Alzheimer's Disease Essay

685 Words2 Pages

The man to discover Alzheimer’s disease was Alois Alzheimer; he discovered it after a patient with an abnormal mental illness passed. Alzheimer’s, also known as AD, is named after Alois Alzheimer and is a continuing loss of brain function that affects thinking skills, such as forming or retrieving memories and judgment. I think that it took him so long to discover that it was a new disease because Alzheimer’s can be so subtle that only a drastic change in the view of the brain can show the outcome of the cells. This disease affects older people however it is not a normal part of aging. AD does not have a cure yet, scientists are however trying to find the root of the disease and control its destructive powers. Currently there is no cure for Alzheimer’s, scientists have also tried to increase the time for which the disease can fully take over the nerve cell connections, however that to cannot be achieved present-day, sometimes if the disease is caught early on it can be slowed down, but it is very rare. They are however developing treatments that may help with the symptoms. Out of about 7 billion people in the world, 300 million are American and the Alzheimer's Association states that, “More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease today” (Stone, “Genetics and Alzheimer's”). Alzheimer's disease is the source of the destruction or decline of brain cells or nerve cells. As a result of damaged nerve cells, the brain may have fewer bonds as compared to healthy brain cells. Amyloid plaques are outside the cell and are clusters of protein, Neurofibrillary tangles are proteins too, but they are inside the cell. It has not been confirmed on whether or not these protein clumps have any effect on Alzheimer’s or not, but they are ... ... middle of paper ... ...e destructive as she aged. It advanced to the point of not remembering her grandchildren, or even sometimes her children. She seemed to be stuck in time, for example, the only person she could really remember was her husband who passed about 14 years ago, everyday she waited for this man that was never going to come back. I thought that it was unusual because she had only had it for 8 years so I didn’t understand how she couldn’t remember anybody before that. I wanted to be able to comprehend what was happening in her mind. Alzheimer’s affects the minds ability to function, and only worsens over time, to the point were you have to be cared for hourly. While there is not a cure for it, an interest by scientists sparks the desire to find one. The topic appealed to me because while it seems that Alzheimer’s doesn’t have much depth, it is actually a very complicated.

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