Cope up with Alzheimer disease

Alzheimer’s disease hugely impacts on cognitive function of the brain. Females are more prone to this impairment as compared to males. Alzheimer's disease is a type of dementia that is a condition of chronic progressive deterioration of intelligence, memory, and communicative function. Dementia indicates several behavioural deformities often linked with old age.

The cause of Alzheimer disease is still not found by psychologists. But it is commonly believed that advancing age and family history are risk factors. Additionally, some ill health conditions like obesity, hypertension and Down syndrome trigger Alzheimer’s disease. The progression of symptoms in this mental illness varies from person to person. These symptoms are roughly segregated into mild, moderate and severe. The progressive symptoms can be ascribed to the sequence and gradual loss of neuronal functions and destruction of cell in different regions of brain. When patient has mild form of Alzheimer disease, he/she exhibit symptoms of loss of memory. Patient may forget words and names with increasing frequency. In moderate stage, cortical regions, responsible for reasoning are affected and patients begin to lose their logical thinking and experience confusion such as difficulty in identifying family members. When patient enters into severe stage of Alzheimer disease, additional brain regions are damaged which results in loss of control over normal physiological functions to external environment such as patients are unable to perform daily activities and lose ability to speak coherently.

Environmental risk factors associated with Alzheimer disease are cardiovascular factor, metabolic and energy disorder, and traumatic brain injury. Severe form of type 2 diabetes leads to cognitive impairment.

Diagnosis of Alzheimer disease is performed through reviewing family history. Physical examination of patient is done that includes hearing and sight evaluation, checking blood pressure, and pulse rate. In neuropsychological testing, doctors use various tools to assess memory, problem solving, vision motor coordination, attention and abstract thinking. MRI and CT scan is done to look at the structure of brain.

Psychologists recommend symptomatic therapies, cholinesterase inhibitors. They prescribe drugs according to symptoms, like antidepressants for depression, agitation, and for sleep disorders. Routine physical exercise will have effect on disease progression as increased cardiorespiratory fitness has been shown to slow disease headway.

For prevention of Alzheimer disease, people needs to adopt smart lifestyle changes. They must eat more fruits and vegetables. Berries contain high levels of biologically active components, which fight memory impairment related with free radicals and beta-amyloid plaques in the brain. Therefore, it can be very helpful if included in diet. People can consume folic acid supplements to prevent this degenerative ailment. There is a need to maintain blood pressure in order to escape this cognitive impairment that make human life hell.

It is to be noted that Alzheimer disease can hit any person. Some famous personalities who suffered with Alzheimer disease are Ronald Reagan, 40^th President of US, Betty Schwartz, Olympic gold medal winner in track events.

It can be concluded that Alzheimer disease is neurodegenerative ailment that deprive the minds of elderly people. It is progressive and irreversible.  Alzheimer illness causes numbers of cognitive losses that include serious memory loss, spatial and temporal disorientation, and loss of the sense of home. Such patients can no longer recognize familiar places, their family members and forget how to use common objects. In basic sense, this disease usually involves memory impairment at initial stage. Finally, Alzheimer patients need help for daily activities because they lose the ability to dress, bathe, and to feed themselves.

Important: This article is developed through environmental information, academic experience and/ or personal view of writer. Writer is not responsible for any disagreement