World Alzheimer's Day 2021

Most people with dementia suffer from Alzheimer's disease. Memory loss and decreased ability to think are common symptoms of this disease. Brain tissue is destroyed, causing memory loss, memory changes, erratic behaviour, and bodily functions to be compromised. In most cases, this disease begins gradually but becomes increasingly serious as it progresses. Alzheimer is characterized by difficulty remembering recent events as one of its earliest symptoms. As the patient's Alzheimer's progresses, he or she loses memory. When this happens, the name of an old friend, the address, even the name of the road can be forgotten.

Hence, a special day has been set aside to raise awareness about this disease, dubbed 'World Alzheimer's Day. Numerous countries around the world participate in this global tribute by organizing seminars, lectures, and other means to spread awareness about Alzheimer's and Dementia. There are several risk factors that lead to degenerative diseases such as dementia, and as World Alzheimer's Day is approaching which is September 21, here are a few of them. 

According to the Alzheimer's Association, there are around 29.8 million AD sufferers worldwide with an additional 50 million with dementia of all kinds by 2020. Up to 10% of all cases occur in people between the ages of 30 and mid-60 due to early-onset. The likelihood of a woman getting sick is greater than that of a man. Approximately 6 per cent of people over 65 years of age suffer from it. The total number of deaths caused by all types of dementia in 2015 was 1.9 million. In 1906, Alois Alzheimer described the disease for the first time to a German psychiatrist and pathologist.

Alzheimer Can be Caused due to Air pollution:

A study conducted in 2013 by the University of South California, US, indicated that women in their seventies and eighties exposed to higher levels of air pollution displayed greater declines in memory and more Alzheimer's-like brain atrophy than those in less polluted environments. In order to keep yourself suffering from pollution, it is necessary to keep your surroundings clean.

Alzheimer Can be Caused due to Anxiety

Anxiety may increase the rate at which some mild cognitive impairments (MCIs) develop into Alzheimer's. Mild cognitive impairment has often been associated with anxiety in patients, while it is not well documented how it contributes to the progression of the disease. Researchers at the University of South Carolina in the US found that this was the case.

Alzheimer Can be Caused due to Sedentary lifestyle

Physical, as well as emotional health, can be adversely affected by a sedentary lifestyle that lacks regular exercise or movement. Regular aerobic exercise can increase cognitive function and may provide some protection from Alzheimer's disease, according to researchers from the University of Wisconsin in the US.

Alzheimer Can be Caused due to Mid-life loneliness 

An existing study suggests that feeling lonely persistently in midlife may increase the risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's Disease (AD) later in life. People who recover from loneliness appear to have a lower risk of developing dementia, according to researchers in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia. 

Alzheimer Can be Caused due to Excessive drinking

IANS reported a study that showed if you have more than 14 drinks a week (2 drinks per day) and already suffer from mild cognitive impairment, you may become more likely to develop dementia or Alzheimer's than someone who drinks moderately.

Symptoms for Alzheimer:

Cognitive and functional impairment are generally described as progressing in Alzheimer's disease over three stages. Described as early or mild, middle or moderate, and late or severe, these three stages are divided into three categories. Symptoms of memory impairment are due to the disease attacking the hippocampus. The hippocampus is associated with memory, which is why Alzheimer's is known to attack the hippocampus first. During the course of the disease, memory loss becomes more severe.

Symptom First: Stress and ageing are often wrongly attributed as the first symptoms. Clinical criteria for Alzheimer's disease can be met up to eight years before a person reaches mild cognitive difficulties that suggest Alzheimer's disease. Short term memory loss is the most apparent deficit, which manifests itself in a lack of ability to remember newly acquired facts and difficulty acquiring new information. It is also possible that the early stages of Alzheimer's disease can be detected by subtle impairments of executive functions such as attentiveness, planning, flexibility, and abstract memory. Mild cognitive impairment is also referred to as the preclinical stage of the disease. The transition between normal ageing and dementia is commonly seen in this stage.

Initial Stage of Alzheimer: As learning and memory begins to decline in individuals with Alzheimer's, a diagnosis is ultimately made. All memory capacities are not affected equally by Alzheimer's disease. Many people with Alzheimer's disease can continue doing many tasks on their own as the disease progresses, but they may require supervision or assistance with activities that require highly developed cognitive skills.

Middle Stage of Alzheimer: As a result of progressive deterioration, subjects eventually become incapable of performing the most common daily activities. Having difficulty recalling vocabulary, leading to mistaken word substitution, is the underlying cause of speech difficulties. People suffering from this phase often become unrecognisable to close family members because of memory problems. It becomes difficult to retain long-term memory in the absence of short-term memory. In some cases, sundowning will occur. Around 30% of Alzheimer's patients report illusionary misidentification and other dysfunctional symptoms. The patients lose an understanding of how the disease occurs and how they are limited.

