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Alzheimer's Disease
Mrs Cheung is 65 years old and she has a happy family. She performs her duty as a wife and a mother responsibly. Having a regular lifestyle, she does housework and watches television everyday. Life seems stable and fruitful to her.
One day, when she was dusting as usual, a phone call from her friend completely awoke her. Her friend kept waiting in the restaurant as Mrs Cheung forgot that she had a tea appointment with her. Mrs Cheung finds her memory declining. She always pays without getting the food in the supermarket; she cannot recall the person she met just right in the morning. As she remembers, a person with Alzheimer's disease described in a recent TV program is not able to recall his family members and even suffers from incontinence. She is now worrying if she has the same problem.
- Poor memory for the aged is not identical to Alzheimer's disease
- Different causes for two types of Alzheimer's Disease
- Alzheimer's Disease common to everyone
- Care and observation are key to early treatment
- Play mahjong to prevent Alzheimer's disease?
- Health supplements to lower risk?
Source: Quality HealthCare - Specialist in geriatrics
Poor memory for the aged is not identical to Alzheimer's disease
"Memory loss is a normal part of aging!" such an old saying causes misunderstanding that elderly with Alzheimer's disease is nothing new. However, declining memory is never the same as Alzheimer's disease.
Generally speaking, declining memory is just a mild case without a tendency to get worse persistently. Alzheimer's disease is a kind of sickness which causes deterioration of brain functions, resulting in severe loss of memory that is different from "poor memory". For general case of poor memory, the forgotten matters would come up to mind afterwards; but for Alzheimer's disease, short term memory will be lost at initial stage, while advanced patients would lose most of their cognitive functions within 5 years, and even not able to recognize their family members. Gradual loss of brain functions, speech difficulty, unable to handle complicated procedures such as calculating, poor self care will be followed with the memory loss. For moderate to severe cases, patients would not be able to eat, shower, and even walk with assistance is required.
According to statistics, 10% of the elderly would have Alzheimer's disease. However the symptoms at initial stage are similar to general case of poor memory. After 5 to 10 year's incubation period, patients with Alzheimer's disease will have serious decline of memory as well as other symptoms.
Ten warning signs of Alzheimer's Disease are as follows:
1. Short term memory loss
2. Difficulty in handling daily routine tasks
3. Disorientation to time, place and people
4. Deteriorated judgment
5. Misplacing things
6. Problems with abstract thinking
7. Emotional and behavioral change
8. Personality change
9. Speech, reasoning and comprehension difficulty
10. Loss of initiative
Different causes for two types of Alzheimer's Disease
Dementia is generally referred to "Alzheimer's Disease", which is a brain degeneration problem caused by apolipoprotein accumulated in brain, resulting in loss of brain functions. But until now, patients still cannot be identified as there is no effective examination to detect such kind of protein.
Another kind of dementia is called "Vascular Dementia". The stroke patients would be suffered from declining brain functions due to brain cells apoptosis caused by vascular impairment.
Some of the patients would have both types of dementia, particularly the aged, as vascular functions deteriorate with age.
Alzheimer's Disease common to everyone
"Alzheimer's Disease", is generally referred to a disease solely for the elderly, however, that is not true. Though a large proportion of patients are those aged 65 or above, there is still less than 10% come from those between 40 and 50, which are considered as rare cases.
Care and observation are key to early treatment
As most of us consider declining memory is common to the elderly, many potential patients are not given appropriate treatment until the disease progresses to advanced stage.
Family members should be more alert of the symptoms of declining memory and consult a doctor for evaluation when necessary. Elderly with poor memory may not be necessarily an Alzheimer's disease patient. However, there are a number of merits for early detection: have a thorough understanding of the brain functions in addition to memory loss, such as psychiatric problems; any undetected mild stroke cases or tumor cases. All of these problems can be detected by careful examination. Even with normal functions, regular followup is beneficial to patients for discovering their underlying changes of brain functions, so as to detect any gradual deterioration unnoticed before.
Patients usually have abnormal behaviour in addition to forgetfulness. For example, patients forget to flush after bowel movement; they put the ice-cream cup right under their pillow after finish; they will be dislocated around their most familiar places. Family members should pay extra attention to detect abnormalities and arrange treatment as early as possible.
Play mahjong to prevent Alzheimer's disease?
The brain degeneration caused by Alzheimer's disease is irreversible so treatment mainly aims to slow the rate of progression. Medication and training are two options of available treatment. Training includes cognitive training and reality orientation, etc. All kinds of brain function training activities will be useful to patients. Therefore patients should be assisted to carry out activities like playing mahjong and memory games to train themselves up. Some researches suggested that appropriate exercises will help maintain memory, such as jogging and walking, etc.
It should also be noted that patients should maintain good vascular function so as to slow down the progression rate. Appropriate control of risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes and cholesterol are essential to health.
Health supplements to lower risk?
Research finds that Alzheimer's disease maybe a hereditary problem, which means intensive training of brain functions at a younger age may not help. However, it is always beneficial to have a healthy lifestyle and keep your vessels healthy by controlling your blood sugar, hypertension and cholesterol level to prevent "Vascular Dementia". For diet, limit your intake of greasy and salty food; have more vegetables and fruits as they are rich in antioxidant which can lower the risk of thrombosis.
Some researches find that gingko can help prevent Alzheimer's disease. As it is a kind of supplement, one should use it with medical professional's guidance.
Source: Quality HealthCare - Specialist in geriatrics
