|
Complicating Alzheimer’s will also see the inclusion of behavioral changes like anger, violence, denial, total passivity, depression and such.
Biologically, Alzheimer’s disease is found to be caused by the rapid decrease or neurons to the brain which results in atrophy. The causes have been primarily genetic in nature and there has been no known cure for it, although progress on delaying its onset has been marginally successful.
Attempts at total prevention of Alzheimer’s disease have so far been elusive. There is no proven way to detect the mental disorder before its onset, which makes it difficult. DNA testing is possible but expensive to execute. The common denominator for its appearance in the elderly has always been age.
To increase the possibility of prevention, studies have shown that people who use their minds more often have a less likelihood of contracting the disease compared to others who do not.
The game of chess stood out as the greatest method of prevention compared to solving crossword puzzles and dancing.
Furthermore, other studies have shown that activities that prevent the onset of cardiac arrest and stroke made great progress in finding less occurrences of Alzheimer’s in patients. Special mention has to be given to the subject of dancing.
Dancing has been found in another study to have made very significant strides on making Alzheimer’s less likely to occur in the elderly due to the requirement of dance to integrate coordination of the mind and body.
Consumption of vitamins C and E has also been seen to affect Alzheimer’s prevention greatly. Studies show it has an 80% chance of preventing Alzheimer’s onset only if the dosage was at least 400 IU for vitamin E and 500 IU of vitamin C per day. This is much less than the daily dose offered by multivitamins in the market today.
Vitamins E and C must be taken in tandem to be effective. Consumption of vitamin E only slightly improves the chance of prevention while a large dose of vitamin C only has no effect. Vitamin E in large doses also poses a health risk to patients due to its ability to be active in the presence of free radicals. The presence of vitamin C, an antioxidant, makes the dosage safe to use.
Lifestyle changes that prevent the appearance of Alzheimer’s disease include quitting smoking, weight reduction, and insulin regulation.
Who gets memory illnesses?
Memory: Fragile and priceless
A person’s last bastion of privacy is the privacy of his own mind. Take away all the freedom a person has and lock him up. Put that person under surveillance round the clock, and you’ll still have no idea what he is thinking.
That person may be thinking about home, or his loved ones, or the people who put him in chains. Thanks to his memories.
Memory is the ability of an individual to store, maintain and retrieve information from the mind. There are different types of memory: sensory, short-term and long-term memory.
Sensory memory is the initial moment or situation that is felt. This memory is then immediately placed into short-term memory. Short-term memory is characterized as volatile. The duration by which a person will remember in short-term memory is only limited and temporary unless measures are taken to consistently introduce the memory into long-term memory.
Long-term memory is where general and historical events are stored. It is further divided into two kinds: declarative memory and procedural memory.
Declarative memory is memory that requires conscious effort to retrieve. Knowledge of semantics that require abstract knowledge, such as knowing what the capital of California is; and personal experience form this memory, such as remembering what it feels like to fall in love the first time.
Procedural memory is used to learn motor skills. This kind of memory takes advantage of the fact that the human body learns well only through repetition of an action.
In addition, there is a part of memory called working memory. When a mind is working on solving a complex problem and he needs to switch between calculations, the area where other data is stored is called working memory.
Memory has three stages: store, retain and retrieve. Any impairment to any one of the three stages caused the victim to have memory problems.
But memory loss strikes anybody at any age. It can be caused by a wide variety of external and internal factors.
- Age is the most well-known cause of memory loss. Old age causes the brain to produce less of the neurons that maintain memory. The elderly may have difficulty in recall or learning but this is not a problem unless mental disorders are the cause.
- Dementia. As a person ages, his ability to retain memories is seen to erode and even fade away. This is even more pronounced in patients that contract mental disorders such as dementia.
The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease. This mental illness has struck mostly people in their old age and is characterized by a gradual decline in memory as well as other functions such as learning, comprehending, communication, and such.
- Trauma involving the head. Studies show that accidents involving head trauma plays a part in the future loss of memory for its victims.
- Cardiac arrest. People with a history of heart attacks have a likelihood of contracting a memory illness in their advanced years. This may be caused by the inability of the heart to circulate blood throughout the body, which may cause the brain to have amyloid deposits.
- Stroke. Stroke victims also have a likelihood of a mental disorder in their old age as it affects the body’s ability to filter toxins out of the body.
- Smoking. People who smoke have twice as many chances of memory loss due to the increase in production of free radicals in the body. Smoke inhalation also impedes the body’s ability to combat other diseases and increases the likelihood of cancer.
|
|
