Alzheimer's Problems
- Date: 2009-07-30 - Word Count: 375
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Alzheimer's disease also called common form of dementia. Dementia is a non-specific illness syndrome in which affected areas of cognition may be memory, attention, language, and problem solving .Generally it is diagnosed in people over 65 years of age, although the less-prevalent early-onset Alzheimer's can occur much earlier. An estimated 26.6 million people worldwide had Alzheimer's in 2006; this number may quadruple by 2050. When a doctor or physician has been notified, and AD is suspected, the diagnosis is usually confirmed with behavioral assessments and cognitive tests, often followed by a brain scan if available. Although each sufferer experiences Alzheimer's in a unique way, there are many common symptoms .The disease course is divided into four stages, with a progressive pattern of cognitive and functional impairment.
Pre-dementia
The first symptoms are often mistaken as related to ageing or stress .These early symptoms can affect the most complex daily living activities. The most noticeable deficit is memory loss, which shows up as difficulty in remembering recently learned facts and inability to acquire new information .Subtle problems with the executive functions of attentiveness, planning, flexibility, and abstract thinking, or impairments in memory of meanings, and concept relationships.
Early dementia;
In people with AD the increasing impairment of learning and memory eventually leads to a definitive diagnosis. In a small proportion of them, difficulties with language, executive functions, perception, or execution of movements are more prominent than memory problems. AD does not affect all memory capacities equally. Older memories of the person's life , facts learned , and implicit memory the memory of the body on how to do things, such as using a fork to eat are affected to a lesser degree than new facts or memories.
Moderate dementia
Progressive deterioration eventually hinders independence .Speech difficulties become evident due to an inability to recall vocabulary, which leads to frequent incorrect word substitutions.
Reading and writing skills are also progressively lost Complex motor sequences become less coordinated as time passes, reducing the ability to perform most normal daily living activities.
Advanced dementia
During this last stage of AD, the patient is completely dependent upon caregivers. Language is reduced to simple phrases or even single words, eventually leading to complete loss of speech. Patients will ultimately not be able to perform even the simplest tasks without assistance. Finally comes death.
Pre-dementia
The first symptoms are often mistaken as related to ageing or stress .These early symptoms can affect the most complex daily living activities. The most noticeable deficit is memory loss, which shows up as difficulty in remembering recently learned facts and inability to acquire new information .Subtle problems with the executive functions of attentiveness, planning, flexibility, and abstract thinking, or impairments in memory of meanings, and concept relationships.
Early dementia;
In people with AD the increasing impairment of learning and memory eventually leads to a definitive diagnosis. In a small proportion of them, difficulties with language, executive functions, perception, or execution of movements are more prominent than memory problems. AD does not affect all memory capacities equally. Older memories of the person's life , facts learned , and implicit memory the memory of the body on how to do things, such as using a fork to eat are affected to a lesser degree than new facts or memories.
Moderate dementia
Progressive deterioration eventually hinders independence .Speech difficulties become evident due to an inability to recall vocabulary, which leads to frequent incorrect word substitutions.
Reading and writing skills are also progressively lost Complex motor sequences become less coordinated as time passes, reducing the ability to perform most normal daily living activities.
Advanced dementia
During this last stage of AD, the patient is completely dependent upon caregivers. Language is reduced to simple phrases or even single words, eventually leading to complete loss of speech. Patients will ultimately not be able to perform even the simplest tasks without assistance. Finally comes death.
Related Tags: alzheimers disease, dementia
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