Caring for an elderly person with Alzheimer's disease - Essay Example

Last year, my grandmother of eighty-seven years of age finally succumbed to disease. I can explain with certainty that it was a long and painful demise. People that develop Alzheimer’s disease change. First thing to go is the memory. Many people have regular memory issues, but when they repeat themselves constantly, occasionally are violently angry, and are taken over by dementia, caring for them becomes extremely difficult. Alzheimer’s is an unfortunate and incurable disease that affects a great deal of people.

Family members, caretakers, and nursing homes are frequently burdened with patients with this terrible disease. These are some of the many reasons why I have chosen caring for those with Alzheimer’s as my topic for the final paper.  Slowly but surely, ‘Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients lose their memory and their cognitive abilities, and even their personalities may change dramatically. These changes are due to the progressive dysfunction and death of nerve cells that are responsible for the storage and processing of information.

Although drugs can temporarily improve memory, at present there are no treatments that can stop or reverse the inexorable neurodegenerative process. But rapid progress towards understanding the cellular and molecular alterations that are responsible for the neuron’s demise may soon help in developing effective preventative and therapeutic strategies’ (Mattson 2004). . To avoid Alzheimer’s, Mattson suggests mental as well as physical exercise, a low calorie low saturated fat diet, and specifically targeted drugs.

Although not required to understand the article, I believe it helped me to have a brief neuromotor background from my exercise science classes. This is a well cited and well written article, but definitely on the level of neuroscience. Mattson suggested ways to avoid Alzheimer’s, but lacks findings and I would recommend long term follow up studies.  ‘Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that currently affects nearly 2% of the population in industrialized countries; the risk of AD dramatically increases in individuals beyond the age of 70 and it is predicted that the incidence of AD will increase threefold within the next 50 years’ (alz.org). Alzheimer's is a brain disease that causes problems with memory, thinking and behavior.

Symptoms usually develop slowly and get worse over time, becoming severe enough to interfere with daily tasks. “It’s overwhelming, worse every day,” Mrs. Dillon said in Jane Gross’ article ‘Alzheimer’s in the living room: how one family rallies to cope’, “I don’t have any life. Whatever happened to the golden years? Both of us have been robbed of everything we worked for.” The Dillons' ordeal is familiar to families of the 4.5 million American men and women with Alzheimer's disease, which progressively destroys the cerebral cortex and thus the ability to think, communicate and comprehend.

The number of afflicted will more than triple to 14 million by midcentury, according to health care experts and demographers. For their caregivers, life is a