Alzheimer’s disease is a condition wherein the patient suffers from a neurodegenerative disease. It is actually impossible to determine whether a person does have Alzheimer’s disease or not while he is still alive. Though there are tests conducted to observe the mental functions and physical reactions of the patient, there is still no concrete way to tell whether the disease has set in.
There are no actual tests that can be administered to a person who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease pre-mortem. The best way to find out if someone is suffering from the disorder is for the people closest to him to identify radical changes in behavior that may point to the possibility of Alzheimer’s.
Pay attention to your patient’s dental hygiene
Brushing teeth is a basic skill that many Alzheimer patients forget. So it might be very difficult for them to do successfully.
Symptoms:
Alzheimer disease attacks slowly so at first the only symptom may be short term memory which may not seem to be serious but with time this problem would increase. It becomes more noticeable and starts affecting your daily activities. It leads to intellectual impairment and then everything gets disturbed like skilled movements, recognition, everything closely related to the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain as they become disconnected from the limbic system, reflecting extension of the underlying pathological process. Not everybody who has short term memory will have AD.
There is also evidence that physical, social and mental activities can help reduce the risk of having this disease. That is why it is best to try to get AD sufferers involved in activities, even if they are far into the disease. It is best to concentrate on tasks that focus on the skills that the patient has retained. Simple things like pouring a glass of water might be a good and comfortable way to keep AD patients active.
Scientists also found out that those with AD have nerve cells that die in the areas crucial to memory and other mental functions. The connections between these nerve cells do not function normally. Scientists also noticed that the amount of brain chemicals that are utilized in carrying messages to the whole body became less. By disrupting these messages to the brain, AD impairs memory and thought.
Alzheimer?s foundations often conduct a variety of special events. These activities are very important because the events help, in addition to raising their annual budget, heighten the local community's knowledge of Alzheimer's disease and related disorders. The foundations provide helpline services (toll free).
These tests might also help doctors tell if the person has depression, thyroid problem, brain tumor or disease of blood vessels in the brain. Sufferers, on the average, live from eight to ten years after their diagnosis. A few managed to live for almost 20 years after the onset.
Other important AD testing tools are brain imaging tests like CAT (computed tomography) scans or MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans. They are used to identify the presence of tumor, head trauma, and neurological conditions. PET (positron emission tomography) scans recognize activity decreases in hippocampus, the brain's first part attacked by Alzheimer's. Neuroimaging tests are used in the early stages of the diseases.
