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Alzheimer’s Disease: Causes and Treatments Essay
Causes and treatment for Alzheimer's
Conclusion on alzheimers disease treatments
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Introduction
Alzheimer’s disease is a cognitive disorder characterized by progressive loss of the memory and physical function in humans. It is the most common cause of loss of memory especially in old age. The Alzheimer 's disease onset is slow with symptoms appearing as early as 10 years before the full diagnosis. This condition derived its name from the scientist who first described it, Alois Alzheimer. Alois Alzheimer was a pathologist of German descent who also practiced psychiatric medicine. He described the condition first in the year 1906. The disease commonly affects people of the age over 65 years though it may set in earlier due to genetic risk factors (Stern, 2012).
Causes
The degeneration of brain cells known as neurons is the main cause of the loss of the brain memory function. The neurons are responsible for the transmission of impulses in the brain. The transmission of impulses is through the help of chemicals known as neurotransmitters produced by the neurons. When the neurons degenerate and eventually die in Alzheimer 's disease, the transmission of information in the brain ceases. The hippocampus is the part of the human brain that is responsible for memory. In patients suffering from Alzheimer 's disease, the neurons in this part degenerate leading to the loss of the brain function (Stern, 2012). The cerebral cortex plays a role in language and in the association. The Alzheimer 's disease destroys the neurons in this region too leading to the loss of their function and culminating in the ensuing symptoms characteristic of the disease.
Scientists attribute the degeneration of the neurons in the brain to apoptosis. Apoptosis is programmed cell death. A myriad of natural and artificial factors initiate the premat...
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... and scrabble is an efficient way of being mentally fit to prevent the onset of the Alzheimer 's disease.
For those already suffering from the Alzheimer 's disease, therapeutic and pharmaceutical interventions can help the patients to live a quality life (Citron, 2010). Therapeutic measures include support groups for people with the Alzheimer 's disease, provision of day care facilities for those in the advanced stages. This ensures that the can live a quality life regardless of the cognitive impairment. Support and care from the family is essential to ensure that the dementia patients do not harm themselves. Drugs used to manage the Alzheimer 's disease are mainly of the class of drugs known as cholinesterase inhibitors. These include Donepezil and Memantine HCl that help manage symptoms in the mild and advanced stages of the Alzheimer’s disease (Howard et al, 2012).
Neurodegeneration is used mainly for diseases that are characterised by progressive loss of structure and function of neurons. There are many neurodegenerative diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis that...
Alzheimer’s disease was first defined in 1906 by a German psychiatrist, Alois Alzheimer. Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia. It is a progressive brain disorder in which the nerve cells in the brain gradually die off. It is estimated that 26 million people world-wide are afflicted by Alzheimer’s and of those, approximately 4.5 million live in the United States. It is said to be the seventh leading cause of death in the USA and the fifth leading cause of death for those over age 65. Seventeen percent of women and ten percent of men age 55 and older can expect to develop Alzheimer’s (apa.org, 2009). Researchers report that this disease is more prevalent in African Americans and Hispanics than in whites (Crandell, Crandell, and Zanden, 2009, p. 578).
There are no current treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers are constantly looking for new and advanced treatments to alter the course. Any breakthrough in progress will ensure the improvement of the quality of life of people with dementia.
performance that involves, but is not limited to, a loss in at least 2 of the
Alzheimer’s disease is a complex illness that affects the brain tissue directly and undergoes gradual memory and behavioral changes which makes it difficult to diagnose. It is known to be the most common form of dementia and is irreversible. Over four million older Americans have Alzheimer’s, and that number is expected to triple in the next twenty years as more people live into their eighties and nineties. (Johnson, 1989). There is still no cure for Alzheimer’s but throughout the past few years a lot of progress has been made.
Brain death occurs when there is a loss of all brain and brain stem function due to damaged brain cells. It is often termed as an irreversible coma as the damaged cells cannot regenerate themselves and a patient is stuck in a coma-like state. (Wilson and Christensen, 2014)
In this day and age, it seems as though almost everyone has experience a loved one taken away form a very serious disease known as Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is unbelievably devastating for everyone affected by it. This disease is causing major economical problems such as less occupancy in the nursing homes, and hospitals due to the rising population of elderly men and women being diagnosed with it everyday. Because there is not yet a cure for this disease and the percent of the population being diagnosed keeps rapidly rising, more time and money needs to go towards Alzheimer’s research.
