Alzheimer's Disease example essay topic

SUMMARY: This article gives you some insight on the disease Alzheimer's, which affects nearly half of every person over 85. Alzheimer's is a brain disorder that affects a person's ability to do daily activities that are usually common sense. Alzheimer's disease affects the parts of the brain that controls thought, memory, and language. Alzheimer's starts off as mild forgetfulness such as recent events, activities, or even simple math problems. Slowly AD takes over the body and in the later stages a person with this disease can forget how to do simple tasks such as brushing their teeth.

They can even forget loved ones who are very close. Scientist and researches still do not know the exact cause of AD. Age is one of the main factors that cause AD, family history of this disease, and different levels of apolipoprotein E (apoE) may also be a factor of AD. In addition to apoE there are may leads about what may cause AD are being studied such as education, diet, environment, and viruses. There is one way to 100% correctly diagnose Alzheimer's disease. That way is to find out if there are plaque tangles in the patients brain tissue.

The only way to look at a person's brain tissue is to do it after a person has died. At some specialized centers that study AD they can correctly diagnosis the disease with up to 90% accuracy. There are several factors that they take into consideration when they are diagnosing a patient with "probable" AD. First is a complete medical history with the person's recent medical problems. Second is a series of medical test including blood, urine, and spinal fluid. Third are neuropsychological tests measuring memory, problem solving, attention, counting, and language.

Lastly is a brain scan or a CT so the doctor can see if there is anything unusual going on in the brain. There is really no way to treat Alzheimer's disease. But people in the middle stages of AD can take a few different drugs that help slow down the symptoms. A few of these are taurine (Connex), donepezil (Aricept), rivastigmine (Exelon), and galant amine (Remi nyl). COMPARISION: This article and the book have very similar information. The book goes into some of the finer details of AD.

Such as it accounts for 50 to 60% of organic brain syndrome patients over sixty-five (pg 620). Also it states that 11% if individuals over sixty-five are affected by the Alzheimer's disease (pg 620). An interesting fact that I found in my article is that Alzheimer's disease in named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer, a German doctor. He first discovered AD in 1906 when he noticed changes in the brain tissue of a woman who had died of an unusual mental illness. A very frightful fact that I found in both the book and the article is that scientists estimate that over 4 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's disease (pg 620). The most interesting thing that I found in the book is now scientists believe that AOPE, a gene on the 19th chromosome that produces a blood lipoprotein may be a cause of AD (pg 620).

Testing for AOPE cannot predict if or when a person might get Alzheimer's because not all people who suffer from AD have the AOPE gene, and there are others who have the gene who live through old age and show no signs of the disease. CRITIQUE: This article was very informative for me, my grandmother suffered from AD for about 8 years. In the end she could do anything or remember anything and it didn't help that she was paralyzed from the waist down. Eventually she could not feed her self and my grandfather couldn't take care of her anymore. Then he had people living with him who helped her and finally they had to put her in a nursing home.

This was very hard for all my family because my grandmother was like the foundation of our family and seeing her slowly slip away over the past eight years was very sad. This article helps you know what they are going through and helps you to not get as frustrated with a person with AD because they do have a tendency to forget. SOURCE: web Lifespan Development 2nd Edition.