Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease is found in senior citizens. With Alzheimer’s, people have trouble remembering things, and it could affect many things, such as your work, social life, and things you enjoy doing. It is a progressive brain disease, and a form of dementia. Alzheimer’s can be fatal. This is all because Alzheimer’s destroys brain cells. It was first discovered by Alois Alzheimer, and the disease is named after him. He discovered it when a person named Frau Auguste D., who at that time was 50 years old, came to see Alois Alzheimer. Her family brought her there, and told Alois Alzheimer all the symptoms she was having. They said she had problems with her memory, and that it was hard for her to speak and understand what she was being told. She began to get worse.

Later, she was too ill to get out of bed. A few years after that, during the spring of 1906, she died. She died because she had too many infections from her bedsores and pneumonia. After she died, Alois Alzheimer had permission from her family to have an autopsy of her brain. Alois Alzheimer found that her brain had shrunken a lot, compared to the normal brain. The cortex – which deals with memory, thinking, judgment and speech – was really small. In 1907, Alois Alzheimer published this encounter, and finally in 1910 Emil Kraepelin said it should be named after Alois Alzheimer. Today, Alzheimer’s disease is still common, and kills many people; it is the seventh leading cause of death. Also, more than 5 million people have Alzheimer’s.

Symptoms

Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease, and it destroys brain cells. Since it destroys brain cells, you will have memory loss. You will also start to lose the ability to do common tasks, such as making a meal for yourself. People with Alzheimer’s might have a difficult time with their language. For example, they’ll forget simple words, like eat, and substitute it for hard to understand sentence. They might say I want to put stuff in my mouth. They also will have a hard time with knowing the time, and the place they’re at. Another symptom they have is bad judgment. For example, you may wear nothing when it’s cold outside, or the other way around. People with Alzheimer’s may also have problems with hard tasks dealing with the brain. An example of this is that they may forget everything about numbers. Another symptom of Alzheimer’s is when you’re misplacing things. For example, you might put your watch in the freezer. People with Alzheimer’s will also have changes in their mood. One minute you may be crying, one minute later, you may be happy. These mood changes happen for no apparent reason. You will have dramatic changes with your personality. An example of this is you could be confused all the time. Finally, Alzheimer’s patients may lose the point of life. For example, they only want to sleep most of the time, and they don’t feel like doing regular activities.

Treatment and Accommodations

Alzheimer’s currently has no cure. However, there are drugs and other treatments that can help your consciousness, and your behavior symptoms. You can take Vitamin E, and studies funded by the government show it might delay your loss of ability to do regular things, and delaying going to a nursing home. You should only use it with supervision with your physician, because it could negatively interact with other medications. With Alzheimer’s you can get sleep disorders. You can take sleeping drugs. You might be having sleeping disorders because you have depression, RLS (Restless leg syndrome), and sleep apnea. (Sleep apnea is when you do not have a typical breathing pattern and you will stop breathing for a short time, and that’ll give you a bad night’s sleep.)You can take many different drugs for these conditions, but you can also do things that don’t involve drugs. For example, you can make regular times for meals, sleep time, and what time you’re getting out of bed, discouraging alcohol and other drugs. There are a lot more things you can do. To treat memory symptoms of Alzheimer’s you can use Cholinesterase inhibitors. Aricept is an example of this type of drug. Memantime can help with learning and memory. Memantime is another type of drug than can help all stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Finally, for conditions when a person with Alzheimer’s who have verbal outbursts, restlessness, etc. you should take them for a medical exam. There are many reasons why people have weird behavior. There are also drugs you can take to help stop these things.

