Alzheimer’s Disease: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatments

Running head: ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE
ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE
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ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE
Alzheimer’s disease can be described as the irreversible as well as the progressive
disorder of the brain. This is responsible for destruction of the memory and the thinking skills of
an individual slowly. In course of time, the ability of the brain to carry out simple actions and
tasks are compromised (Urrestarazu & Iriarte, 2016). The first symptom of the Alzheimer’s
disease is mainly seen to occur in the mid 60s. it is mainly considered to be one of the most
common cause of the disorder called dementia. The later is the disorder where loss of cognitive
function takes place like issues with thinking, reasoning as well as remembering. This disorder
also affects the behavioral abilities to such an extent where its symptoms interfere with the daily
life of the patients (Podcasy & Epperson, 2016). This assignment will mainly be focusing on the
different aspects of Alzheimer’s disease. It will also highlight the potential treatments that can be
undertaken to help the patients who are affected with it making them live better quality life.
Researchers are carried on in order to bring out the main causes that result in the
occurrence of the disease in different individuals. Alzheimer’s disease mainly damages the brain
cells and kills them. Studies have shown that this disorder has lesser cells and fewer connections
among the different surviving cells in comparison to that of the healthy brain. As more number
of cells is seen to die with this disorder in the brain, the size of the brain is seen to undergo
shrinkage (Griifin & Bradshaw, 2017). When the researchers have tried to examine the brain
tissue of patients being affected by Alzheimer’s disease, they have two important types of
abnormalities that are mainly considered the hallmarks of the disease. One of them is the
formation of plaques. These are the clumps of the protein called the beta-amyloid which might
damage and cause destruction of the cells of the brain in different ways. This might also cause
disruption in the cell-to-cell communication. Although the researchers are not aware of the main
cause of the death of the cells in the brain but the collection of the plaques outside the cells is

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ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE
considered to be one of the prime suspect (Pistolatto et al., 2016). One of the other hallmark is
the formation of tangles. The cells of the brain is seen to depend on an internal support and a
transportation system that helps in carrying nutrients and other essential materials throughout
their long extensions. This entire system is mainly seen to require the normal structuring as well
as the functioning of the protein called tau (Teive et al., 2016). In case of patients with
Alzheimer’s disease, threads of the tau protein is seen to undergo twisting into different
abnormal tangles inside the cells of the brain. This leads to the failure of the transportation
systems and this failure is also seen to implicate in the declining and the death of the cells of the
brain.
The above mentioned decline in the cognitive power of the affected patients results in
occurrence of a number of symptoms. One of the symptoms is the reduction in the ability for
taking in and thereby remembering any new form of information that can lead to different types
of issues. The patients are seen to ask repetitive questions, misplace personal belongings, forget
different appointments and events or get lost on the familiar route (Burke et al., 2015). This
disorder also results in the impairment of the reasoning, complex tasking as well as exercising
judgments like the poor understanding of the safety tasks, poor decision-making ability, inability
of the management of the safety risks, inability to manage the finances and many others. This
disorder also results in different types of visuospatial abilities that are not due to any form of
eyesight problems (Morozova et al., 2015). The patients are also seen to suffer from impairment
in speaking, writing as well as reading where the patient might have issues in thinking of
common words like speaking and hesitations. Issues in speech, spelling as well as writing errors
are also noticed. Different changes in behavior as well as personality can be noticed like out-of-
character mood changes that include apathy, agitation, and social withdrawal as well a slack of