What is Alzheimer's??

Alzheimer’s disease is an illness of the brain which causes dementia. Dementia is the general term for a gradual progressive decline in a person’s memory and other mental abilities. There are many different illnesses which can cause dementia, but Alzheimer’s disease is the most common. It is estimated that, out of the approximately 62,000 people in Scotland who have dementia, 55% have Alzheimer’s disease, which means that there are approximately 33,550 people with Alzheimer’s disease in Scotland. Most people with Alzheimer’s disease are over 70 years old. It is uncommon for people to develop it under 60 and it is very rare under the age of 50.

Alzheimer’s disease slowly and progressively destroys brain cells and their connections. This affects how an individual copes with everyday tasks. Each person will be affected in different ways and it is not possible to predict which symptoms someone will develop. The illness is likely to last for anywhere between 5 and 15 years and it is eventually fatal - although as it mainly affects older people, it is often another illness, such as pneumonia, which eventually causes the person’s death. However, with the right help and support, people with Alzheimer’s disease can enjoy a good quality of life for many years.

What causes Alzheimer’s disease?

Scientists still do not fully understand what causes Alzheimer’s disease. Age is the only known risk factor. Research is ongoing and factors which might be important in determining why certain people develop dementia are being looked into. Factors such as the environment, diet, drugs, education levels and genetics are all being researched.

Symptoms

The onset of Alzheimer’s disease is usually gradual. The person will often start to become more forgetful than is normal for him or her, for example mislaying things around the house or forgetting appointments. As the illness develops, usually the person will suffer from more severe memory loss, language skills will deteriorate, practical abilities will decline and he or she will have increasing difficulty making judgements and maintaining standards. Some people may behave in ways which are uncharacteristic for them or lose some of their normal control over their emotions.

A person with Alzheimer’s disease may have ‘good’ and ‘bad’ days. He or she can be coping well one day, remembering where things are or how to get dressed, but the next day may not be able to cope with these tasks. Tiredness, other health problems, depression or emotional state can have an impact on the person’s day-to-day coping abilities.

Listed below is a more comprehensive list of possible symptoms broken down into three probable stages. Remember that not everyone will have all of these symptoms and the symptoms do not necessarily appear in this order. If you or the person you care for has any symptoms you find hard to cope with or have difficulty understanding, seek help. (See section ‘Who can help you?).

Possible symptoms during the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease

In the early stages, the person may begin to have some difficulty with various everyday activities and abilities such as:

 

• remembering names, recent events and conversations, keeping appointments and remembering where things are kept
• managing money, remembering to pay bills
• everyday tasks like cooking and shopping
• finding his or her way around less familiar places
• coping with the complexities of a job or leisure interests
• making decisions, especially complicated ones
• coping with social situations.

However, he or she should be able to maintain independence with the help of memory aids and some support from family or friends.

 

Possible symptoms during the middle stages of Alzheimer’s disease

In the middle stages, the problems get more severe, and the person will need more help.

 

• The person will have more severe memory loss.
• He or she will find it increasingly difficult to communicate, with problems understanding what others are saying and problems in expression. There will also be problems with reading, writing and understanding numbers.
• He or she will gradually need more help with personal care including dressing, washing and going to the toilet.
• There will be increasing difficulty in recognising family and friends leading the person to misidentify people.
• There will be increasing difficulty in recognising even familiar places, so that the person is at risk of getting lost - and he or she may lose road sense.
• The person may have difficulty understanding how to use common objects - for example knives and forks.
• Some people may have mistaken beliefs, such as accusing people of taking things that they have mislaid.
• The person’s emotional life and personality may begin to decline or change.
• Some people become more restless or agitated for example in the evenings, and there may be other problems with the person’s behaviour. These problems can include loss of ‘social graces’, irritability and changes in how the person relates to people socially or sexually.
• Some people have continence problems, usually only urinary.

Not all people with Alzheimer’s disease will suffer from all or even most of these problems. With the right support and help, the person should be able to continue to enjoy a good quality of life through the middle stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

 

Possible symptoms during the late stages of Alzheimer’s disease

Eventually, in the late stages, the disease affects wider areas of the brain. The difficulties with memory and everyday activities become more severe and the disease will affect every area of the person’s functioning, including physical activities.

 

• Communication may become very difficult.
• The person may become unable to recognise familiar people, places and objects.
• The illness will increasingly affect the person’s physical abilities so that he or she will have more and more difficulty with walking, self-care, eating and drinking and going to the toilet.
• The person may lose weight even if he or she is eating.

 

What happens in the brain

The brain does its work of receiving and storing information and organising all our actions by an unbelievably complicated pattern of connections between billions of microscopic nerve cells.

When Dr Alois Alzheimer first described the pathological changes in the brains of people dying of this disease in the early 1900s he saw that each patient’s brain had shrunk in size. It is this shrinkage which shows up in a scan test of the brain. Dr Alzheimer understood that the shrinkage was because huge numbers of nerve cells were dead or dying. Under the microscope he saw unusual ‘plaques’ which were partly made up of the dead cells, and ‘tangles’ inside the dying cells.

In the 1970s scientists looked in more detail at the changes brought about by Alzheimer’s disease, using more modern techniques. They found that certain areas of the brain had shrunk more than others, and that particular types of nerve cells were most likely to be damaged. The temporal lobes at the side of the brain, which are important in storing recent memories, are the most damaged areas. In these areas there are a lot of cells that pass their messages by a chemical transmitter called acetyl choline (this discovery led on to the new treatments for Alzheimer’s which are described below). The question which needs to be solved is why these particular areas and cells are damaged in Alzheimer’s disease. We now have bits of the answer, but not the whole answer.

It seems most likely that the damage occurs because some important complex chemicals, whose normal job is to protect the membrane (outer surface) of the tiny nerve cells, may become poisonous to those cells. This can happen either by too much of the chemical being produced or the wrong type of the chemical being produced.

The plaques which Dr. Alzheimer found in the areas of the brain used for memory and other cognitive (thinking and understanding) functions contain, along with dead bits of cells, one of the chemicals thought to be the cause of the damage, called beta-amyloid. Beta-amyloid is a fragment taken from a larger protein called amyloid precursor protein (APP) which is found in the membrane of the nerve cells.

But it does not seem to be the amyloid alone that causes the damage. Another chemical, called apolipoprotein, is also involved somehow.

In people who have Down’s syndrome too much of some of these chemicals are produced and this can lead to them developing Alzheimer’s in middle age.

It is now generally thought that Alzheimer’s disease is caused by abnormalities in the amyloid protein or associated chemicals, leading to damage and death of particular sorts of nerve cells. The ‘neurofibrillary tangles’ described by Dr Alzheimer consist of abnormal collections of twisted threads of a protein called ‘tau’ inside the nerve cells. They are probably signs of the damage to the cells and lead to a problem of communication between the nerve cells.

It has also been found that people with Alzheimer’s disease have less of some brain chemicals which carry messages between the brain cells (‘neurotransmitters’). The drugs currently available for the disease aim to increase the amount of these chemicals available and so help messages be transmitted.

 

ALL INFORMATION ABOVE WAS FOUND ON www.alzscot.org WHICH IS THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE FOR ALZHEIMER'S SCOTLAND IF ANYONE NEEDS ADVICE OR ANY MORE INFORMATION ETC YOU CAN CONTACT THEM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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