Essay on Dementia in Older Adults

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.

Dementia which was views as a disease is now viewed as a disability. It allows us to view people with dementia as individuals coping with their own impairment and entitled to an adequate quality of life and comfort. To do this it is necessary for us to shift our way of thinking from focusing on dementia as a disease that degenerative without a cure, to focusing on the whole person and seeing dementia as a disability of certain parts of the persons

This disorder however lacks amyloid plaques but neurofibrillary tangles are present that disrupt normal activities of cells resulting in their death. Experts believe that fronto-temporal dementia accounts for about 2-10% of all cases of dementia. The symptoms usually appear between the ages of 40 and 65. In some cases, people have a familial history of the disease and in such case genetic factor strongly influences the disease. People with this disorder may live up to 5-10 years after the diagnosis of disease. The frontal and temporal lobes of brain are concerned with judgment and social behavior but in this disorder as the nerve cells are destroyed so the individual finds it difficult to make decisions as well as maintain social communication. Other possible symptoms include loss of speech and language, repetitive behavior, increased appetite and motor problems like stiffness and balance problems. Memory loss occurs in later stages of the disease.

In many cases patients with dementia wait a long period of time to go to the doctor after they start experiencing symptoms because they think it is a natural part of aging. The patients with dementia notice symptoms far before their care givers do but do not explain them to anyone. The fact that the patients wait so long to see a doctor about their symptoms and the lack of knowledge of the disease by the patient and care givers is a major hindrance to getting an accurate diagnosis and care. The care givers of the dementia patients play a major role in the diagnosis process as results showed they either promote or hinder the start of the diagnosis process. Early detection is essential to helping the patients live the best lives possible with dementia. Although treatment does not cure dementia it is usually much more effective in slowing in the progression when started in the early stages and an early diagnosis

Many physiologic changes contribute to AD. Currently, theories related to the changes that cause AD include the following: “Degeneration of the cholinergic neuron and deficiency in acetylcholine, neuritic plaques that form mainly outside the

The fact that AD usually develops later in life again complicates the boundaries of this disease. Because the process of normal aging is not completely understood, there are no consistent, established values of what constitutes "normal" cognitive impairment and memory loss with advancing years. Furthermore, the neurochemical changes, the neurophysiological changes, or the gross and fine anatomical changes that accompany normal aging are not understood well enough to provide a firm basis for determining "abnormal" changes. The brain of an 80 year old patient with AD may be difficult to distinguish from that of an age-matched normal patient without dementia. Also, some elderly patients have few or no senile plaques or neurofibrillary tangles. Even at earlier ages, the neurofibrillary tangles and senile plaques that

According to the National Institute on Aging’s recently revised criteria for dementia, impaired language functions, including difficulties in speaking, reading and writing are among the core clinical criteria of Alzheimer’s disease (AD; McKhann et al. 2011). During the early/mild clinical stage of AD, individuals exhibit subtle word finding problems, and difficulty using and understanding complex language forms such as idioms, figurative forms, metaphors and similes, and sarcasm (Bayles 1982, Bayles et al. 1992, Kempler et al. 1988). In the middle/moderate clinical stage of AD, individuals demonstrate pronounced word-finding problems to express feelings/intent or to express unmet needs such as their spoken, written and gestural outputs are

Alzheimer’s disease, AD, is a form of dementia that affects more individuals than any other form of dementia. “Dementia is the name for a group of symptoms caused by disorders that affect the brain. It is not a specific disease” (nlm.nih.gov). AD is the leading cause of all elderly mental degeneration and death in relation. The demographic for most deaths of Alzheimer’s disease correlate with an

The first questions will be to develop a history for information to understand what is wrong. There are several situations that might precipitate dementia-like symptoms. They will include questions on whether or not the person is on drugs. There are medicines that might cause confusion as a side effect (Hammond, 2012). Additionally, overdoses can have the same symptoms as dementia, and to be misdiagnosed can be worse for the patient. These questions will more likely be asked of the patient first. It is the patient who knows whether or not he or she is taking drugs, abusing them. In this case, drugs can mean both medicine and intoxicating substances such as alcohol. The doctor can also ask family members, as to get a corroboration of the details offered by the patient. The doctor will compare the information from both the patient and the family. The doctor will then take blood and urine samples to check for diseases like Parkinson’s and others type conditions. All these will be aimed at getting a

Researchers at the University of California-San Francisco discovered a correlation between age, anemia and dementia, according to an article in USA Today titled, “Older adults with anemia face increased dementia risk.” This 11-year study revealed interesting and alarming data about the groups studied. Individuals who were anemic at the commencement of the study were 40 percent more susceptible to develop dementia as they reached 65 years of age with progression thereafter, as opposed to the same age groups of those who did not suffer from anemia. Aging is inevitable; however, this new development does not provide a positive perspective towards the future for someone like me.

“Horribly tragic, scary, slow, sad, maddening, etc.” These are words some would use when asked what Alzheimer’s/dementia is. This answer is common to those who have watched loved ones suffer from this disease that ultimately lead to their passing. As defined in McGraw Hill Medical Dictionary, Alzheimer’s Disease is a ‘progressive neurologic disease of the brain that causes irreversible loss of neurons and eventual dementia characterized by loss of memory, impairment of judgment, decision making, language use, and awareness of surroundings’(pg. 14). Dementia defined by the same dictionary is the ‘progressive loss cognitive function, usually associated with

In a recent social media video daughter slapping her mother shows loss control turns to become an abuse. Looking after an elderly person can be challenging if the elderly person having physical or mental disease.

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Delirium, Depression, and Dementia are some of the most common psychological diagnoses in the elderly today. The three D’s are difficult to differentiate between in older adults because they overlap with each other and can all exist in the same patient at once. Delirium, Dementia, and Depression all affect the elderly’s quality of life and often increase the risks for one another (Downing, Caprio & Lyness, 2013). For the purpose of this paper I will be focusing primarily on the diagnosis of Dementia, the prevention, and nursing measures associated with it, but first I would like to differentiate between Delirium and Depression because Dementia is often associated with the two in the older adult population.