The Devastating Health Issue Of Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease can also be referred to as senile dementia. It can be described a loss of higher order brain functions which happens as a result of a number of diseases and greatly impact quality of life of patients and the relatives around them. Alzheimer’s disease is an acute form of dementia which grows worse over time.

Today we believe it is key for people to try to prevent this condition from happening by taking a series of measures that have an impact on the long-term of their brain health. Let’s discuss this unfortunate medical condition further.

Alzheimer’s disease is a very difficult disease to deal with since it affects the families of the affected patients as much or more than the patient himself. Today, there is no cure for this ravaging illness. It has a negative impact on memory, higher order thinking functions, overall behavior and many other cognitive abilities.

There are a number of causal factors involved in this disease. It tends to occur more often with older people but certain forms of dementia can also occur at a much younger age. It is believed to also be very much tied to genetics. Therefore if you have a close blood relative like a brother, sister or parent with this disease, you have a higher than average likelihood to develop it as well.

There are other causal factors at play. If you are female, the likelihood of developing is usually higher than for a male. Also if you have had high blood pressure for a long period of time it can impact the incidence of the disease.

There are two key types of Alzheimer’s disease. The early onset type tends to appears before the age of sixty. This type is much less common that the late onset type.
The late onset type tends to occur in people who are older than sixty. It may run in some families but the tendency towards developing the disease is less common.

If the disease develops in people, there are a number of important symptoms which develop as well. The first sign is forgetfulness. Gradually this worsens to point where a person may not even recognize this peer group along with close family members.

As the symptoms worsen, it can create problems with sleep patterns. Depression or agitation may result. The patient may also have difficulty performing basic tasks like cooking a meal, choosing the right clothes or driving a car.

Eventually the sufferers of the disease might completely forget important family members as well as who they are as individuals. It is really a difficult situation.

There is no cure for this disease but there have been a number of important developments in terms of treatment. For example there are a number of drug therapies which hold great promise in slowing the progression of the disease. New research is ongoing to help to find different therapies that have even more productive results. We don’t know yet when these researches will found a treatment for the disease so it is crucial today to already take preventive steps to try avoiding this condition in the future.