How the Genes Are Inherited

If someone in your family has Alzheimer’s, your relatives will have a higher chance of getting Alzheimer’s than the regular population. If you have a parent or sibling that has Alzheimer’s you are 3.5 times more likely to get Alzheimer’s. If you have another relative that has Alzheimer’s your chances of getting Alzheimer’s are increased. This is because some mutations happen in these 3 genes: the APP, PS1, and PS2 gene. These three genes are involved in early Alzheimer’s disease. Currently, scientists don’t know what genes cause the late Alzheimer’s disease. The APP gene is involved in the formation of deposits of amyloid plaques in the brain. The amyloid plaques are composed of beta-amyloid, a protein. The beta-amyloid is a fragment of the APP gene. The mutated APP gene is estimated to be responsible for 5 to 20 percent of the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. People with the mutation in the APP gene develop Alzheimer’s around age 50. The PS1 gene causes 50 percent of early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. They don’t know what role the PS1 gene plays in the body. An interesting thing with the PS1 gen, is that families that have a particular mutated PS1 gene will develop Alzheimer’s around the same age, have weaker legs, and have lots of changes in their brain, compared to the average person with Alzheimer’s disease. Finally, the PS2 gene does very similar things as the PS1 genes, and just like the PS1 gene, scientists don’t know the role it plays in the human body. People who had the PS2 gene don’t get Alzheimer’s disease. However, people with the PS2 mutation gene get a milder version of Alzheimer’s than people with the PS1 mutated gene. The age when people get Alzheimer’s varies with the PS2 mutation gene. This may be because some environmental factors might change the age at which a person with a PS2 mutated gene will get the disease.

Conclusion

My grandmother, at the age of 83, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2005. It is truly a heart-breaking situation. Grandma chose to spend the last years of her life in an assisted living facility, over 9 hours away. At first, I was angry that she chose to die so far away, but she has the right to choose how to spend her last years. And I am still angry.

I am angry at this disease that is killing my grandmother, I am angry that the general public is not up in arms about the fact that this disease afflicts so many, and I am angry at a society that almost expects the elderly to have this dehumanizing disease. I am angry that my grandmother, who survived cancer, and the death of her husband is now left to die in a nursing home. I am angry my own children will never know this lady.

And I am full of rage at the fact, that one day, she won’t know me, either.

Since Grandma lives in another state, I call her every few days, and I send her as many beautiful cards as I can. She knows who I am when I call her, and she loves hearing from me, but I can tell that she is fading away. That is the vicious part about the Alzheimer’s, it’s robbing my grandmother of her ability to communicate, and her memories of her beloved grandchildren. I see the anguish that my father, her only son, has over seeing his mother deteriorating, and I see the fear he has that one day, he might be afflicted by it as well.

The naive, and the ignorant tell me that I am being overly dramatic. But, I have my CNA license, and I have worked on a dementia unit. I have the cruelty this disease has, and how it ends. If there is one bitter mercy about this disease, it is the fact that Grandma is no longer aware of how much she has faded. She is generally content, and has the wonderful innocence of a child. She seems to be at peace. And, there is the small acts she does, that shows she is still with me.

There are some things that Alzheimer’s can’t destroy. My grandmother still loves. My father went to visit her, and he brought back some beautiful, if! simply made beaded bracelets she had made for me. Grandma and I have always shared a strong faith in God. Despite her decline, she still beaded a cross into the bracelet. I have it sitting on the Bible she gave me. Alzheimer’s can’t destroy the bonds between people. Whether Grandma remembers me, or not, it will never change the fact that she is my grandmother, and that I love her. Alzheimer’s can’t destroy faith.

If I view this disease as nothing but my grandmother rotting away, then, of course, I will have the same futility and despair that is normal in the situation. But, if I view it as preparation for her to meet the Lord, it makes the situation bearable. If I picture Grandma healed in heaven, it makes the situation hopeful, despite the agony of the journey to get there. If there is one lesson I have learned throughout this, it would be that love is something that can’t be destroyed by suffering, and the only thing that we really have to hold onto in the face of this horrible disease is love.

Bibliography

1. Amy, Adams. “Genes Can Cause Alzheimer’s Disease.” Genetic Health. 14 Feb. 2008 .

2.”Alzheimer’s Association.” Alzheimer’s Association. 14 Feb. 2008 .

3. “Hielio’s Story- – Love Cannot Be Destroyed by Alzheimer’s Disease.” About. 14 Feb. 2008 .