Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s disease is a type of dementia that causes
problems with memory, thinking and behavior. The symptoms usually develop slowly
and get worse over time becoming severe enough to interfere with daily tasks.
Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease where dementia symptoms gradually worsen
over a number of years. The disease gradually progresses to more serious memory
loss, confusion, depression, restlessness, hallucinations, delusions,
sleeplessness and loss of appetite. With
Alzheimer’s the total brain size shrinks the tissues have progressively fewer
nerve cells and connections. The most common early symptom of Alzheimer’s is
difficulty remembering newly learned information.
You would have the person asking repetitive questions or
carrying on the same conversations over and over. They will misplace personal
items, forget events or appointments and even get lost on familiar routes. People
who suffer from this lose the ability to carry on a conversation, respond to their
environment and every day tasks. Their memory and alertness vary substantially
from time to time, suggesting that many of their problems result from
malfunctioning neurons, rather than the death of neurons but the dying or brain
cells are still present. It would also affect reasoning skills and their
judgment by making them perform poor decision making ability and poor
understanding of safety risks so most people need to be taken care of by family
member or in facilities were they will be looked over at in a daily bases.
Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia targeting
people as young as 40, but becomes more common with age and most people over
the age of 85 suffer from some type of dementia. People who are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s
disease say that the symptoms first appear in average over the age of 60. Alzheimer’s has no current cure but treatments
for symptoms are available which could control some factors while the research
continues. Some of the reasons why they say this occurs is because of the
buildup of two proteins in the brain called plaques and tangles which kills the
brain cells. Like all types of dementia,
Alzheimer’s is caused by dying brain cells which is a progressive process that
happens over a course of time.
I am very familiar with what you describe as the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, as I have worked with patients who suffer from this. It is probably one of the saddest diseases that affect elderly people because you lose your memory and along with it yourself. It is important to be aware of the signs like the one's you mentioned to know what actions to take to help with Alheimer's disease.
ReplyDeletePedro, I think the article and the video you posted really emphasize and describe how Alzheimer is developed in patients. I think Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most painful diseases a patient can experience because you forget about all the good things in life you had experienced, as well as forgetting about your own family relatives, and patients can live with this for many years average of mild to death of about 8-10 years (according to the video).
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