Mind Games: Understanding Alzheimer's Disease
By Jamie Lober
Courtesy of Herald-Argus
The Alzheimer’s Association educates that there are things you can do to maintain your brain. You can stay physically active, adopt a brain-healthy diet, remain socially engaged, be heart smart, have healthy blood pressure and cholesterol numbers and stay mentally active.
Despite a good action plan, sometimes memory loss occurs. “You may have metabolism problems, be low on B12, low on thyroid, have an infection that is untreated or have severe depression that causes you to have trouble sleeping, not feel like doing things and have trouble concentrating. When you get the issue treated, you will feel better,” said Louise Thompson of Alzheimer’s Association. In the case of Alzheimer’s however, the condition is permanent and progressive.
You may know that Alzheimer’s disease relates to memory loss but may not understand the nature of the decline. “I tell families to think about it like the layers of an onion. People with this disease lose one layer of memory at a time and as the disease progresses, those layers get eroded away,” said Debbie Carriveau, memory care director at Brentwood at La Porte. The most recently acquired information is the fi rst to be forgotten.
Individuals with Alzheimer’s may believe they are living in another time period or even forget that they had been married. “We do a lot of reminiscing in a program called Join Their Journey. It means that we walk beside the person so if they believe it is 1925, everything we do with interaction, response and activity is within that time frame,” said Carriveau.
It is important not to correct an individual with Alzheimer’s and to be tolerant. “We use what is called validation therapy. It is about supporting the person’s reality,” said Carriveau.
The Alzheimer’s experience is not easy. “It is a social, medical and economical disease costing up to forty thousand a year. In addition to the effect it has on the patient, there is a lot of stress it places on the family,” said Dr. Michael Fang, internist and hospitalist at La Porte Regional Health System.
If you know someone with Alzheimer’s, they are not alone and may not even be over age sixty-fi ve. “Out of the over fi ve million people that have been diagnosed, about half a million are people younger than age fi fty-fi ve. These are people who are in the prime of their life,” said Thompson.
TAKE WARNING
Be aware of the warning signs. “You should watch out for memory changes that disrupt daily life, forgetting recently learned information, challenges in planning or solving problems, diffi culty completing familiar tasks, confusion with time or place, trouble understanding either visual images or spatial relationships, withdrawal from social activities or changes in mood or personality,” said Thompson.
Do not be afraid to go to your healthcare provider as early detection is the key to a better prognosis. “A lot of times I see patients are being screened only after they have already manifested some severe symptoms, so by the time you see those, the medications do not work nearly as well,” said Fang.
If you have questions, the free twentyfour hour helpline number is (800) 272- 3900. “They can link the person and the caregiver with needed information including support groups, educational programs, information about the disease and referrals to area programs and services,” said Thompson.
There is hope for the future. “There are a lot of scientifi c breakthroughs in understanding the disease itself even better on a molecular level and those are the types of research that will fi nd a key for us to intervene. There are also medications in the experimental phase right now that are showing some promise to become available in the near future,” said Fang.
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