Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s disease is one type of dementia that worsens over time.
Dementia is a loss of functioning of brain function due to some reason.
It affects the behavior and, more importantly, the speech ability in expressing language, decision making, or judgment.
Overall, there is memory damage.
The effects of Alzheimer’s disease change from person to person.
The life span of patients differs from person to person, likely to be 3-20 years after diagnosis.
The patient becomes immobile or completely disabled in its final stages.
It is realized presently that more than 18 million people worldwide are affected by Alzheimer’s disease.
By 2025, the expectations are that the figure may double.
The cause of Alzheimer’s disease is not known, but the factors considered are both genetic and environmental.
The diagnosis is made if there is any occurrence of dementia.
Aging is the most common cause.
Regular blood pressure and head trauma are also the main causes. All the factors are yet to be investigated in detailed explanations.
To find out the major reason for AD, the patient’s brain tissues are examined after death.
The tissues affected the most commonly are Neurofibrillary tangles, which are twisted fragments of protein in nerve cells.
Neuritic plaques are dead nerve cells, and Senile plaques are an accumulation of dying nerve cells around protein.
When neurons are damaged, there is a decrease in chemicals that help nerve cells send messages to each other.
In this way connection of nerves is altered.
Thus, the mental functioning decreases and exhibits the symptoms of dementia, which first alter the memory and then speech loss.
The major symptoms are language problems, misplacing items, losing social skills, and difficulty understanding new things.
This may get worse and cause forgetting events of life, difficulty reading and writing, poor judgment to recognize various things, using wrong words, losing interest in social contacts, having hallucinations, and behaving violently.
AD is diagnosed by having a complete history of a person and conducting tests.
An MRI can detect dementia. Since there is no treatment for AD, suitable drugs are given to prolong the disease by understanding the patient’s side effects.
All the medications and supplements should be under the supervision of a doctor only.
