Alzheimers Disease

General Description

What is Alzheimers? Alzheimers disease is an irreversible, progressive, degenerative disease of the brain which causes thinking and memory to become seriously impaired and eventually even the ability to carry out the simplest tasks. In most people with Alzheimer’s, symptoms first appear after age 60. Ultimately the disease is leading to death.

Estimates vary, but experts suggest that as many as 5.1 million Americans may have Alzheimer’s.

Memory and Aging are connected to the fear of many people that they are developing dementia. Examples of memory loss are: they cannot find their glasses or remember someone's name.
These symptoms are most often due to a much less serious condition of slowing of mental processes with age.

Causes of Alzheimers are not fully understood by scientists. It is likely that the causes include genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors. Possible risks and causes are presented.

The subject of Aluminum and Alzheimers disease has been plagued with controversy. Aluminum and Alzheimers connection has been studied for over 40 years. However, there are conflicting findings.

Signs of Alzheimers usually appear after the age of 60. Alzheimers patients experience difficulties communicating, learning, thinking and reasoning.

Alzheimers Prevention is one of the hot topics at this moment. Scientists are studying health, lifestyle, and environmental factors that may play a role in preventing or slowing Alzheimers.

Discoverer

The disease is named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer (Aloysius). In 1906, Dr. Alzheimer noticed changes in the brain tissue of a woman who had died of an unusual mental illness. Her symptoms included memory loss, language problems, and unpredictable behavior. After she died, he examined her brain and found many abnormal clumps (now called amyloid plaques) and tangled bundles of fibers (now called neurofibrillary tangles).

Plaques and tangles in the brain are two of the main features of Alzheimer’s disease. The third is the loss of connections between nerve cells (neurons) in the brain.

Changes in the Alzheimers Brain

Although we still don’t know what starts the Alzheimers disease process, we do know that damage to the brain begins as many as 10 to 20 years before any problems are evident.

Tangles begin to develop deep in the brain, in an area called the entorhinal cortex, and plaques form in other areas. As more and more plaques and tangles form in particular brain areas, healthy neurons begin to work less efficiently. Then, they lose their ability to function and communicate with each other, and eventually they die.

This damaging process spreads to a nearby structure, called the hippocampus, which is essential in forming memories. As the death of neurons increases, affected brain regions begin to shrink.

By the final stage of Alzheimer’s, damage is widespread and brain tissue has shrunk significantly.

Alzheimers Poems and Tales

We found many Alzheimers Poems and Tales in several sources, including the internet. Here on our site we present an anthology of what we found.

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