Essay Example on Alzheimer's: Dementia, Forgetfulness, and Decline

Introduction

Alzheimer's disease is connected with progressive disorder, which makes the brain cells to dissipate and die. The disease is mainly known for causing dementia disorder, which makes a person develop social and behavioral skills that disrupt the ability of a person to function and is also associated with a continuous decline in thinking. There are various signs and symptoms of this particular disease. For instance, the early signs may include forgetfulness, whereby the patient tends to forget recent conversations and events. A person suffering from this disease can develop severe loss as the disease progresses, disabling such people to carry out their everyday tasks effectively. Alzheimer's disease can be treated through several medications to slow the disease decline rate of thinking or to improve the symptoms temporarily. Such treatments administered to people with Alzheimer's disease help them in a great way to maintain independence and maximize their function for a while. There are many reasons and treatments for Alzheimer's illness.

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Causes

According to most scientists, the cause of Alzheimer's illness is a result of an amalgamation of environmental factors, genetic, and way of life, which affects a person's brain with time. The disease is found to be caused by certain genetic changes. The specific causes of Alzheimer's disease are not known fully, even though the main problems are associated with brain failure. The brain protein is damaged; hence they cannot function effectively (Bhushan et al., 2018). The neurons tend to lose connection due to the damage they experience, making them die completely. The damage mostly occurs in the part of the brain that controls memory taking place after many years after the first symptom is identified. The disease progresses to other parts of the brain, leaving the brain to shrink significantly. The rate at which the disease worsens varies from one person to another based on the age factor. The disease is highly associated with the difficulty of organizing thoughts and remembering things. The causes of this particular disease can only be explained in three hypotheses. The three hypotheses include Tau, cholinergic, and amyloid.

Tau's Hypothesis

Tau's hypothesis helps in explaining the cause of Alzheimer's disease. It is based on neurofibrillary tangles' presence in Alzheimer's disease. Phosphorylation of Tau increases, causing the free Tau to increase too and also microtubules failure to function (Bhushan et al., 2018). Phosphorated Tau is known as subunits made up of paired helical filaments that are known to form NFTs. The transportation of protein in the brain is, therefore, negatively affected due to the impairment of microtubules on axonal transport. The neurons are eventually damaged, and they die entirely.

Cholinergic Hypothesis

This particular hypothesis states that Alzheimer's disease as a result of combined deficits observation in acetylcholine and acetyltransferase, which are crucial in learning and memory. The decline of noncognitive and cognitive functions is due to a reduction in cholinergic neurons transmission and cholinergic neurons (Bhushan et al., 2018). There is no significant effect recognized on the use of cholinesterase inhibitors to patients who have Alzheimer's disease during the treatment; hence this is an indication that there are crucial processes about the disease progression.

Amyloid Hypothesis

Amyloidosis is the process through which abnormal amyloid proteins are deposited in tissues. The altered proteins tend to form a ss-pleated sheet that is insoluble. Cellular clearance and reduced tissues deposits can observe on amyloid proteins (Bhushan et al., 2018). The deposition and accumulation of fibrillar amyloid are defined as the primary cause of Alzheimer's disease. 70% of dementia cases are as a result of Alzheimer's disease. The Av peptide is highly associated with the formation of sequential cleavages that causes damages to brain neurons.

Alzheimer's Disease Treatment

The two medications that are mainly used to treat Alzheimer's disease based on drug therapy include N-methyl D-aspartate and acetylcholinesterase. The two medications have different effects on the therapy of Alzheimer's illness. The illness is very complex and requires careful treatment to help people maintain the mental function, slow down the disease symptoms and manages behavioral symptoms (Vossel et al., 2017). Several prescriptions of drugs to treat Alzheimer's' disease have been proven to treat people suffering from this particular disease. When Alzheimer's disease symptoms are treated, they provide people with dignity, independence, and comfort for a more extended time.

The medications work best when the symptoms are identified at an early stage of the disease. For instance, the cholinesterase inhibitors are meant for mild to the moderate treatment of Alzheimer's disease. The drugs are capable of reducing symptoms and assist in behavioral control. These medications include Aricept, Razadyne, and Exelon, among others (Vossel et al., 2017). How cholinesterase inhibitors work is still not clear to most of the scientists based on the research conducted. However, they are believed to breakdown a chemical in the brain known as acetylcholine, which is important in thinking and memory. The progress of Alzheimer's disease results in reduced acetylcholine making the cholinesterase inhibitors have less effect. Moderate or severe Alzheimer's is treated by a certain drug known as N-methyl D-aspartate (NMDA)antagonist since it has a lot of effect on decreasing the symptoms making the sick to maintain some certain daily functions like using the washrooms which is a benefit to the caregivers.

References

Bhushan, I., Kour, M., Kour, G., Gupta, S., Sharma, S., & Yadav, A. (2018). Alzheimer's disease: Causes & treatment-A review. Ann Biotechnol, 1(1), 1002. https://meddocsonline.org/annals-of-biotechnology/alzheimers-disease-causes-and-treatment-a-review.pdf

Vossel, K. A., Tartaglia, M. C., Nygaard, H. B., Zeman, A. Z., & Miller, B. L. (2017). Epileptic activity in Alzheimer's disease: causes and clinical relevance. The Lancet Neurology, 16(4), 311-322. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5973551/