The Alzheimers Disease - Essay Example

"The Alzheimer’s Disease" is a good example of a paper on the disorder. Jacob is a 67-year-old Canadian origin. He had to go through counseling following his psychological concerns that included his deteriorating ability to concentrate on engagements as he previously did. He was particularly concerned because he had heard about similar complaints before, both from some of his close relatives and members of the society. Both of his parents had almost similar experiences in their late seventies. His life had however been secure as he grew up in a safe suburb, having been brought up by a civil servant father and a homemaker mother who was available to take care of his psychological needs and protection from physical harm. Even though he participated in physically intensive sports such as football in his youth, Jacob could not remember any hard collision that could cause an internal head injury. A minor road accident during one sporting trip, however, occurred to him during his high school years but he could not remember sustaining an injury. His profession had similarly been physically safe and less intensive to induce psychological stress. While his social life, within his family occasionally had some tension, these were normal arguments that were easily resolved within the family.

Jacob had therefore been in a stable condition until the few preceding months with significant changes within the preceding six months. Since he had experienced the unstable condition for months, he was specific about what was happening in his life. Jacob was particular on an emergent level of emotional instability and change in personality traits. He was previously a social person who easily interacted with people in a jovial mood but had become so emotional and was easily irritated, sometimes unnecessarily, without any reason at all. As a result, he had been withdrawn to avoid conflicts with people. His personality traits, such as patience and tolerance, had also faded away in the preceding few weeks to worsen his interpersonal relationships. Jacob also admitted that his life had changed with respect to his communication and memory. His former eloquence had deteriorated and he failed to connect words in communication. This had also made him a slow speaker. His memory was affected as well as he easily forgot past encounters, such as names and listed items. The memory impairment was sometimes more significantly realized when he failed to recognize people who had previously been close to his life, such as long time friends. He also recounted instances of inability to comprehend his environment and impaired cognitive potential. This included failure to recognize places that he had formerly visited (NCBI, 2012).

Jacob had been experiencing disrupted sleep at night contrary to his previous continuous healthy sleep. Similarly, his previous two weeks had been dominated by depression that totally affected his concentration. He was, therefore, not able to read or write for a long time and easily lost his temper. As a result, he admitted that his life had changed affecting him economically and socially (NCBI, 2012).

Michael, based on the period within which he felt the changes, had perceived a number of similar problems. He identified a head injury that he suffered in his youth as one of his problems. This, he argued, was the problem with his cognitive ability, as well as his inability to read and write for a long time besides his inability to concentrate on tasks. He also argued that his old age, being over sixty years, is a factor contributing to his deteriorating abilities as it is commonly experienced among aging people. Similarly, he identified stress as a possible problem that had affected his life. He cited a number of losses, such as the death of two close relatives in the past year as a source of psychological stress in his life (NCBI, 2012).