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Alzheimer’s Disease is a brain disorder, which slowly destroys the ability to be able to reason, remember, imagine, and learn. It’s different from the forgetfulness normally seen in older people.
Things they knew before aren't familiar anymore and as time goes on memory loss gets worse.
Over the course of the disease, people with Alzheimer’s no longer recognize themselves, their loved ones, or much about the world around them. Depression, anxiety and paranoia often accompany these symptoms.
Some stages of Alzheimer's:
In the early stages of Alzheimer’s, some symptoms may be:
Increasing and persistent forgetfullness,may lose or misplace personal items,may have difficulty in finding the right word,and may have some difficulties doing simple math or forgetting how to do the things that were done everyday.
As the Alzheimer’s disease progresses to the middle stage, the person:
will have noticeable memory loss, will begin to loose the ability to do normal tasks such as cooking, dressing, bathing, and balancing checkbook, may wonder off and become agitated, confused day & night, and fail to recognize friends and relatives. This stage is very hard to comprehend when a loved one can no longer perform the duties that they have for many years. It's hard to accept the fact that this person who once was in total control of his life, can no longer function as they always have.
In the last stage of severe Alzheimer’s, the person: becomes incomprehensible, and mute becomes incontinent, and is incapable of feeding, dressing, and bathing himself at all.
What should you look for?
I can only give examples from my own experience with my father who had Alzheimer's Disease. It was very difficult to watch him go downhill at a time in his life when he was going to be able to retire and go traveling with my mother.
At first my father's co-workers mentioned to my mother that he should retire immediately because he was forgetting simple tasks in work that he had done for more than 20 years and it was getting worse everyday. So he retired. Then he would drive threw stop signs, and he also caused an accident, which was the first accident in all the many years of driving,when he made a left turn from the right lane and hit the car next to him.So now we had to take away his license and told him he couldn't drive anymore. We also had to hide the car keys because he would forget and want to take the car out. Finally, when they did get to go on a vacation to Bermuda, my father got lost in the hotel and couldn't remember the room number or floor he was on, and he started to fall down steps and lose his balance alot.
As time went on, he deteriated to a lost soul. He laughed at his own jokes that made absolutely no sense. He was very agitated when no one could understand what he was saying because the wrong words were being used. He knew what he wanted to say, but it came out with crazy talk.
This disease is harder on the family, then on the person with Alzheimer's Disease. If you are concerned about a loved one, then take them to see a psychiatrist and be analyzed.
There are medications today to help slow down the process of Alzheimer's.
You can find more information by searching for:
ALZHIEMER'S DISEASE on the web. There you can find all the information you need to help you with your loved one.
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