Depression across the Lifespan

Dementia, also known as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), is a progressive, chronic, and degenerative. 60% of dementia occurs in people over the age of 65. Dementia causes loss of judgment, memory, change in personality, and visuospatial perception. Severe cognitive impairment can occur over time, as well as physical deterioration and death.

Life expectancy varies for each person with Alzheimer’s disease. The average life expectancy after diagnosis is eight to 10 years. In some cases, however, it can be as short as three years or long as 20 years.

Alzheimer’s disease is a psychological disorder that primarily affects the temporal lobe of the brain which focuses on memory, but also the frontal and parietal lobes which focus on behavior, intelligence, and language. The instant an individual has Alzheimer’s or Dementia there is a constant cycle of decay on the brain from the beginning to the end of the disorder (basically until death). This disorder eats away at the patients brain slowly and painfully until death which is why the American Pyshcological Association says that “The time between diagnosis and death typically ranges from seven to 10 years.” (APA 2016)

Alzheimer's information of age. According to scientificamerican.com, Approximately one in 9 americans ages 65 and up have the alzheimer’s disease. Therapy could come in the form of new drugs, but unfortunately some drugs have been suspected to fail because the drug was tested too late in the disease. Alzheimer’s affected my family when my great grandmother turned 87 she started to experience symptoms of dementia. Dementia is the early type of alzheimer’s but it is not as nearly as bad. According to Texas Department of State Health Services the average person with alzheimer’s should live up to 8 (average) to 20 years.

The damage to the brain may start as early as a decade before any symptoms are revealed. The symptoms of AD include wandering, irritation, hallucinations, apathy, depression, agitation, and memory loss. AD is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. This disease affects more than 5 million people in the United States alone; it is purported to triple every five years ( ) unless something is

The full diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is something that can be challenging to distinguish. Alzheimer’s usually develops around the age of 65 (Bennington). Typically what happens is doctors will construct urine test,

Depressions is a mental disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life. Some of the symptoms are mood such as loss of interest, guilt, anxiety, sadness, hopelessness, etc. It is very common for teenagers 14-18 and young

Alzheimer's disease(AD), accounts for approximately 70% of cases of dementia. As this disease progresses, symptoms include problems with language, disorientation, mood swings,hallucinations, depression, difficulty with self-care, and behavioral issues. Alzheimer's, causes brain cells to degenerate and die, with this results in the destruction of memory and the ability to perform simple tasks. However as the progression can vary, the average life expectancy is eight to 10 years after diagnosis.

Alzheimer’s disease is a mental deterioration that can occur in middle or old age. A person with Alzheimer's may live 4-8 years after they are diagnosed. Although in some cases people can live up to 20 years. I was interested in this topic because one of my great grandpas had this disease. He died 6 years after he was diagnosed with the disease.

Depression can also produce symptoms common to alzheimer’s disease such as: forgetfulness, difficulty making decisions, withdrawal, poor judgment and irritable mood. A person with Alzheimer’s disease with and identified and treated depression can show a rapid and marked improvement in their level of functioning. It is a double burden for the person with Alzheimer’s disease and untreated depression.

     The first signs of Alzheimer’s disease include difficulty in remembering recent events and performing familiar everyday tasks. As the disease progresses, the affected person may experience confusion, personality and behavior changes, impaired judgment, and difficulty finding words, finishing thoughts, or following directions. In the early and middle stages of AD, people with the illness may be painfully aware of their intellectual failings and what is yet to come. These changes occur at widely varying speeds in different people, and not all changes occur in everyone, but the outcome is always the same. Eventually, people with Alzheimer’s disease completely lose the ability to care for themselves and must be confined to bed with constant care. In the latest stages of disease the brain can no longer regulate body functions, and victims die of malnutrition, dehydration, infection, heart failure, or other complications. Alzheimer’s disease progresses slowly, taking between three to eighteen years to advance from the earliest symptoms to death; the average duration of the disease is eight years. Unfortunately, science has not yet found a cure.

The third stage dementia phase of AD in this stage there a progressive decline in memory, cognition and behaviour which affect activities of daily life and the patients score more than two standard deviations from the mean of their peers and at this stage can be mild AD and the average age in this stage id more than 65 years and mortality usually happens between 3-20 years from diagnosis.

When an individual has a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), one can assume that individual may also have a diagnosis with a depressive disorder. Depression in many cases can be the first sign of a neurodegenerative disorder (Yun, 2015, as cited by Green, Cupples, Kurz, Chui, Edeki…Farrer, 2003). Many individuals, who have a neurological disorder, may also develop depressive disorders early on before the appearance of cognitive impairments. Prior research has supported the idea that individuals who are depressed maybe twice as likely to develop AD when compared against non-depressed individuals (Schiavone, 2017, as cited by Jorm, 2001).

You are more likely to develop Alzheimer's if more than one member of your family has had AD. If you are 85 or older

On this scenario it is presumable that the patient is depressed and some how it explains why the patient could be depressed but what it does not appear in the scenario is other possibility for the cause of depression. A big portion of behavioral changes is due to organic changes in the brain. Depending of what kind of dementia is affecting the individual, it it will affect different types of behavior. Frontotemporal demential can exhibit changes is behavior such as depression, and it should be taken to an account as well (Farb, Grady, Strother, Tang-Wai, Masellis, Black & Chow,