For this blog, I looked at some research for this disease. Alzheimer's isn't completely understood yet. Some of the causes are unknown, but it is clear that there are different environmental, genetic, and lifestyle factors that contribute to the disease. All these factors affect the brain over time by damaging and killing brain cells. The common sufferer often experiences forgetfulness, confusion, difficulty with writing and speaking, and problems with judgement or problem solving.
Some common treatments are drugs that help memory symptoms, and maintaining proper nutrition with regular exercise. Prevention of the disease is another area not completely understood. There's no proven way to prevent Alzheimer's, but it has been suggested that minimizing your risk of heart disease would be beneficial. Important factors to watch for are high blood pressure, high cholesterol, excess weight, and diabetes. Keeping active is helpful as well.
I don't have any personal experience with the disease, but I can definitely see how it would greatly affect the sufferer and their family.
Alzheimer's Disease
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I'm glad you brought up this topic because it's always been interesting to me. I don't have any family experience with this disease either, but I know people that have and it is a really sad disease. It's also a complicated one seeing that we don't know that cause of it or the cure. The saying "use it or lose it" often comes up when talking about Alzheimer's disease.
I also don't have any family members with Alzheimer's disease, but I do however work in a nursing home with over 100 residents that have Alzheimer's disease. I’ve worked there for a year now and after getting to t=know the residents really well, its really hard for me to see them slowly forget more and more things. Alzheimer's gets worse and worse as it goes on, it starts off as little things like misplacing lots of things and then they usually forget big events and so on. Usually people come to my nursing home with Alzheimer's when their family thinks living at home is a threat to them, either because they forget to take their medicine or they just don't realize what they are doing while cooking and they burn themselves or forget to eat all together. Hopefully this helps give a little perspective into the personal piece of Alzheimer's disease.
This post reminded me of the movie Rising of the Planet of the Apes which I felt had a good incorporation of the disease and how it affected its host. In the movie it started with how the host was constantly forgetting things, often confused and had difficulty with writing and speaking as you mentioned in your post. Throughout the movie a part of the plot was the idea that they had created a cure for the disease which turned out only to suppress the symptoms for awhile and later the disease would return and be even worse.
I found your blog quite interesting because my grandfather ended up passing away a few years ago with Alzheimer's disease, and my mother worked in a nursing home in the Alzheimer's care unit for 20 plus years. It is indescribable how hard it is to see your loved one slowly not remember who you are or how to put on their shoe. The hippocampus, which is involved in memory, is a target area when it comes to this disease and it's progressive course. It makes me wonder if there is any way to target this area before it begins, and saving millions of people and families from heart-ache each year. Technically speaking, one can never be fully diagnosed with Alzheimer's until they are passed on, and the brain is dissected and analyzed more thoroughly- only the effects of the disease are shown, which makes us assume one has the disease. After death, the coroner can then determine if the person Alzheimer's from the decayed gray matter in their brains. There is no way to prevent the disease, and no way to stop it completely, but there are prescriptions one can take to simply slow the symptoms down. I am planning on going into neuroscience, and my ultimate goal is to research more into Alzheimer's, along with Autism. Terrible does not even describe how bad Alzheimer's is, and I pray that no one else has to go through what I did. I can only hope that there is more awareness and one day someone can find a cure and put a stop to the agony.
I too have never really had any direct exposure to Alzheimer's but i do have friends that have experienced it in their family members. Comparing that to my own family members (grandparents) who you can see some of the degenerations that come with simply age over the years, and to imagine the brain essentially working all the way back to infancy so to speak is unimaginable. Seeing a person who has gone through and learned so much lose it all is just mind blowing. The mystery behind the disease is also scary, because its so debilitating.
Alzheimer's is honestly one of my greatest fears! The thought of losing parts of your memory and declining ultimately until you die is utterly terrifying. This fear only escalates when I realize how little we all know about the disease! Yes, some small strides have been taken toward a better understanding, but we have yet to find a cure or a really effective treatment. I am fortunate to have not had a loved one suffer from Alzheimer's, but I do know people who have. The devastation of losing someone while they are still physically present is tragic.