Dementia and Aging: What is Alzheimer’s Dementia?
Facts about Alzheimer’s Dementia:
- Affects more individuals over the age of 65 years
- The number of people diagnosed with AZ is doubling every five years
- At age 60 the incidence rate is 1%
- At age 85 the incidence rate rises to over 40%
- Alzheimer’s Dementia is known as the end stage of any type of brain insult or trauma
- It can be genetic with a family history and identifying APOE-4 allele marker, SORL1 gene
- Some studies found the presence of mood change, depression and social withdrawal in more that 70% of those diagnosed with AZ for an average of two years
- Mood changes, depression, social withdrawal, apathy has been found to occur in 70 percent of diagnosed AZ patients
- A common issue with AZ is a lack of awareness or recognition of any cognitive problems.
- Psychosis and agitation tend to be seen in the later stages of AZ.
Alzheimer’s Dementia is associated with:
- Downs’ Syndrome
- Traumatic Brain Injury
- Females
- Lower education and occupation
- Hypertension in mid-life
- Depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Fragile personality/avoidant or reclusive personality
- Toxicity, free radicals, medication interactions, brain infections
- Chronic stress and inflammatory process
- Lowered immune system response
- HPA axis, problems with regulator
- High caloric diet (increased life span with caloric restriction)
- Exposure to general anesthesia
- Poor cardiovascular health
Risk of Alzheimer’s Dementia increases with:
- Age, Obesity, Dietary fat, Diabetes Type I and II, Traumatic Brain Injury
- Elevated homocysteine, depleted Vitamin B12
- Sleep fragmentation, decreased REM sleep
- Individuals married longer who lose a spouse
- Early life stress
Thinking problems typically seen when there is Alzheimer’s Dementia:
- Memory loss is immediately severe in the beginning stages
- Misplaced objects- cannot find anything or remember where it normally can be found
- No recall of conversations
- An inability to learn anything new
- Memory of the past remains intact
- Visuospatial functioning is immediately affected resulting in the tendency to become lost in familiar places such as the grocery store
- Route finding problem, cannot re-trace one’s steps, even in the home, all of a sudden everything looks different
- Forgetting faces and names of people known for years, including immediate family
- Unable to learn any new task such as operating a coffee pot that involves a procedure and use of memory
- Continual loss of the right word to express a thought or to complete a sentence in conversation
Consider residential placement when the following symptoms occur regularly in day to day living:
- Unable to use the telephone, to look up numbers, dial correctly and have a coherent conversation
- Unable to grocery shop without getting lost or disoriented in the store, forgetting items, or becoming totally confused
- Unable to prepare meals, unable to recall ingredients and most importantly, leaving the stove on
- Leaving the water running in the bath, sink or shower
- Unable to perform basic housekeeping tasks without becoming disoriented and confused or lost in the house
- Unable to complete laundry and follow any step by step procedure
- Unable to drive the car due to becoming lost
- Unable to manage medication with correct dosage and time
- Unable to handle finances, correct paying of bills and understanding of money
