subject: Alzheimer's Disease [print this page] Alzheimer's disease is one type of dementia that becomes worst over time. Dementia is damage of functioning of brain due to some reason. It affects the behavior and tremendously the speech strength in expressing the language, decision making or judgment. Over all there is memory destruction
The quantity of trouble by Alzheimer's disease changes from person to person. But surely it worsens instantly if AD is producing quickly. Patients commonly die earlier than normal. Once again the life span of patients varies from person to person, likely to be 3-20 years after diagnosis. Patient becomes immobile or fully disabled in its final stages.
It is studied at present that 18 million people world wide are treated with Alzheimer's disease. It is occurred due to averaging population and by 2025 the arrivals are the figure may double. Presently 50% of sufferers are found in developing countries and may go to 70% by 2025.
The reason of Alzheimer's disease is not figured completely but the root cause considered are both genetically and environmental. The diagnosis is done if any occurrence of dementia. Aging factor is most common root cause for developing AD. Affect to close relative and among siblings may risk getting this disease. Regular blood pressure, head traumas are also the common implemented causes. All the cause are yet to be discovered in detailed explanations.
To find out the important cause of AD patient is, only examining part of brain tissues after death. To tissues the most common are Neurofibrillary tangles which are twisted fragments of protein in nerve cells, Neuritic plaques are dead nerve cells and Senile plaques which are accumulated of dying nerve cells around protein.
When neurons are damaged there is a decrease of chemicals that help nerve cells send messages to another. In this way connection of nerves are disestablished. Thus the mental functioning decreases and exhibits the symptoms of dementia which first alters the memory and then speech loss. The beginning symptoms are language problems, misplacing items, loosing social skills and difficulty to understand the new aspects.
This may go to worse forgetting events of life, difficulty reading and wring, poor judgment to recognize various things, using wrong words, loosing interest in social contacts, having hallucination and behaving violently. Patients hardly recognize of closest effecting even dressing and bathing.
AD is diagnosed by having complete history of person and conducting tests like brain tumor, vitamin deficiency, stroke, anemia, depression, thyroid disease. MRI can straight find if dementia. Since there is no treatment for AD, suitable drugs are given to prolong the disease by understanding the patients side effects. Medicines mostly used are Donepezil ,rivastigmine and galantamine some times Memantine.
Supplements should be taken of vitamin B9, vitamin B12, and vitamin E. Herb ginkgo biloba prevents or slows the development of dementia. However these are not clinically approved and ginkgo biloba should not be taken if blood thinning or anti depressant medicines are given. All the medications and supplements should be under the supervision of doctor only.
