Understanding Alzheimer’s Disease

understanding alzheimer's disease [Music] alzheimer's disease is a brain disease that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills it is a progressive disease which means it gets worse over time alzheimer's disease is irreversible people with alzheimer's eventually lose the ability to carry out the simplest of tasks alzheimer's is the most common cause of dementia among people age 65 and over dementia is loss of the ability to think and remember things that is severe enough that a person has trouble doing day-to-day activities about 5.8 million people in the united states have alzheimer's disease rarely people younger than 65 can have alzheimer's this is called early onset alzheimer's disease around one of every 20 people with alzheimer's have early onset alzheimer's disease you're more likely to get alzheimer's if one or more of your close family members parents brothers or sisters has it the most common early symptom of alzheimer's disease is trouble remembering recent events other early symptoms may include having trouble completing daily tasks and getting lost when driving on a route the person used to know well these symptoms are not the same as normal forgetfulness which can happen to all of us as we get older for example if you sometimes forget about an appointment forget a person's name or misplace your keys it doesn't mean you have alzheimer's a person with mild alzheimer's disease may need help with usual tasks like managing finances planning meals and keeping appointments have trouble sleeping and become anxious or depressed as symptoms of alzheimer's disease get worse a person may have trouble recognizing family members and friends need help with daily activities like getting dressed become fearful or suspicious of other people or believe that they are seeing or hearing things that aren't real when alzheimer's disease becomes severe a person loses much of their ability to communicate and needs full-time help to take care of themselves doctors don't fully understand what causes alzheimer's disease in most people most people with alzheimer's disease are older but just getting older doesn't cause the disease many people live well into their 90s without getting alzheimer's disease carrying a variant of a gene known as apoe increases a person's risk for alzheimer's disease especially the late onset form of the disease but not everyone who has this gene gets the disease and people who don't have the gene can still get the disease early onset alzheimer's disease can also be caused by an inherited change in one of three other genes yet these genes are very uncommon other conditions that may increase the risk for alzheimer's disease include smoking diabetes high blood pressure and an unhealthy diet doctors now know that changes begin happening in the brain 10 to 20 years or more before a person with alzheimer's disease shows any symptoms neurons are brain cells that send and receive signals to and from the brain everything we do as living beings walking thinking forming memories happens because of these signals a healthy adult brain contains about 100 billion neurons when a person has alzheimer's disease tiny pieces of a protein called beta amyloid build up in between neurons forming clusters or plaques another protein called tau builds up inside neurons forming dense thread-like tangles together these plaques and tangles block neurons from sending and receiving signals because of these and other abnormal changes in the brain neurons start to die the first place this happens is in the parts of the brain where memories are formed as more neurons die the brain starts to shrink as alzheimer's gets worse over time the brain may shrink to about a third of its normal size mixed dementia is dementia that's caused by brain changes due to alzheimer's disease and one or more other brain diseases for example a person may have dementia that's caused by both alzheimer's disease and parkinson's disease a person may also have both alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia these types of dementias occur when the brain gets less blood than it needs this can happen after a person has a series of small strokes studies show there are steps you can take to reduce your risk of alzheimer's disease don't smoke keep your body and mind active stay in touch with family and friends and eat a healthy diet maintain a healthy weight control high blood pressure drink alcohol in moderation drink coffee in moderation recent studies suggest that getting vaccinated against pneumonia and the flu can also help lower your risk of alzheimer's disease you

Channel: Animated Alzheimer's Patient

Views: 62,712

Keywords:

Id: lFBTlHfV8Iw

Length: 5min 43sec (343 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 27 2021