Article: Alzheimer’s disease
By: Maryam Narejo
Tags: Alzheimers Disease, Medical, Old Age

Alzheimer’s disease

Introduction

The Alzheimer’s disease is one that is usually referenced with old age. It usually comes with an increase in age as patients of this disease are usually 65 and above in age and the symptoms get worse over time. For example, it was found in a study that annually there were two new diagnoses per 1,000 people ages 65 to 74, 11 new diagnoses per 1,000 people ages 75 to 84, and 37 new diagnoses per 1,000 people age 85 and older. It is a progressive disorder that leads to brain cells being damaged and then dying away. The early signs of this disease may be forgetting events or conversations that occur recently. Over time the disease harms an individual’s social skills and even their everyday life as the slow depletion of brain cells causes dementia as well.

Symptoms

Although there are several signs connected to the Alzheimer’s disease and the symptoms may vary from person to person, the key symptom is memory loss. The patient will have difficulty is recalling recent events or finding the right words to form sentences and as the disease progresses, the early symptom not only worsen but new symptoms are visible as well. The Alzheimer’s disease also causes hardships in concentrating and thinking. This in turn affects the individual’s ability to make reasonable judgment and decisions in their daily life like cooking or driving or going shopping etc.

As the mechanical and abstract judgments worsen, this has a great impact on the person’s mental health as well. This patient will experience depression, apathy, social withdrawal, mood swings, changes in sleeping habits, aggressiveness, and social anxiety etc. This will usually lead to distrust in others even loved ones and hence harm the patient’s family relations.

Preserved skills

Although there is such negative impact on the patient’s brain functions, there are many crucial skills that are still preserved over the span of years even if the disease gets worse. These preserved skills may include listening or reading books, storytelling, singing, drawing, dancing or doing crafts. The part of the brain that controls these skills are affected later on in the disease, hence these are preserved over a long time.

Causes of Alzheimer’s

Scientists to this day are researching and unraveling new facts about this complex disease and the onset of chances in one’s brain chemistry to lead to this disorder. I seems that the onset of changes in the brain usually start around a decade before the symptoms even start to appear. Due to abnormal deposits of a toxic leftover fragment of protein called Beta-amyloid causes the neurons of the brain to be damaged irreversibly and hence these neurons stop being connected to other neurons. There are many other chemical changes in the brain cells to cause such damage. The damage initially appears to take place in the hippocampus and the Entorhinal cortex, parts of the brain essential in forming memories. Over time as these parts of the brain are damaged, the affected parts of the brain start to shrink, hence by the final stage of Alzheimer’s the brain tissue will have been shrunk significantly.

Treatment for Alzheimer’s

Although the exact causes are not fully understood, but the main problem is failure of brain protein to function properly and hence the disruption of brain neurons to take place. The disease being so complex, there is no one drug to solve the issue completely or prevent it from happening. Hence the current medical approach is to produce medicine that helps people maintain mental function and slow down the damage taking place on neurons or target specific issues regarding genetic, molecular, and cellular functions to control the underlying triggers to this disease.

Takeaway

Alzheimer’s is a very complex and dangerous disease to live with. Although the condition only worsens over time, there is a possible treatment to slow down the process.

If a person feels like a loved one has this disease or notices these symptoms, the first step they should take is to consult a doctor who will help make a diagnosis and hence give you a more accurate opinion on how the treatment should take place.

Maryam Narejo.