preview

Research Paper On Alzheimer's Disease

Decent Essays

What is Alzheimer's Disease? As a type of dementia, Alzheimer's causes problems in memory, thinking, and behavior. Usually symptoms develop slowly and get severely worse over time, eventually causing problems that interfere with daily tasks. This disease is the most common form of dementia, but this disease is not a normal part of aging. This disease accounts about 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases. Alzheimer's disease was named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer. A lady died of an unusual mental illness suffered from memory loss, language problems, and unpredictable behavior. This situation caught Dr. Alois Alzheimer's attention. After she died he examined her brain and found abnormal clumps and tangled bundles of fiber. After further research, Dr. Alois Alzheimer discovered Alzheimer's Disease. How is a person diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease? Symptoms of dementia vary such as, memory loss, difficulty with communication, and …show more content…

Researchers say that family history, head trauma, and down syndrome are huge contributors to Alzheimer's disease. Family history plays a huge role in the disease, research shows that if a person has a child, sibling, or parent with the disease they are more likely to get the disease. Head trauma also plays a huge role with the disease, head trauma is caused by an impact to the head that interrupts with normal brain activity. Certain types of head trauma cause a higher risk factor for Alzheimer's, but the symptoms will not occur until a few years later. People with Down Syndrome have an even higher risk for Alzheimer's disease. As people with down syndrome live only between 50 to 60 years of age, they are more susceptible for early on-set Alzheimer's. After doing autopsies on people at the age of 40 with Down Syndrome, researchers say that their brains have significant amounts of plaque and tangles. Down Syndrome is one of the reasons why people with the disorder get Alzheimer's and others

Get Access