The Multi-faceted Effects of Alzheimer's Disease - Research Paper Example

Alzheimer’s disease is named after a German doctor named Alois Alzheimer who wrote about it in a medical report in 1907. It is among the most common form of dementia that affects the brain in a degenerating manner leaving the patient with poor memory and other mental impairments. According to a guide by Harvard Health Publication (2009), Alzheimer disease is caused by continuous loss of neutrons and their connection to other neutrons that are essential to the memory and other cerebral functions. The progression of the disease is irreversible and most people get their first syndrome at around the age of 60. Alzheimer disease causes an effect that leaves the patient unable to undertake even the slightest duty that they had been able to do foe themselves. The physical and chemical changes in the brain create a difference in the way a person behaves and ultimately alters the personality of the patient. This makes the patient feel helpless and as the disease progresses the feeling escalates to one of uselessness for the patient and eventually leads to death (Alz.org, 2011). Although doctors have not discovered the cure for the brain disorder, through medical advancements they administer drugs that slow the effects of the disease. However, the drugs work best if the disease has been diagnosed while in its early stages (Brills, 2005). Alzheimer disease has differently affected patients and has caused many alterations in the way their family members interact with them. Many people make adjustments as they learn more about the disease and become skilled at how best to accommodate the patients. Other than affecting personal social relations in the family, Alzheimer’s disease has tremendous implications on the financial aspect as well as the community in which the patient lives in. It’s Impact on the Aging Individual during the Various Stages of the Illness The impact of Alzheimer’s disease on the aging individual is often characterized by loss of memory at which the individual forgets some of the most important things in his/her life and in that of the people around them. This gradually progresses to a malfunction in the way the person reasons and even affects the patients’ judgments on matters that had been their forte. Their lives are also marked with periods of confusion as the disorder continues to worsen in the later stages. In this stage, they become disoriented as their memory fails and this even affects their lingual ability and they experience difficulty in expressing themselves. According to Beyen (2010), this is the second stage where the patient is still aware and thus recognizes the changes taking place in their lives and this loss of their mental faculty brings depression upon them. These bouts of depression account for other effects of Alzheimer’s disease such as sleeplessness and shabbiness that is witness by the family. In the final; stage of the disorder the patient require permanent care and becomes easily susceptible to diseases. It is during this stage that many patients affected by t Alzheimer’s disease finally succumb to death (Kuller, 2011). The Symptoms and Progression of the Disease One of the most evident signs for Alzheimer disease is the degree of the loss of memory. Although there are changes that the human memory goes through with age, the changes experienced by Alzheimer patients outweigh the normal changes. (Gogia and Rastogi, 2008). The memory lapses of the Alzheimer disease are not the usual simple memory lapses caused by the normal aging process. This symptom of memory loss often goes unmentioned by family members as they consider this as the natural part of aging. Alzheimer’s disease often brews underneath in the body because it first affects the brain causing symptoms that seem ‘normal’ before they erupt to become patterns in behavior and personality that require professional help. This is mainly because the brain disorder undergoes degenerative changes about seven to ten years before the symptoms can be experienced by the patient as a full blown Alzheimer’s disease (Smith et al, 2007). After the patients starts showing these symptoms that are well beyond the normal aging symptom, their brains begin to allow them, subconsciously, to let go of activities they once enjoyed and even designate simple tasks such as paying for grocery to their spouses. They retreat from activities that demand too much energy and those that require one to rely on memory. This is done to disguise the fact that they are unable to undertake the same activities, which they had been good at and it is usually a subconscious action by the brain. The progression of the disease is often divided into three stages; the mild stage is the earliest stage, the moderate stage, which is the second one, and the severe stage that is the third and final stage of the brain disorder. During the early stages, the symptoms are very slight and in most occasions, the family members and the relatives overlook them as part of growing old. This stage is characterized by mood swings and opposition to activities that become challenging to them. The patient starts to take more time when dealing with events or processing information and can even get lost in familiar territory. This symptom gradually becomes worse over time as the second stage is diagnosed through the severity of the symptoms portrayed by the patient. During this stage, the patient can forget to turn off the cooking stove and may fail to identify recognizable objects while speech ability becomes impaired. In the third stage, the severity of the symptoms increases and the older symptoms get worse and the new ones emerge as Alzheimer’s disease take over the brain. During this period, the patients feel ashamed of their dependent nature and adapt antisocial behaviors such as depression, which require medical intervention to deal with. The severity of the symptoms often makes the patients prone to secondary infections such as pneumonia, which causes the death of patients ailing from Alzheimer disease (Gogia and Rastogi, 2008). The Effect on the Person’s Socialization/Relationships and Impact on the Family and the Caregiver Alzheimer’s disease affects patients differently and this creates a shift in the dynamics of relationships depending on the closeness of the people have with the patient. Patients require care and