Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by a progressive decline in cognitive functions starting with short-term memory deficits and ultimately lead to profound neuronal loss, brain atrophy, and massive deterioration in the humans quality of life.

Furthermore, between 15% and 40% of persons with Alzheimer’s suffer from depression. In 15-20% of cases, it appears as a symptom in the early phase of the disease – within the first 3 years.

The cause of Alzheimer’s is still unknown. Age is the most important risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. Other risk factors include heredity, diabetes, hypertension, traumatic brain injury and poor nutrition.

The major hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease is the accumulation and disposition of β-amyloid protein oligomers that have direct neurotoxic and pro-inflammatory effects.

It was found that persons with Alzheimer’s disease have a reduced level of acetylcholine – a chemical substance which is responsible for transmission of messages from one cell to another and which plays a key role in memory.

Alzheimer disease’s symptoms include:

• Memory loss
• Confusion
• Restlessness
• Personality and behavior changes
• Problems with judgment
• Problems communicating with others
• Inability to follow directions
• Lack of emotion
One of the key functions of the nervous system is storing information in the form of memory. This information is stored in the form of memory tracks that are formed inside the brain. Neurons and their cellular processes are involved in the process of forming memories and retrieving them.

Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease that impairs the memory retrieval system of the brain.

Neurodegenerative diseases are a group of disorders in which the neurons that are functionally related to one another are progressively lost. The loss of neurons impairs one of the key functions of the brain – the memory retrieval system.

Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by the accumulation of protein aggregates in different parts of the nervous system. The same is seen in Alzheimer’s disease.

Cognitive impairment is defined as a change in the brain that affects the person’s ability to think, reason, recall, and learn. Permanent cognitive impairment that progresses with the disease is seen in persons with Alzheimer’s disease.

Cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s is due to the accumulation of large amounts of Aβ plaques and neurofibrillary tangles that impair the normal functioning of neurons. The vascular abnormalities caused by these plaques are considered to be the major cause of the cognitive impairment.

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by deposits of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain.

Alzheimer’s disease is marked by the accumulation of two proteins in different areas of the brain. These are Amyloid beta (Aβ) protein and tau protein. The aggregates of these proteins are formed either due to abnormal and excessive synthesis or defective removal.

Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease that becomes worse with the age. Based on the clinical features, the disease is said to have four stages:

Pre-Dementia Stage
The initial symptoms of the disease are often ignored and mistaken as some other mild conditions. This stage is also known as mild cognitive impairment and it is often difficult to distinguish this stage from normal aging.

These symptoms include forgetting things at sometimes, misplacing things, and then forgetting about them, not remembering the exact details of an event, short-term memory loss, etc. sudden depressive symptoms are also seen.

Early Stage
The impairments seen in the pre-dementia stage progress leading to the eventual diagnosis of the disease. In this stage, the memory capacities of the person start deteriorating. As Alzheimer’s disease progresses, short-term memory deficits become more severe and interfere more with the maintenance of daily activities.

Older memories are less affected than the new ones. The person starts forgetting names of family or friends, language problems are seen with less fluency in the speech, movement coordination is absent when performing fine motor tasks. These changes are noticeable by family members and friends.

Moderate Stage
In the early stage, persons can perform tasks independently with little supervision. As the disease progresses, cognitive impairment causes them to depend on others for daily activities, such as preparing a meal or requiring reminders to attend to hygiene.

Persons have trouble remembering their location, they cannot recall recently learned things or recent events, are often confused by trivial events, and also have problems with sleep.

Delusional symptoms may also develop. They also have anger attacks and may also develop urinary inconsistency.

Advanced Stage
The disease worsens, and the person cannot live without caregivers. The persons have very poor ability to think, speech problems eventually resulting in complete loss of speech, and inability to perform even simple tasks.

The persons in this stage become more aggressive, abusive, and paranoid. However, apathy and exhaustion are also present.

Alzheimer’s disease is highly debilitating; starting from memory complaints leading ultimately to complete dependence and inability to perform daily living tasks.

Treatment of Alzheimer’s disease globally ranks third in medical costs after cardiovascular and cancer diseases.

Alzheimer’s disease puts a tremendous economic and social burden on the patients and their families. Furthermore, the growing number of patients reaching pandemic levels and the lack of medications to halt the disease progression necessitate the development of novel therapies to counteract Alzheimer’s disease desolation.

READ NEXT: Phytotherapy and Alzheimer’s disease
$

MEMOSTORM

MEMOSTORM provides strong memory support, promotes mental abilities, brain cell regeneration and well-being.

MEMOSTORM is a food supplement extracted from natural products.

MEMOSTORM is a food supplement registered in the EU and Switzerland.