Dementia Case

Introduction

Alzheimer's disease, also known as AD and formally in the past was called Presenile Dementia. This is a neurodegenerative common disease happening in elderly people, generally after 65. Though this is not a component of the normal process of ageing, and its seriousness and happening factor is such that the ratio of incident is said to twofold every five years following the 60 years of age (Strock, 1996, 10-19), with over 4 million elderly people affected in America. Even though, considerable technologies have been developed for diagnosis and the treatment of this disease, like the preface of cholinesterase inhibitors and antioxidants, there still remains petite information on dementia. It is the key symptoms of late phase of disease.

Discussion

As an individual age they start to overlook aspects of everyday life. Everybody slips up at times, losing keys and names; all the parts of routine. When such slips start to become commonplace, though; there is ground for concern. Such repeating indications of amnesia could actually be warning signs of a growingly widespread Alzheimer's disease in the old age. According to the "Alzheimer's Association", about more than two million people have affected by this disease and just about 240,000 are also affected annually (Sisodia & Tanzi, 2007, 180-184).

This disease does not appear abruptly. The disease begins gradually with growing age of a person and on a certain age, generally after 60, it appears apparently. In 1906, Alzheimer's disease was explored by Alois Alzheimer, a German neurologist. He discovered, while performing a postmortem examination of a lady who passed away from progressive cerebral impairment, that a cerebral part in charge for remembrance and reasoning had an irregular placement of "nerve cells". The infection which was just the once deliberation to be a psychological ailment was determined to be indeed, medical state (Perry, 2006, 410-416).

Alzheimer's is assorted as a progressive symptom of ailment; initially begins in a small manner but gradually it becomes a very severe disease. Dr. Barry Reisberg explained the seven phases progression of Alzheimer's: "Phase 1: Cognitively Normal, Phase 2: Very Mild Cognitive Deficit, Phase 3: Mild Cognitive Decline, Phase 4: Moderate Cognitive Decline, Phase 5: Moderately Severe Decline, Phase 6: Severe Cognitive Decline, and Phase 7: Very Severe Cognitive Decline (Doraiswamy, 2010, 222-225)." This final phase is "late dementia" wherein the victim becomes incoherent, and loses everyday abilities such as being able to walk, talk, or feed themselves. Being responsible for a person with Alzheimer's puts an enormous strain on a family, both emotionally and financially. The price and time for caring for someone with Alzheimer's is difficult but not impossible.

Methods of Research on Alzheimer's

In past few years, treatment methods for this disease have changed dramatically and have led to more research and discoveries about the disease. With the increased amount of research more effective treatments can be seen in the near future. The amyloid deposits that disrupt brain circuit communication have been the main source of research for medical researchers. Pharmaceutical companies have tried developing medicines to break down these amyloid proteins but most have failed because of serious side effects. This failure brought on new experiments and led to some interesting new discoveries (Shriver, 2010, 180188).

Researchers have commenced to focus on the brain's blood supply. According to researches, the same aspects that damage blood vessels may also lead to dementia and thinking problems. Researchers began looking at statins, drugs that control cholesterol levels. The results showed that the statin did prevent Alzheimer's but another test contradicted these findings with results that showed the statin did not affect the progression of Alzheimer's in the elderly. More studies continue to be made and other treatments for combating Alzheimer's will continue to be tested (Perry, 2006, 410-416).

Researchers have also been examining other treatments methods like combinations of drugs. Several types of drugs are being used including the testing of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicines, estrogen, and vitamin E in hopes of forbidding the disease. Therapy of human gene has also been employed in hopes of handling Alzheimer's. In April of 2001 the first test of this sort was taken by having a protein called nerve growth factor transplanted into the brain of a woman who had symptoms of early Phases of Alzheimer's. The hope is that this protein will delay the progression of Alzheimer's and studies continue in this field of experiment. (Sisodia & Tanzi, 2007, 180-184)

In accordance to a new research about this disease has been made that adult brains are competent of developing new cells and this discovery could be very beneficial to research dealing with Alzheimer's disease. The hope from this discovery is that memory impairment can be repaired even if the person suffers from brain disorders or from age-related issues. These new advances have allowed for the trial of Ampalex (CX516) in the treatment of Alzheimer's. This drug is one that accelerates communication between nerve cells and trial results of this drug have been extraordinary. The results found that ampakines were safe when used by adults and did indeed improve memory and learning in healthy adults. (Shriver, 2010, 180188)

More researches and discoveries have also been done into the lifestyle of a person and its connection with Alzheimer's. Medicines and drugs do help in slowing the progression of Alzheimer's but a simple change in lifestyle can be extremely helpful to a person showing symptoms of the disease. Outcomes have shown that detrimental activities like alcohol use, lack of intellectual stimulation, living a sedentary lifestyle, lack of sleep,