucker has found many families at motels like this because shelters are full. I am trying to see if a young lady is still staying at this hotel. Laura Tucker was looking for an 11th grader named Shemika.

This was her last known address. Do you know how long ago she checked out? Tucker just missed her. She expects this job to get even tougher as more children become displaced by the pandemic. Hoping to find a family that was living here at one time. A federal order that stops the eviction of tenants who would become homeless expires at the end of the year. Right now, we've got a country that's about to witness evictions like they've never witnessed before. And I compare it a lot to what we experience in hurricanes here in Florida.

No one expects a hurricane to blow their house over. But when it does, the school district and other agencies swoop in to try and solve problems. Okay, sounds great. Around the country, school districts have mobilized. In Loudoun County, Virginia, we saw them looking for 400 students, canvassing laundromats and thrift shops. Every principal is looking. Every assistant principal is looking. All the social workers are looking. The teachers are looking. Social and cultural expectations about learning.

Kiera told us she's glad they looked for her. Three months after we first met her, she was back in school and on track to be the first woman in her family to graduate from high school. She wants to go on to junior college. In the best situation, COVID is hard going, you know, to school virtually is hard and you had a tough situation. What kept you going? Honestly, thinking about my future and knowing that I'm right there, there would be no point in giving up the three and a half years I've done for something so small or, like, the few months that I've been super hard with COVID. How many classmates do you think that are really still struggling?

I'd say there's about maybe like four or five kids that in my class that I've never heard from or not in class or even brick and mortar, you know. My teacher would be like, I haven't heard from them. Are they still in school or what are they doing, you know? So it's just like, wow, I feel bad, you know. He hasn't started school yet and I'm just wondering what's happening. We ended our day with Hillsborough County social worker Laura Tucker. Okay, well thank you. Looking for a fourth grader named Antoine. Antoine, back apartment. Oh. In this pink building. Okay. I believe the last door. Hey get, guys give me a minute I think I found him. It turned out no one was home so she

left a card on the door. Since our visit last month, Tucker and her colleagues have found all but about 700 of the missing 7,000 kids. They are still searching. You feel like you've got a good lead here, and this might be the place? Absolutely. I think we've got enough evidence that this is where the young man lives.

There's a little boy living in that apartment, not going to school, according to the neighbors. So whether he's my Antoine or some Antoine, we're going to get a student in school. So it's a good day. Why do fintechs like Float choose Visa? As a more trusted, more secure payments network, Visa provides scale expertise and innovative payment solutions. Learn more at Visa.ca slash FinTech. We're a nation living longer and longer. Over the next 30 years, the number of Americans age 90 and above is expected to triple.

And an NIH-funded research study called 90 Plus at the University of California, Irvine, is trying to learn all it can right now from a group of men and women who've already managed to get there. Six years ago, we first reported on their first set of findings, factors associated with longer life, exercise, moderate drinking of alcohol and caffeine, social engagement, and our favorite, putting on a few pounds as we age. The 90-plus study's focus is now on memory and dementia. What they've learned and what they haven't drew us back,

as did the 90-plusers. Take a quick look at when we first met them in 2014. My birthday is February 7, 1918. I was born on August 25, 1920, and I'm 93-plus. June 15, 1918, and it was, I'm sure, a lovely day. The men and women we met six years ago had all agreed to be checked out by the 90-plus study team top to bottom every six months. Big smile. Their facial muscles.

Excellent. How they walk. How fast they can stand up and sit down. Fantastic. And critically, how they walk. How fast they can stand up and sit down. Fantastic. And critically, how they think. Now spell world backwards. D-L-R-O-W. Three.

They were an impressive and active group. A B-17 gunner in World War II. A fellow World War II vet who drove a convertible. A 95-year-old speed walker. Ballroom dancers. I asked them, why aren't you going to ask us any questions about our sex life? And they said no. And sadly, some who had begun to struggle with dementia.

What is today's date? Today's date? Mm-hmm. Today's date. What's the oldest person you have seen? I've seen several 116-year-olds. Neurologist Claudia Kawas, the 90-plus studies lead investigator, says studying the oldest old is increasingly important.

Half of all children born today in the United States and Europe is going to reach their 103rd or 4th birthday. Half? Yes. Half the children born today are going to live to 100? To 103 or 104. You know, I don't feel a day older than I was yesterday. They invited us back six years later, and we found some study participants,

like Helen Weil, the ballroom dancer, thriving. Then I do, like, so ten times. Now 99, Helen showed us how she exercises in her chair. Stuff like that. How you doing, Jeff? Good to see what's going on, Lou. Lou Tirado, the World War II gunner, turned 100 in August. Lou was using Zoom.

When he was a kid, most homes didn't have a radio. Do you have an iPhone? I have an iPhone, yep. You on Facebook? Yes. Do you use Siri? Yeah, I tell her every evening, wake me up at 6 30 tomorrow morning. And she does. Yes. Who is our current president? President is Trump. Who was the president before Trump? Obama. Because of COVID-19, the 90-plus study is doing cognitive tests by phone. To subtract 7 from 100. Lou and Helen ace them. And keep subtracting 7. 93, 86, 79.

Her memory is better than mine. But one of our favorite 90-plussers from six years ago, Ruthie Stahl, is not so lucky. Back then, at 95, she was zipping around in her lime green bug. I am flying all over the place. But today, at 102, she didn't remember our having met. And what is your first name? Leslie. That's a nice name. Thank you. Ruthie is as charming and upbeat as ever, but her memory is failing. The current president or the president before him. I'll take either. No, I can't. Do you remember your parents? No. No. It's funny I don't remember them.

