Alzheimer's: Forget Me Not

If you ever watched The Notebook and witnessed one of the protagonists change drastically in the end, you have an idea what Alzheimer's can look like. Alzheimer's is a general term for memory loss and other intellectual abilities serious enough to interfere with daily life. Alzheimer's disease accounts for 50 to 80 percent of dementia cases. While it is common for elderly people to suffer from this disease, there is a 5% of people aged 40-50 that suffer from Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's is a progressive disease, where dementia symptoms gradually worsen over a number of years. In its early stages, memory loss is mild, but with late-stage Alzheimer's, individuals lose the ability to carry on a conversation and respond to their environment.

Like all types of dementia, Alzheimer's is caused by brain cell death. It is a neurodegenerative disease, which means there is progressive brain cell death that happens over a course of time. The total brain size shrinks with Alzheimer's - the tissue has progressively fewer nerve cells and connections. While they cannot be seen or tested in the living brain affected by Alzheimer's disease, postmortem/autopsy will always show tiny inclusions in the nerve tissue, called plaques and tangles. Plaques are found between the dying cells in the brain - from the build-up of a protein called beta-amyloid (you may hear the term "amyloid plaques"). The tangles are within the brain neurons - from a disintegration of another protein, called tau.

Currently, there is no cure for Alzheimer's. But drug and non-drug treatments may help with both cognitive and behavioral symptoms. The U.S currently only allows cholinesterase inhibitors (Aricept, Exelon, Razadyne, Cognex) and memantine (Namenda) to treat the cognitive symptoms (memory loss, confusion, and problems with thinking and reasoning) of Alzheimer's disease. While current medications cannot stop the damage Alzheimer’s causes to brain cells, they may help lessen or stabilize symptoms for a limited time by affecting certain chemicals involved in carrying messages among the brain's nerve cells.Some doctors also prescribe high doses of vitamin E for cognitive changes of Alzheimer's disease. Change can be stressful for anyone and can be especially difficult for a person with Alzheimer's disease. It can increase the fear and fatigue of trying to make sense out of an increasingly confusing world. Identifying what has triggered a behavior can often help in selecting the best approach to deal with it.


We've been told that there's little we can do to prevent Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia but hope for the best and wait for a pharmaceutical cure. But the truth is you can reduce your risk by eating right, exercising, staying mentally and socially active, and keeping stress in check. By leading a brain-healthy lifestyle, you may be able to prevent Alzheimer’s symptoms and slow down, or even reverse, the process of deterioration.




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