Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s Disease presently claims over 4 million souls in the United States. In the next generation that number is expected to quadruple. One of the heart wrenching facts about Alzheimer’s is that there is a quagmire of obstacles for diagnosing this disease early; from the patient’s denial, to complicated and expensive diagnostic tools. Delaying diagnosis may well mean that the patient’s ability to sustain any type of quality to the life which is left them has been eliminated. Drugs which can slow the process, are no longer effective.

Alzheimer’s Disease: The Ultimate Sacrifice

It takes almost 3 years for significant others to take their loved ones to the doctor to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Why is this so? We don’t do it with any other disease, do we?

Several reasons are given by the caretakers for this lag in initial diagnosis.

• Lack of knowledge about Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)

Are you a conscientious person? If so, your risk for Alzheimer’s disease may be reduced. Think not? Read the following.

Dementia is a brain disorder that seriously affects a person's memory, thinking, and reasoning skills. People with dementia often have trouble thinking and speaking clearly, remembering recent events, and learning new things. Over time, it becomes hard for them to handle everyday activities and take care of themselves. There are many causes of dementia, but Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia in older persons.

Alzheimer’s Disease is catastrophic in its impact on not only the patient, but the family and close friends. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive, neurodegenerative disease characterized in the brain by abnormal clumps (amyloid plaques) and tangled bundles of fibers (neurofibrillary tangles) composed of misplaced proteins. Age is the most important risk factor for AD; the number of people with the disease doubles every 5 years beyond age 65. Your risk is also higher if a family member has had the disease.

Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, gradually destroys a person's memory and ability to learn, communicate, and carry out daily activities.

More than 5 million people in the United States are estimated to be living with the disease and more than 26 million people are thought to be affected worldwide. By 2050, the number of people who will suffer from the disease is estimated to nearly triple in the United States and to be four times as high worldwide.

The bad numbers on Alzheimer’s disease continue to cascade in, with the latest estimates indicating that more than 26 million people worldwide currently suffer from Alzheimer’s – and a staggering 106 million will have the fatal mind-robbing condition by mid-century.

Currently, about 5 million Americans are estimated to be living with Alzheimer’s, representing about 20% of all the world’s cases, according to new research.

Few older people die with brains untouched by a pathological process, however, an individual's likelihood of having clinical signs of dementia increases with the number of different disease processes present in the brain, according to a new study.

Among the findings is the observation that the combination of Alzheimer's disease and cerebral infarcts (strokes) is the most common mix of pathologies in the brains of people with dementia. The implication of these findings is that public health efforts to prevent and treat vascular disease could potentially reduce the occurrence of dementia, the researchers say in the paper.

Lewy Body Disease is a neurodegenerative condition which has symptoms akin to Parkinson's, accompanied by visual hallucinations.

While Alzheimer's Disease and Vascular Dementia remain the number 1 and 2 cause of progressive dementia; Lewy Body Disease confounds the diagnostic process. As treatment does vary among dementia's, differentiating what type of dementia exists is important.

Therefore, it is newsworthy that researchers now note that the following symptoms are predominant with Lewy Body Disease but not Alzheimer's or Vascular Dementia:

Good social networks are even more important than we thought.

A new study, reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry, finds that lonely people have a significantly higher risk of developing dementia similar to that seen in people with Alzheimer's disease, than people with good social ties.