The Croft Health and Fitness

Alzheimer’s disease is probably one of the commonest causes of Dementia. It is a degenerative disease of the brain that effectively starts in the cerebral cortex. It is mostly characterised by the gradual and progressive decline in a person’s mental abilities. It affects both sexes generally those who are over the age of 60, yet Alzheimer’s has been known to occur in people as early as age 40.

The earliest symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are simple forgetfulness. This is mostly disregarded especially if the person is elderly, as it is commonly put down to their age, but it steadily progresses to more severe symptoms such as trouble in performing easy or regular tasks such as fastening buttons or tying shoelaces.

There is a progressive deterioration in both the person’s mental and bodily state and abilities additionally, also their recall. There is also a difference in the actions and personality of the person with Alzheimer’s, with their ordinary actions becoming a thing of the past. For example someone who has always been gentle and kind may begin to use filthy words and make inappropriate sexual advances or become violent and begin striking and lashing out at people.

In the later stages of Alzheimer’s, the person eventually becomes incapable of performing any task at all. They also become doubly incontinent, lose their power of speech, lose the ability to walk properly, suffer paralysis and lose their total memory.

If treatment is given early enough, it can slightly slow down the disease, but unfortunately it is incurable at the time of writing.

[added information]

I just heard something really strange - there is a terrible weed that grows everywhere called Japanese Knotweed. Its apparently almost impossible to kill and people spend a fortune trying to, but… it contains a compound called Resveratrol, which lowers levels of the amyloid-beta peptides that cause the plaques in the brain associated with Alzheimers. It seems amazing that a treatment migth come from such a hated plant!

(There is more where this came from … )

Dementia is the progressive decline in cognitive function due to damage or disease in the brain beyond what might be expected from normal aging. Particularly affected areas may be memory, attention, language and problem solving, although particularly in the later stages of the condition, affected persons may be disoriented in time, not knowing what day, week, month or year it is, not knowing where they are not knowing who they are. Symptoms of dementia can be classified as either reversible or irreversible depending upon the etiology of the disease. Less than 10% of all dementias are reversible. Dementia is a non-specific term that encompasses many disease processes, just as fever is attributable to many etiologies.

Early symptoms of dementia often consist in changes in personality, or in behavior. Often dementia can be first evident during an episode of delirium. There is a higher prevalence of eventually developing dementia in individuals who experience an acute episode of confusion while hospitalized.

Dementia can affect language, comprehension, motor skills, short-term memory, ability to identify commonly used items, reaction time, personality traits, and executive functioning. Even without signs of general intellectual decline, delusions are common in dementia (15-56% incidence rate in Alzheimer’s type, and 27-60% incidence rate in multi-infarct dementia). Often these delusions take the form of monothematic delusions, like mirrored self-misidentification.

Elderly people can also react with dementia-like symptoms to surgery, infections, sleep deprivation, irregular food intake, dehydration, loneliness, change in domicile or personal crises. This is called delirium, and many if not most dementia patients also have a delirium on top of the physiologial dementia, adding to the symptoms. The delirium can go away or greatly improve when treated with tender care, improved food and sleeping habits, but this does not affect the alterations in the brain. Affected persons may also show signs of psychosis or depression. It is important to be able to differentiate between delirium and dementia.

Proper differential diagnosis between the types of dementia will require, at the least, referral to a specialist, e.g. a geriatric internist, geriatric psychiatrist or neurologist. However, there are some brief 5-15 minute tests that have good reliability and can be used in the office or other setting to evaluate cognitive status.

Except for the treatable types listed above, there is no cure to this illness, although scientists are progressing in making a type of medication that will slow down the process.

(There is more where this came from … )