How to Understand Alzheimer's Disease

Over 4.5 million seniors are affected by Alzheimer’s disease in the United States. Alzheimer’s alters the structure and function of the brain and these changes can begin 15 to 20 years before symptoms appear. Understanding Alzheimer’s is essential. Although there’s no cure, with early enough treatment, most people can be helped significantly. Here are a few points to help you get started in understanding this disease.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Understand the early symptoms. These are often missed because they mimic simple aging. These include memory loss, communication difficulties and difficulty learning or retaining new information. Most sufferers also experience depression and carrying out their everyday tasks: Handling money, takings meds, getting lost in familiar place and keeping house. They also can have sleep problems, sadness, and loss of interest in things previously enjoyed.
2. Know how Alzheimer’s works. Alzheimer’s is a progressive illness that gradually destroys a person’s ability to function by damaging the brain’s nerve cells which eventually die off, taking a person’s ability to learn and remember. Areas in the brain actually shrink in time, creating greater gaps in memory and function.
3. Understand that nearly all Alzheimer’s patients will have to be put into full-time nursing care, usually in a facility. With time, patients will lose control of their bodily functions, their ability to bathe or even use the toilet. What makes them impossible to care for at home is that they get to a point where they are anxious, restless and agitated and fond of wandering off. In this stage they suffer from delusions, hallucinations and paranoia.
4. Know how the disease progresses. In later stages, patients may scream, groan, or speak nonsensically. They may refuse to eat, cry or make other disturbing noises. They do not know who anyone is and therefore, afraid of everyone which renders them incapable of any cooperation. At this stage, for their own safety and the peace of those around them, patients should be placed in a facility for care.
5. Realize you may need help to cope with someone with Alzheimer’s disease. Most hospitals have support groups for caregivers. Try to find one that is for caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients only. If you have friends battling the same issues and decisions to make, you can all help each other.