ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

Alzheimer's disease

Introduction

Alzheimer's disease (AD), as far as the understanding of it developed up till now, it indicates that it is the most widespread form of dementia. Despite of the progression, Medical Science has shown in the recent years, this form of dementia continues to be incurable. This disease only gets worse as it progresses and ultimately leads to the death of the individual suffering from it. Early philosophers, tend to associate old age with the disease known as dementia, in fact, they even attached it with an increase in dementia.

Contributors

In 1901, a psychiatrist Alzheimer, who was German, identified the first case of this form of dementia and thus from there on, the disease name tends to be associated with the name of the psychiatrist. AD, initially identified as a baffling disease by Emil Kraepelin after smothering, some of the delusions and hallucinations and arteriosclerotic changes. Kraepelin termed this disease as a subtype of senile dementia, but the year 1901 saw this disease as identified. Many believers in the preceding century associated this disease with people who fell into the age bracket of 45 years to 65 years, who were the victim of the symptoms of dementia (www.csa.com). There was a definite change, after a conference held on the issue of AD, which reached onto the decision that this disease cannot and must not be associated with people falling in certain age bracket, but must be independent of the age limit. However, as the memory power does tend to decrease with the age, therefore, to identify, the people who were above or of the age of 65, the term 'Senile Dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT)' became common, Whereas the term 'Alzheimer's disease' tends to be used, to refer the individuals who were slightly and comparatively young to the victims of SDAT. After going through a tough time, Alzheimer's disease (AD) officially got adopted and became a part of medical catalog to refer to ages of all people, which have the mentioned characteristic common in them and became independent of the age limit.

Central Concepts

This disease, described as the one which tends to affect the speaking power of the individual, making him/her less effective and eventually non-effective in regard of the speech, although this transition takes time. However, it also tends to impact the power to remember things which in common terms tends to be known as memory and thus affects the aptitude of the individual to perform motor skills. Alzheimer Disease (AD) becomes the source of substantial impairment as far as the professional and social utility of the individual. Thus, proving to be a source of pain not only for the individual but also for the family members attached to that patient (George, 2006). This disease does not have the uniform spreading ratio, but it alters depending upon the person and his/her resistance and the medical support provided to him/her. Although the medical support, cannot stop it from spreading, but it can for sometime reduce its growth rate, which ...