Health Awareness

What is Alzheimer’s Disease?  It is a neurological ailment that causes deterioration of the brain and impairs the individual’s memory, learning ability, and other behaviors. Alzheimer’s disease is the most prevalent type of dementia that can occur in elderly people but can manifest in young persons as well. Alzheimer’s disease reduces the individual’s capacity to think, remember, and even perform simple tasks, and results in a complete incapacitation of the affected individual. Currently, there is no known treatment for Alzheimer’s disease but people can benefit from prevention, management, and treatment approaches that allow the control of the disease’s progression and increase the quality of the patient’s lives.  Symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease  Alzheimer’s disease causes the development of several symptoms that target the individual’s psychological, physiological, and emotional well-being. By understanding these signs, the patients can ask for medical assistance, and their families will know the condition’s early signs.    1. Memory Loss  The general feature of Alzheimer’s disease is memory loss, and such symptoms are clear and first signs of the disease. Patients with the disease become slow to retain new information and start to forget what they talked about earlier or one’s own or other people’s birthdays, anniversaries, etc. They may also lose their memory and not be able to: They may even forget the names of their close friends and even forget the names of places they regularly visit, which causes a lot of confusion to both the affected person and his or her family members.   2. Difficulty Completing Familiar Tasks  People with Alzheimer’s can fail to carry out activities they have been conducting for many years on the same calendar. It can involve, for example, failure in the ability to prepare a familiar dish, difficulties in handling household appliances, or confusion resulting from the inability to follow steps in a simple sequence.  3. Decreased or Poor Judgment  The next typical sign of Alzheimer’s is poor judgment. This is because those affected may make decisions they do not normally make, for example, borrow a large amount of money, buy things he does not need, or fail to observe dangerous conditions on the road. This decrease in judgment capability is usually accompanied by the inability to assess situations, for example, in issues of budgets or crises. 4. Misplacing Things  Alzheimer’s sufferers often have problems with the placing of objects. This is not ordinary forgetfulness since people with Alzheimer’s can end up putting items that are used frequently in strange places Examples are putting a remote control in the fridge or shoes in the oven. These people may also have a problem tracing their movements in an attempt to locate an object that was misplaced.  5. Changes in Mood, Personality, or Behavior The effects of Alzheimer’s disease include fluctuations in mood and personality, ranging from normal to impulsive and aggressive behavior. Old self-driven people may become asocial, have anxiety, or even develop depression. Other behavioral changes include increased restlessness, increased irritability as well as being suspicious of other people as the disease advances.  6. Movement Difficulties  The later stages of the development of Alzheimer’s disease might involve problems with movement as a person may have trouble with walking or any other voluntary movement. This may result in a slower gait, muscle rigidity, or increased propensity to fall from balance. Therefore, such a patient may be impaired in his or her ability to move or transfer in the bed or from the bed to a chair or a wheelchair.  7. Problems with the Sense of Smell Several studies have found that people with Alzheimer’s disease may have a poor feeling of smell. Individuals with this condition in the initial stage of the disease may also find that they are unable to identify some odors or may be completely unable to smell at all. This perhaps could be one of the warning signs that tell of the disease.  8. Wandering and Getting Lost  It also affects memory and spatial orientation – Alzheimer’s patients may become confused and wander off, or get lost within a familiar environment. This could be very dangerous for them particularly where they find it hard to recall their location or how to get back home.  9. Trouble Handling Money and Paying Bills Alzheimer’s affects a person’s ability to manage money and personal funds making it quite challenging as time progresses. They may fail to remember when a certain bill is due, fail to pay for it, or even make a wrong financial decision. This may pose the individual to certain financial hardship and the vulnerability of exploitation.  10. Repeating Questions  One of the other manifestations of Alzheimer’s disease is stereotypy, in other words, constant repetition of the same action, for example, repeated questions. Sometimes the individual may forget that he or she has posed the question or may not recall the answer that he or she was just given a few minutes ago. These recurring actions can be quite infuriating to the carers while being a consequence of the weakening brain function in elderly patients. When Can Alzheimer’s Begin?  Alzheimer’s disease mainly affects the elderly with the population most at risk being those aged 65 and above. The symptoms are not exclusive to the elderly or senior citizens only Nevertheless. Symptomatic Alzheimer’s may become manifest in people in their 30s, 40s, or 50s and is referred to as early-onset Alzheimer’s. However, the cases of the early onset are less frequent, but still very dangerous because the symptoms begin during the period of the most productive years.   Alzheimer’s is not yet determined but it has many factors contributing to it: age, genetics, and environment. The probability of getting Alzheimer’s rises persistently with age, and even at the age of 65 and above, the risk is very high, and the risk doubles with every five-year difference.  How to Avoid Alzheimer’s: Steps for Prevention Unfortunately, the opportunity to stop Alzheimer’s disease today is still being discussed, but there is a list of measures that the patient can take to reduce