Contents
Procedure description: Alzheimer Disease Treatment
Patient preparation: Alzheimer Disease Treatment
Recovery: Alzheimer Disease Treatment
Note: Alzheimer Disease Treatment
Conditions: Alzheimer Disease Treatment
Common Synonyms: Alzheimer Disease Treatment
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| Procedure description: Alzheimer Disease Treatment |
Alzheimer's disease is one of the most common type of dementia which is a brain disorder that seriously affects a person’s ability to carry out daily activities.
The most common form of dementia among older people is Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which initially involves the parts of the brain that control thought, memory, and language.
It is still not known what causes this type of dementia, and therefore, there is no cure, since pathophysiology and mechanisms of brain damage is still not understood.
There probably is not one single cause, but several factors that affect each person differently.
Age is the most important known risk factor for AD. The number of people with the disease doubles every 5 years beyond age 65.
Family history is another risk factor. Scientists believe that genetics may play a role in many AD cases. For example, early-onset familial AD, a rare form of AD that usually occurs between the ages of 30 and 60, is inherited. The more common form of AD is known as late-onset. It occurs later in life, and no obvious inheritance pattern is seen in most families. However, several risk factor genes may interact with each other and with non-genetic factors to cause the disease. The only risk factor gene identified so far for late-onset AD is a gene that makes one form of a protein called apolipoprotein E (ApoE).
Everyone has ApoE, which helps carry cholesterol in the blood. Only about 15 percent of people have the form that increases the risk of AD. It is likely that other genes also may increase the risk of AD or protect against AD, but they remain to be discovered.
Alzhemer's disease begins slowly.
First and only symptom may be mild forgetfulness, which can be confused with age-related memory change.
Most people with mild forgetfulness do not have AD.
In the early stage of AD, people may have trouble remembering recent events, activities, or the names of familiar people or things. They may not be able to solve simple math problems. Such difficulties may be a bother, but usually they are not serious enough to cause alarm.
As the disease progresses, symptoms are more easily noticed and become serious enough to cause people with Alzheimer's disease or their family members to seek medical help. Forgetfulness begins to interfere with daily activities.
People in the middle stages of Alzheimer's disease may forget how to do simple tasks like brushing their teeth or combing their hair.
They can no longer think clearly.
They can fail to recognize familiar people and places.
Then problems with speaking, understanding, reading, or writing occur.
Later on, people with AD may become anxious or aggressive, or wander away from home. Eventually, patients need total care. |
| Patient preparation: Alzheimer Disease Treatment |
An early, accurate diagnosis of AD helps patients and their families plan for the future. It gives them time to discuss care while the patient can still take part in making decisions. Early diagnosis will also offer the best chance to treat the symptoms of the disease.
Today, the only definite way to diagnose AD is to find out whether there are plaques and tangles in brain tissue. To look at brain tissue, however, doctors usually must wait until they do an autopsy, which is an examination of the body done after a person dies. Therefore, doctors can only make a diagnosis of “possible” or “probable” AD while the person is still alive.
At specialized centers, doctors can diagnose AD correctly up to 90 percent of the time. Doctors use several tools to diagnose “probable” AD, including:
questions about the person’s general health, past medical problems, and ability to carry out daily activities,
tests of memory, problem solving, attention, counting, and language,
medical tests—such as tests of blood, urine, or spinal fluid, and
brain scans.
Sometimes these test results help the doctor find other possible causes of the person’s symptoms. For example, thyroid problems, drug reactions, depression, brain tumors, and blood vessel disease in the brain can cause AD-like symptoms. Some of these other conditions can be treated successfully.
Alzheimer's disease treatment
AD is a slow disease, starting with mild memory problems and ending with severe brain damage. The course the disease takes and how fast changes occur vary from person to person. On average, AD patients live from 8 to 10 years after they are diagnosed, though some people may live with AD for as many as 20 years.
No treatment can stop AD. However, for some people in the early and middle stages of the disease, the drugs tacrine (Cognex, which is still available but no longer actively marketed by the manufacturer), donepezil (Aricept), rivastigmine (Exelon), or galantamine (Razadyne, previously known as Reminyl) may help prevent some symptoms from becoming worse for a limited time. Another drug, memantine (Namenda), has been approved to treat moderate to severe AD, although it also is limited in its effects. Also, some medicines may help control behavioral symptoms of AD such as sleeplessness, agitation, wandering, anxiety, and depression. Treating these symptoms often makes patients more comfortable and makes their care easier for caregivers.
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| Recovery: Alzheimer Disease Treatment |
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| Note: Alzheimer Disease Treatment |
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| Conditions: Alzheimer Disease Treatment |
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| Common Synonyms: Alzheimer Disease Treatment |
| Alzheimer Disease Management, Alzheimer Dementia Treatment, Alzheimer Dementia Management |
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