Alzheimer’s Disease
Part One: What is it?
November is National Alzheimer’s Awareness Month and as we bring November to a close this week, I would like to spend a little time on this illness that is a growing epidemic afflicting our aging population. Alzheimer’s is an illness that affects a person’s brain, it is an irreversible, progressive brain disorder that slowly destroys memory, thinking skills and the ability to carry out the simplest tasks…slowly…ever so slowly. My first experience with this disease was when I was a young man and my best friend’s grandmother was slowly swallowed up by Alzheimer’s. It was incomprehensible to witness the devastating effect it had on the entire family.
Alzheimer’s disease is named after the physician who first discovered the illness in 1906, Dr. Alois Alzheimer, a psychiatrist and neuropathologist, who noticed certain traits of the brain of a patient during a post-mortem autopsy. The patient was a woman who had suffered unusual mental illness at the time of her death prompting the autopsy. What Dr. Alzheimer found was that the patient’s brain had many abnormal clumps called amyloid plaques and tangled bundles of fibers called tangles. These amyloid plaques and tangles are thought to be the main elements of the disease along with the loss of the connections of the neurons (nerve cells) in the brain. There is currently no known cure for Alzheimer’s disease but there are some protocols to help manage some of the symptoms of the disease.
It is estimated that there are at least five million cases of Alzheimer’s in the United States at the current time but those numbers are hard to confirm as early detection is hard to do with late onset patients. With our national population growing older it is expected that Alzheimer’s will also continue to affect more and more of our aging population. According to Pierre Tariot, a specialist who studies Alzheimer’s, there is about a one percent chance that someone age 60 will suffer from Alzheimer’s…but for those who are 85 years old, the probability jumps to over forty percent chance that you will be affected from Alzheimer’s. As improved health and treatments for illnesses continue to advance so does the overall life expectancy of our population which means that Alzheimer’s is going to become more and more prevalent in our society as time goes by.
Alzheimer’s has three distinct stages. The first stage is called the preclinical state, changes start to take place in the brain at least a decade before the first symptoms begin to show. The second stage or middle stage of mild cognitive impairment, and the final stage of Alzheimer’s is full blown dementia. This slow moving illness starts to reveal itself as patients begin to have trouble with their memory. It is in this area of the brain where Alzheimer’s tends to strike first, the hippocampus, the part of the brain essential in forming memories. From here the disease destroys other parts of the brain and with it the ability of patients to function normally. Alzheimer’s is currently the sixth leading cause of death in the US. Once diagnosed, older patients in their 80’s tend to only live for 3-4 years where as younger patients can live as long as ten years after a diagnosis. The challenge researchers are having with treatment options are that by the time a diagnosis has been made, the disease has been working on the brain for at least a decade. Here in lies the challenges of finding a cure for this destructive illness is that by the time we find out who needs help, it may already be too late.
I will continue this topic with my next posting later this week, until then I hope everyone has a safe week moving forward. Take care of yourself and each other, remember, we’re all in this together.
Wm Reid
Best Home Care Services
325 N Eastern Ave
Connersville, IN 47331
765-827-9833
wmreid@bhcshealth.com