Alzheimer's Disease Introduction to Alzheimer's Alzheimer's disease is a progressive, degenerative disease of the brain. It was first described by the German neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915). in 1905. This disease worsens with advancing age, although there is no evidence. that it is caused by the aging process.
Alzheimer’s disease, named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer, is a disease that is on the rise in America and the rest of the world. People should learn as much as they want about this disease, because as you age, your chances of becoming an Alzheimer’s Disease, or AD, patient increases. It is estimated that approximately 3 percent of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 have the illness, and more than half of all people over age 85 have the ailment.
Alzheimer's disorder is a mental disorder that affects your brain, and in particular the disorder affects the memory part of your brain. The disorder slows down the memory section of your brain, and as a result the number one symptom of Alzheimer's is memory loss. The disorder usually doesn't affect younger people, but instead affects people that are older than the age of sixty. The disorder can get so serious that the patient could loss there of about everything that has ever happened in their life. Patients usually loss their memory of their childhood during the most severe, intense, and last stage of the disorder. Alzheimer's disorder can also have a drastic effect on the patient's family, because during the disorder the patient can forget about their entire family.
In 1906, a German physician named Dr. Alois Alzheimer dealt with a patient that had been battling severe memory and confusion problems and had tremendous difficulty understanding questions and basic functions. Alzheimer suspected that the ailment had more to it than inherent memory loss. During an autopsy of the brain, he discovered that there were deposits of neuritic plaques surrounding the nerve cells and twisted fibers, known as neurofibrillary tangles, inside of the nerve cells. These observations became the definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. The plaques and tangles that develop are a natural part of aging; however, they develop far more aggressively in Alzheimer’s victims. The plaques and tangles then block communication among nerve cells and disrupt the cells processes, eventually killing them. This destruction causes memory failure, personality changes, and problems carrying out everyday functions. Alzheimer’s especially attacks the memory. A victim in the later stage of the disease can...
A myth about Alzheimer disease says that nothing can be done about the disease. This is not true. Much can be done to assist the person with Alzheimer’s disease to maintain the highest possible level of functioning as long as possible and in providing the highest quality of life.
According to an article from a magazine, Current Issues: Macmillan Social Science Library it explains that between 2.4 million and 4.5 million people in the United States in 2009 have been diagnosed with a disease that destroys the memory of elders. This brain disease continues to worsen as it goes on. Alzheimer’s Disease is one of the many diseases that slowly deteriorates ones memory. It is a terrible progressive disease that affects elders everywhere. A solution would be to find a cure by research and testing. Alzheimer’s Disease does not only affect the elder, it also affects the people around him/her as well.
Alzheimer’s disease or AD is an incurable disorder of the brain that results in loss of normal brain structure and function. In an AD brain, normal brain tissue is slowly replaced by structures called plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. The plaques represent a naturally occurring sticky protein called beta amyloid and in an Alzheimer’s brain, sufferer’s tend to accumulate too much of this protein. Neurofibrillary tangles represent collapsed tau proteins which, in a normal brain along with microtubules, form a skeleton that maintains the shape of the nerve cells. In Alzheimer’s disease, the tau proteins break loose from their normal location and form tangles. Without the support of these molecules, nerve cells collapse and die. As normal brain structure is lost with progression of the disease, brain function also degenerates. Patients afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease display a gradual mental decline. Initially, and most apparently, there is a loss of short-term memory. Eventually, as a patient progresses to later stages of the disease, the brain becomes so damaged that patients can no longer communicate or recognize immediate family or even themselves. They have difficulty walking and standing and frequently fall. In the final stages, they lose bladder and bowel control and have difficulty with swallowing, frequently leaving them malnourished and dehydrated. Eventually, they are forced to remain bedridden and, without the help of life-prolonging measures provided in a hospital, die. However, this level of deterioration is severe and may take as long as twenty years. Because of the disease’s slow progress and its usual later start in a person’s life, a victim of AD will usually die first of natural causes. Under the objectives ...
Weintraub, Karen. "'Brain games' can boost seniors' memory, focus." USA Today n.d.: Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.