Alzheimer's Disease: A Narrative Analysis

Alzheimer 's disease (AD) was discovered by a German doctor Alois Alzheimer in 1906 when he found amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the autopsy of a woman who died of an unknown mental disease. The extracellular amyloid plaque deposits, composed of insoluble amyloid-Beta peptide were hypothesized to be the main etiological factor. “The most important abnormality is an excess of Amyloid-beta peptides brought about through either overproduction or failure in degradation.” (Uzun, Kozumplik, & Folnegović-Smalc, 2011) Later, it was discovered that intracellular neurofibrillary tangles composed of hyper-phosphorylated, helically-paired tau

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a form of degenerative, fatal dementia, is characterized by progressive cognitive decline. While AD is the most common form of dementia, its prevalence has only recently been recognized. When Alois Alzheimer first described the sequence of changes in 1907, physicians believed the disease to be an extremely rare, mid-life condition. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that the same types of changes were shown to occur in both late- and early-onset forms (Cavanaugh et.al. 2008). As such, almost all knowledge of AD has been learned within the past several decades, with new discoveries being reported almost daily. It is now estimated that Alzheimer’s accounts for as many as 60% of all dementias and affects more than 500,000

Forgetting things comes naturally with age, so my father’s loss of a name or word did not faze me, especially as he approached seventy. Additionally, being in school across the country made it easy for large changes to look relatively small. But, I soon realized I was avoiding the situation in an effort to comfort myself. Witnessing history repeat itself would be too painful to think about, so I attempted to dismiss it. My mind flashed back to almost ten years ago, my first encounter with a neurodegenerative disorder, at which time my grandmother was slowly succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease. Watching my grandmother’s mind erode and my presence in her life slowly erode was difficult, especially at age 14 when almost everything is personal. Flash-forward

Alzheimer’s Disease is a disease of the future. With the growing aged population, this disease, which affects primarily the elderly, will become of increasing relevance to the medical profession. Also, the high frequency of Alzheimer’s, and the high cost in labor, money, and material of caring for its victims shall put considerable burden on the society as a whole. Here, however, these issues are not going to be debated. Instead the pathology of Alzheimer’s will be reviewed to the extent it is known today.

Alzheimer’s Disease is an irreversible, genetically linked illness. This disease was chosen for the topic of this essay under the consideration that in many families the illness can be incredibly tragic, passing down for generations without mercy. It is not rare to encounter families in which each member is afflicted with a form, mild or severe, of Alzheimer’s. The disease is a progressive brain disease which comes in two separate types: Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease and Late-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. These will be discussed in full later on in the paper.

It was faded red, and slow: on Volkswagen time. Others rushed impatiently. It said, “Speed limit will do. No hurry.”

I remember the days when my grandma would be the one taking care of me after school. Each and every school day, I would eagerly wait for school to end so that my grandma could come and pick me up to bring me back to her apartment. Each and every day, she would come 15 minutes after school had ended to avoid the hassle of dealing with all the parents coming at the same time to pick their kids up. I didn’t mind though, that gave me time to talk to my teachers about issues that I had or just to socialize with my friends. Once my grandma arrived, I would quickly drop what I was doing, say goodbye to whomever I was talking to, and go straight to the car to keep my grandma from waiting. My grandma would immediately greet me and ask how my day

Due to the inability of the brain to replace nerve cells, some brain function is lost. The key question in Alzheimer’s disease is, what causes the neuron degeneration (Johnson, 1989)? The focus for finding the cause is on abnormal structures found in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s. Unfortunately, the abnormal structures the brain undergoes still has researchers uncertain as to how they are involved in Alzheimer’s and exactly how the disease occurs.

The words moved into her mind, like leaves on an autumn breeze. She awoke to find the phone between her cheek and the pillow, the insistent buzzing the only sound from the black receiver. Had there been a voice on the line? Or had she only dreamed it? Or was she even hallucinating? She had had dreams before, but the kind that would wake her like an alarm bell. Heart pounding, pulse racing, it would take her several moments to get her to know where she was and that she had been dreaming.

March 8, 2009. A date that will be sadly implanted within my mind till the Alzheimer’s kicks in. This was the date we found out that our house was being foreclosed on and that we had 6 weeks to find a new place to live. My parents are hard-working people, never took a day off and grab any chance at overtime that they could get. Why was this happening to us?

I was 16 when I learned what it meant to be dead. I had known of it before, but I didn’t really know death -- I was too young to really understand. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to ward off the waves from washing away my grandparents when they were in Mexico, and I was here. We were separated by oceans of land so our contact was limited. And the oceans only got deeper as I realized that Alzheimer's meant something beyond just memory loss. It meant I watched my Abuelito’s glassy eyes lead to an empty attic, and knew I was waiting for a tsunami to take it over like it had the rest of him.

Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that greatly affects people with memory loss and is common in the middle and old age group. Since it is a disease that can not be cured, many people want to gain more insight on how to help people with Alzheimer’s disease and how it affects them. This can be taught through a countless number of genres. Today, the two genres that look at the topic of Alzheimer’s disease are care manuals and autobiographies. Even though both genres discuss the topic of Alzheimer’s, autobiographies are more subjective because they contain more personal content while care manuals are more objective since they contain factual information despite the fact that it appeals to pathos in some

A harrowing, poignant account of caring for not only one, but two Alzheimer’s patients, Slow Dancing with a Stanger Lost and Found in the Age of Alzheimer’s is a first hand experience with Alzheimer’s disease that leaves the reader moved, intrigued, and a little worried about what is to come with the aging process. The book is not an easy read as it gives a very unromantic summation of being a caretaker to a person with Alzheimer’s disease.

One impactful story that I’ve heard on numerous occasions has been the passing of my great uncle as a result of Alzheimer’s disease. For the last five years, my grandparents have made light of this unfortunate event whenever the entire family is together. My great uncle was born and raised in Sherbrooke, Quebec and was an individual of great intelligence and sensitivity. One such example of this was his uncanny ability to play the piano by memorizing chords and scales. In addition, I hear stories from the past that my great uncle was an avid chess player and was able to win narrowly every time against his opponent. When my great uncle retired to the state of Florida in 1989, he spent a great deal of time playing golf and collecting VHS tapes

the input (10- 11)." The brain can register only one item at a time. If two