Alzheimer's, Not Just An Old Man's Disease

Alzheimer's disease, we've all hear of it but do we really understand the disease? According to statistics, there are about 350,000 new cases of Alzheimer's disease diagnosed each year in the United States.

Doing the math, we could have more than 4.5 million Americans by the year 2050 affected by the disease. A grimmer outlook indicates that by 2025, there will be 34 million people worldwide with Alzheimer’s disease.

Let's tackle the issue step by step. Alzheimer's disease is a known brain disorder that is progressive and irreversible. It is still not known where and how the disorder develops in the human brain neither is there any sure fire cure for the disease. What is known by medical scientists is that the disease attacks slowly.

It takes its time, gnawing slowly at the victims' minds stealing memories and causing deterioration of brain functions. Alzheimer's is a disease that causes irreversible dementia and is always fatal.

It was German psychiatrist Dr. Alois Alzheimer who first identified the disease. At first he noted the disease's symptoms as "amnestic writing disorder". However when later studies were conducted, Dr. Alzheimer found out that the symptoms were more than ordinary memory loss. It was far worse.

Dr. Alzheimer found the presence of neurofibrillary tangles and amyloidal plaques in the brain. The good doctor presented his findings which were accepted by the medical community, and by 1910 the name of the disease became known as Alzheimer's disease.

The most common early symptoms of the disease are confusion, being inattentive and have problems with orientation, personality changes, experiencing short-term memory loss, language difficulties and mood swings. Probably the most obvious and striking early symptom of Alzheimer's is loss of short term memory.

At fist the victim will exhibit minor forgetfulness, but as the disease slowly progress he/she will start to forget a lot of things. However, older memories are oftentimes left untouched. Because of this, patients with Alzheimer's will start to be less energetic and spontaneous. As the disease progress, they will have trouble learning new things and reacting on outside stimuli which gets them all confused and causes them to exercise poor judgment. This is considered Stage 1 of the disease.

At Stage 2 the patient will now need assistance in performing complicated tasks. Speech and understanding is evidently slower. At this stage, Alzheimer's victims are already aware that they have the disease which causes a whole lot of problems like depression and restlessness.

At this point, only the distant past can be recalled and recent events are immediately forgotten. Patients will have difficulty telling time, date and where they are.

The final stage is of course the hardest, both for the patient and their family. At Stage 3 the patient will start to lose control of a lot of bodily functions like simple chewing and swallowing. He/she will start getting the needed nutrients through a tube. At Stage 3, the patient will no longer remember basically anyone. They will lose bowel and bladder control and they will become vulnerable to third party infections and diseases like pneumonia. Once the patient become bedridden, things will only get worse. Respiratory problems will become more terrible.

It is apparent that the patient will need constant care. At this point, the most one can do is to make sure that the patient stays as comfortable as possible. At the terminal stage, death is inevitable.