Testing for Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease is a brain disease that manifests itself as a degenerative progressive decline in intelligence, a loss of ability to adequately perceive information, a violation of diction. To date, according to experts, every tenth inhabitant of our planet who crossed the sixty-year boundary - suffers from this disease

The causes of

Science still does not know for sure the exact causes of this disease, but scientists tend to believe that the main role in the development of the disease is playingGenetic factor. In addition, there are a number of provocative factors: hypertension, severe head trauma, obesity, smoking, toxin poisoning

Symptoms of

Symptoms of Alzheimer's disease in the early and late stages are different.
Early stage of the disease:
- Loss of ability to recognize familiar objects.
- Anxiety, depression, various emotional disorders.
- Progressive forgetfulness of recent events.
- Complete indifference to events, people and surrounding objects.

Late stage of the disease:
- Loss of ability to recognize people, including even close relatives.
- The emergence of delusional ideas and hallucinations .
- Loss of abilities for independent movement and thinking.
- In some cases, limb spasm

is diagnosed. Diagnosis of

There is still no test that can accurately diagnose Alzheimer's disease with a precision and accurately in a patient. Because of this, the doctor first of all must exclude all diseases that have similar symptoms with this disease - infections, trauma, metabolic disorders, overdose of certain medications, anxiety syndromes and depression. There is also an obligatory conversation with the relatives of the patient with a view to establishing the full picture of possible mental disorders

Treatment of

Unfortunately, to date, modern medicine is not able to cure this disease, but it is possible to slow its development and weaken symptoms.
Since people with Alzheimer's disease have a deficiency in the chemical acetylcholine in the brain, they prescribe drugs that prevent its further reduction, the so-called acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. At a later stage of the development of this disease, a memantine is prescribed to the patient, which improves memory and thinking, and also allows the patient to carry out many more simple things - eating, dressing, elementary care of himself. If symptoms such as irritability, anxiety and sleep disturbance are present, antidepressants are prescribed.
There are also alternative therapies besides medicamentous:
- Multisensory stimulation, which includes aromatherapy, house therapy, massage and music therapy.
- Cognitive development groups. Special groups are created for patients with Alzheimer's disease who have symptoms of disorientation in reality and memory problems. These groups use a special technique for stimulating memories, exercises for thinking and memory, as well as one of the types of multisensory stimulation.

More articles on the topic:

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2. Amnestic( Korsakov) syndrome