Alzheimers Disease Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Alzheimers Disease - Essay Example As the discussion highlights, stage 1 has symptoms like losing way, asking something repeatedly, taking longer to perform daily tasks, having trouble in decision-making, putting things in weird places, and withdrawing from social life. Stage 2 shows symptoms like requiring assistance in performing daily tasks, forgetting recent happenings, mixing up distant past with recent past, having language problems, depression, insomnia and eating troubles. Stage 3 has symptoms like being unable to feed one, control bowel and urinary movements, speak, or recognize members of the family. Memory vanishes away. Objective findings include: Neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) which are unusual clumps or tangles of a protein, known as tau, and are present within neurons and result in the malfunctioning of neurons; and, Amyloid plaques which are anomalous collections of a protein, known as beta-amyloid, inside the neurons, and may form due to abnormal processing of this protein. When an inflammation occurs in the region of these plaques, it causes the death of the neurons. Tangles and plaques make neurons lose connections with one another. This causes their death. The affected brain areas and brain tissues begin to shrink. Alzheimer’s disease does not have a specific treatment; however, measures can be taken to help patients maintain their mental health and normal behavioral patterns to slow down the progress of the disease. The treatment is based upon the study of the causal process. Although there are drugs available which are helpful for Alzheimer’s patients but those can only slow down or delay the process and cannot stop or reverse it.