Is it frustrating when you can't remember? No. No? It just passes on to something else. Dr. Kawas says most people, probably even most doctors, would assume Ruthie's memory problems stem from Alzheimer's disease. But scientists are finding out more and more about the complexities of what causes dementia. You hear people say, she got Alzheimer's, he has Alzheimer's, when they really should say dementia. That's exactly right. Dementia is a loss of thinking abilities that affects your memory, your language. It's a syndrome.

It's a syndrome kind of like headache is a syndrome. You can have a headache because you've got a brain tumor, or you can have one because you drank too much. And it's the same with dementia. We were sad to learn that some of the 90-plus participants we met in 2014 have passed away. But by donating their brains, as Ted Rosenbaum did, they are very much still part of the study, contributing some of its most fascinating and confounding results. After a participant dies, the 90-plus team gathers to

review mounds of data. Now, because of COVID, they gather on Zoom. Videos from visit two. So tell me what you're going to do when you go home today. gather on Zoom. Ted's test results showed years of memory problems as we had seen six years ago. The 90-plus team concluded that Ted probably had Alzheimer's disease, but then awaited results from their collaborators, a team of pathologists at Stanford University who independently examined Ted's brain. They don't know anything except the brain they've got in front of them. And then you come together. And then we come together and it's like a reveal party. The definition of Alzheimer's disease is having the proteins amyloid and tau, often called plaques and tangles, in the brain.

Okay, the home stretch. But when the Stanford team made their report, Ted's brain didn't have either. As you may see without even zooming in, the section is clear, it's clean. We're negative for beta amyloid here. It actually looks awfully good. It actually does, yes. You sit around, you look at that. What do you conclude? The only pathology we found in his head actually was TDP-43. TDP-43,

a breakthrough. It's a newly identified cause of dementia, a protein originally found in ALS patients that KWAS now believes accounts for up to one in five cases of dementia in people over 90. Can you find out if you have TDP-43 while you're alive? Not yet. And you can't find out if you have two other dementia-causing conditions either. Tiny strokes called microinfarcts that damage brain tissue and hippocampal sclerosis, a shrinking and scarring of part of the brain. So it's likely that many people in their 90s who are diagnosed with Alzheimer's may actually have something else. There's a whole lot of stuff that goes on in the brain

that we have no way of diagnosing during life. So we get a lot of those surprises. But we also get surprises where people have an awful lot of pathology in their brain, a lot of Alzheimer's disease, a lot of TDP disease, and they still turn out to be normal. Let me hold a chair for you. That's what happened with Henry Tornel, Helen Wild's ballroom dancing partner, who joked about studying sex over 90.

Henry died at 100 of cancer, mentally sharp as ever. We should all be so lucky. But his brain told a different story. Beta amyloid, I don't even have to zoom in. Fluorid, very positive, positive as well. The Stanford team found the highest level of plaques and tangles and TDP-43. TDP-43. Especially stunning, since more than one pathology typically means more severe dementia. So he was a huge surprise. He was one of our surprising 90-year-olds who managed to have good cognition

in the face of things in their brain that should cause dementia. It used to be that when a person like Henry, with clear thinking, was found to have plaques and tangles, scientists assumed dementia was just a matter of time. But now they're thinking about it in a new way, that maybe certain people have protection against dementia, a phenomenon they're calling resilience. To prove it, though, they need to follow people who are still alive. Enter convertible-driving Sid Shero from our story in 2014. Let's see. Sid had a PET scan back then for the study,

which revealed significant amounts of amyloid in his brain. The question was, would dementia be around the corner, or might Sid somehow be resilient? Happy birthday to you. Thank you. Sid turned 99 this summer. How old do you feel? I always say 69.

Sid has circulation problems that affect his breathing. But his memory? Well, he told us about buying his first car 80 years ago for $18 in a pool hall. A 31 Chevy convertible with a rumble seat. A rumble seat. And I didn't know how to drive. You won it in a pool hall. Did you win it on a bet? I didn't win it. I bought it. You bought it. I gave him $18. Who sold a car for $18? He needed the money to shoot poles. So I know he's got at least two pathologies in his head. I know he's got, you know, probably high amounts of Alzheimer's, and I know he's got some vascular disease, and we tested him just a couple weeks ago. Good morning.

He did great. Please tell me how many nickels in a dollar. 20. How many quarters in $6.75? 27. Wow, you are quick. So is that resilience? I think that is definitely resilience. It might be what resilience

is all about. Could it be a gene? It absolutely could be, or maybe even more likely multiple genes or combinations of genes. Here's my observation. Okay. You knew more six years ago than you do now. There are just so many questions that we don't know the answers to, more questions. That is really a brilliant observation. And what science is all about. For every new answer, two new questions. For every new discovery, like TDP-43 dementia, and especially resilience, new mysteries to solve. So like its participants, the 90-plus study is keeping at it, trying to help the rest of us make it to age 102 with Ruthie's spirit, but memory intact. It's a shame. It's a shame. Because there's a lot I

could remember. And I'll bet you had a wonderful life. Oh, I have. It's still going on. Thank goodness. When families gather on Thursday, there will likely be fewer places at the table, a smaller turkey in the oven, a dessert or two instead of the pies and cookies that result from a big family baking binge. This is the year of our COVID Thanksgiving.

Quarantines and isolation orders mean many extended families won't be getting together this week. Less shouting at the football game on TV or politics around the table. And we'll miss that. And we'll miss and remember the more than 250,000 Americans who have died in this plague. There remains much to be thankful for this Thursday. Our families, and of course the medical workers, scientists, first responders, and others who are making sure there will be no more Thanksgivings like this one. I'm Leslie Stahl.

We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.