love from their families and friends but sometimes fail to receive it because they do not understand the scope of Alzheimer diseases. This may be caused by the severity of the symptoms, which may make this person unbearable and some actions such getting lost in familiar neighborhoods may be seen as being pretentious by someone who does not understand the extent of the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. This assumption and ignorance creates tension between the patient’s friends and families and cause resentment to simmer, as they may feel overburdened by the responsibility of taking extra care of the patient. Other than the extra care needed for patients in stage three of the disorder, the family and friends of the patient may lose the companionship of the patient as Alzheimer’s disease progresses and he/she forgets about people or the relationship they share. This may frustrate the caregiver especially if they are part of the family. In spousal relationships, one member may be overwhelmed by the duties that they have to undertake after their spouse becomes diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. This introduces strains on the relationship as the spouse of the patient tries to understand what the patient is going through. The strains are caused by feeling of guilt stress anger or even grief at losing the companionship you might have shared with your spouse before the onset of the disease. The transitional phase before full comprehension turns out to be a challenge for the spouse of a patient with Alzheimer (Brill, 2005). Impact on Communities to Supply Supportive Services and Facilities The impact that Alzheimer disease has on communities has prodded the people to supply services and facilities to embrace and help the patients suffering from the disease so that they can enjoy a better quality of life. Through facilities such as homes for the elderly have served this purpose for the elderly are given activities that do not require them to rely too much on their mental ability and this way they engage in activities that are fun for them and thus do not experience feelings such as such over their diminished mental ability (MacRae, 2010). Through the provisions of facilities, the patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease are able to receive home care and thus enjoy staying in the familiar territory of their homes with their families. It is imperative to maintain the environment of a patient suffering from Alzheimer as ‘normal’ as possible to ensure that the patients comfort comes first. Most close-knit communities provide the services and facilities needed because they feel a collective responsibility of the patients as they have been around them most of their lives. This provides a collective care that helps the community understand that patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease can be taken care of with little effort (Hayes, Zimmerman and Boylstein, 2010). Financial Impact on Federal Funding Sources like Medicare and Medicaid The financial impact on federal funding sources like Medicare and Medicaid depends highly on how much the government sets aside for further research to find out more about the brain disorder. However, patients above the age of 65 are eligible to these services such as the Medicaid as well as those people who are close to the federal poverty level. However as stated earlier, Alzheimer‘s disease often affects elderly people around the age of sixty years. According to congressional record (2002), the budget allocation for Alzheimer disease to Medicare and Medicaid had gone up tremendously with progressive reports on four drugs that had been improved majorly within the period of twenty years. The records further show that there has been accumulating information on Alzheimer disease and a further promise of a vaccine by the medical faculty. During the congress session there was a pressure on the government to increase the funds for national institutes of health to continue the momentum that was ongoing in the research on Alzheimer disease (Snyder, Jenkins and Joosten, 2007). Although there has been federal funding, the toll of taking care of a patient suffering from Alzheimer’s disease continues to weigh on the families of the patients. This is because they require medical help for physical and psychological impairments related to Alzheimer’s disease. This is expensive and reflects on the lifestyle that the family has to adapt to in order to factor in the extra expenses caused by the disease (Perry, 2006). Although Alzheimer‘s disease has no cure, with early diagnosis one Can be able to live a more fulfilling life having the right kind of support from family members and services provided by communities References Alz.org. (2011). What Is Alzheimer's? Alzheimer's Association. Retrieved on November 30, 2011 from: Arkin, S. (2007). Language-enriched Exercise plus Socialization Slows Cognitive Decline in Alzheimer’s disease. American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Demetian, 2007. Vol. 22. Beyen, J. (2010). The Effects of Alzheimer's disease on Language. Norderstedt. GRIN Verlag Brill M. (2005). Alzheimer's disease. Health Alert. New York: Marshall Cavendish Publishers. Gogia, P and Rastogi, N. (2008). Clinical Alzheimer Rehabilitation. New York: Springer Publishing Company, Harvard Health Publications. (2009). A Guide to Alzheimer’s Disease. Boston: Harvard Medical School. Hayes, J., Zimmerman, M and Boylstein, C. (2010). Responding to Symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: Husbands, Wives, and the Gendered Dynamics of Recognition and Disclosure. Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 20(8). MacRae, H. (2010). Managing Identity While Living with Alzheimer’s disease. Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 20(3). Kuller, L. (2011). Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease: A new direction. The 2010 Jay L. Foster Memorial Lecture Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association Vol. 7(5), Pages 540-550, Perry , G. (2006). Alzheimer's disease: a century of scientific and clinical research. Amsterdam IOS Press, Snyder, L., Jenkins, C., Joosten, L. (2007). Effectiveness of Support Groups for People With Mild to Moderate Alzheimer’s Disease: An Evaluative Survey American Journal of Alzheimers Disease And Other Dementia VOL. 22 Top of Form Read More