What is Alzheimer’s disease?
It is one reason why people go through dementia. Dementia refers to a set of signs and symptoms which are mainly loss of memory and difficulties in thinking or solving some problems or remembering a language.
Dr. Alois Alzheimer was the first one to detect this disease and hence the name alzheimer was given. It affects the brain of a person directly. As it progresses, the proteins in the brain of the person begin to accumulate and form tangles. Due to this, the connection between two nerve cells get disrupted, and they die. Hence, the brain tissue is damaged.
In this disease, you also have insufficient chemicals in the brain due to which there is less efficiency in transmission of signals. It progresses with time, and you get to see more symptoms coming and becoming severe. So now that we have seen what Alzheimer’s disease is, let us discuss what are its symptoms.
Symptoms:
Memory problems
In the beginning, you will find it very less and mild but with time it grows and worsens and makes it difficult to live daily. The earliest common stage is a lapse of memory. You will lose hope to find that you don’t remember activities that you have done or has happened to you recently.
Forgetting things
You will find it difficult to learn something new. At the very early stage, it will attack the part of the brain which is called hippocampus. Its main role is in remembering activities that happen in your daily life. Now when that gets damaged, we tend to forget things. At the very early stages, you won’t have loss of memory of events that have happened a long time before.
Where did I keep my key?
Now when you are losing memory, you can forget the very silliest things as in you have kept your pen somewhere, and then you don’t know after next few minutes where it is.
Missing the right words.
At times, you will not remember a specific word that you want to use in your speech then. You will forget names of people very often.
Not remembering location and dates.
You will forget directions in a place where you have been, and you are familiar with. You won’t remember dates of meetings or of anniversaries.
Difficult to decide:
When the symptoms grow at the later stages, then you have problems in a vast aspect such as reasoning or in communication or perception, too. You will not be able to think properly either. You will find it difficult to follow any particular conversation and will lose track. You will see yourself repeating the same thing again and again.
Visuospatial problems:
Visuospatial skill is the ability by which you can judge distance. There will be problems in finding how far the table or the car on the road is. You will be unable to see 3D features nicely like you can’t follow a navigating star.
Organization problem and forgetting dates:
You can’t plan anything or do something by organizing it properly. You can’t work sequentially. You have problems in taking a certain decision or solving some problems. You can’t do orientation anymore. You seem to be confused and losing tracks of dates and events.
Daily works become difficult
These become even more severe at later stages. You will need more support and care from people because you can’t perform day to day works that well again.
Delusions and Hallucinations
You have now started believing something is not true, i.e. you are under delusions. Mostly you can see and hear things that are not present or not told. You suffer from hallucinations too.
Unusual behavior
You develop certain characters which are just not within you and is pretty unusual. You will feel restless and will be agitated.
No sleep
You can have problems in sleeping, and you will ask the same question repeatedly. You will react to situations very aggressively. These changes in you will break you even more. You feel it is challenging your career.
Not very conscious
You will be no more aware of the situations around you. You become weak. You fail to eat anything without help, and you also can’t walk or use your limbs anymore. It progresses and at the end, you become a breathing dead creature.
Stages of Alzheimer’s disease:
The Mild Alzheimer’s disease
This is the early stage of the disease, and even then you can work independently. You can take part in social activities or drive and park a car easily. You will have a few memory lapses, though. You may at times forget where you have kept something.
The Moderate Alzheimer’s disease
You can suffer in this for about 10 years at maximum or can pass into the latter in just two years. You will have problems in daily life now. You may at times even not remember the members of your family. You can’t speak properly, and you ramble.You get an idea that you are losing control over things and life, too. This further drags you down.
The Severe Alzheimer’s disease
It is the late phase and you are confused here. You neither can express yourself nor can understand yourself. You can’t process or remember information. There is no control in your bladder or your bowels. You can’t eat anymore. You lose weight, have mood swings, skin infections and many other illnesses. You fail in locomotion.
Don’t confuse normal aging with Alzheimer’s disease. Go for a check-up if required.
Who are likely to get suffered?
It doesn’t usually affect children. You are likely to be affected if you are in your mid-60s. Almost in every five years, you will find the symptoms have worsened to double almost. Some may also go in dementia. Unknown are the reasons yet, but it has been there are more women suffering from it. It could be because the hormone estrogen is insufficient after menopause.
Now there are certain things that can increase the chances of having this disease like diabetes or cardiac problems or even stroke. Minor things like high blood pressure and higher levels of cholesterol can also make you prone to have this disease. If you are obese, you better work on losing weight.
So from 30s onwards, you need to maintain a healthy lifestyle. You need to do physical exercise and give up on smoking. Eat healthy and do not eat very spicy and junk foods. Drink as much water as necessary. These will keep you mentally fit.
I hope now you got a rough idea about the Alzheimer’s disease and you will surely take a good care of yourself.I repeat once again that please do not mix this symptoms with the symptoms of your’s and your parents ageing.