Late Stage of Alzheimer: The patient is completely dependent on caregivers during the final stage of the disease, which is called late-stage or severe. As a consequence, the ability to speak is reduced to simple phrases or even single words, eventually causing, and even leading to, total communication loss. The ability to understand and convey emotions is often retained despite the loss of verbal language. Apathy and extreme exhaustion are far more common symptoms rather than aggression, which is rare in this condition. A person who suffers from Alzheimer's disease eventually cannot perform even basic tasks on his or her own; with the disease, their muscle mass and mobility rapidly deteriorate to the point where they are bedridden and are unable to feed themselves. When a patient dies from a disease, external factors such as infection of pressure ulcers or pneumonia usually led to their death.

What Causes of Alzheimer: 

The cause of Alzheimer's disease is thought to be the abnormal accumulation of beta-amyloid protein, which forms extracellular plaques, and tau proteins which form intracellular tangles in the brain. This leads to impaired neurological function, resulting in progressive dementia. One to two per cent of Alzheimer's cases have been linked to genetic differences, but that number is still not large enough to establish a cause.

Alzheimer Can be Caused due to Genetics: 

There is only a 1–2 per cent chance of inheriting Alzheimer's. The types of familial Alzheimer's disease that affect an early age and progress rapidly are called early-onset familial Alzheimer's disease. Amyloid-beta 42 is a small protein that is an integral part of amyloid plaques, which is primarily produced by mutations in the APP and presenilin genes. A second gene associated with Alzheimer's is ABCA7, which is also associated with SORL1.

It is thought that environmental and genetic differences could act as risk factors in Alzheimer's disease, which is sporadic and not transmitted from father to son. Alzheimer's disease in the elderly is sporadic and usually occurs after the age of 65. In contrast to familial Alzheimer's, it usually occurs after reaching the age of 65 years. It is estimated that sporadic Alzheimer's accounts for less than 5% of early Alzheimer's cases. Genetic risk factors contribute to Alzheimer's disease most significantly. One of the most significant is APOE4 gene mutation.

Apolipoprotein E has four alleles, APOE4 being one of them. Homozygotes and heterozygotes who carry the APOE4 allele have a three-fold and 15-fold increase in disease risk, respectively. A low yield was found from screening 400 candidate genes for sporadic late-onset Alzheimer's disease at the beginning of the search. There are 19 areas of genes associated with risk in new genome-wide association studies. Three to five times higher Alzheimer's disease risk has been found when TREM2 gene variants are present.

Alzheimer Can be Caused due to Osaka Mutation: 

A mutation of codon 693 of APP was associated with familial Alzheimer's disease in a Japanese pedigree. Known as the Osaka mutation, this mutation was specifically linked to Alzheimer's disease and was first reported in 2008. Homozygous carriers of this mutation are the only ones who develop Alzheimer's. In contrast to the fibrils that aggregate into diseased amyloid plaques, the A* oligomerization is accelerated by this mutation, suggesting that the protein itself, in this case, is not responsible for the disease; rather, the oligomerization may be a cause. Alzheimer's disease pathologies are present in mice expressing this mutation.

Cholinergic hypothesis For Alzheimer:

Acetylcholine deficiency medication has not been very effective in treating a cholinergic deficiency, which has largely contributed to losing support for the cholinergic hypothesis.

Amyloid hypothesis For Alzheimer:

Amyloid deposit deposits located outside of cells were proposed as the root cause of Alzheimer's disease in 1991. In addition to the discovery that people with trisomy 21 who have an extra copy of the amyloid precursor protein manifest earliest symptoms by age 40, the location on chromosome 21 of the gene for this protein also supports this idea. There is also a genetic link between Alzheimer's disease and APOE4, a specific form of apolipoprotein.

Tau Hypothesis For Alzheimer:

Tau hypothesis proposes that abnormal tau proteins initiate the cascade of diseases. The neurofibrillary tangles that form within nerve cell bodies are known as neurofibrillary tangles. A malfunction in the biochemical communication between neurons may lead to a reduction in cell viability.

Inflammatory hypothesis For Alzheimer:

Parkinson's disease and ALS are also characterized by sustained inflammation. Alzheimer's disease is associated with inflammation due to sleep disturbances. Alzheimer's disease is often viewed as a consequence of sleep problems, but studies suggest that they might actually be the cause of sleep problems. Persistent inflammation is thought to contribute to sleep disturbances.

Diagnosis For Alzheimer:

Diagnoses of Alzheimer's disease are usually based on a patient's medical history, family history, and observations of behaviour. Imaging techniques such as computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging, as well as single-photon imaging and positron emission tomography, can be used for excluding other forms of dementia or cerebrum pathology. It may also be able to predict conversion to Alzheimer's from prodromal stages. The state of the disease can be further characterised by an assessment of intellectual function including memory testing.

Prevention For Alzheimer:

Evidence does not support the effectiveness of any preventive measure for Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease has been the subject of a number of global studies that have produced inconsistent results. Some epidemiology studies have identified potentially modifiable risk factors for Alzheimer's disease, such as diet, cardiovascular risk, pharmaceutical products, or intellectual activities, among others. Researchers still need to explore these factors in clinical trials in order to determine whether they can help prevent Alzheimer's disease.

Medication For Alzheimer:

Hypercholesterolemia, high blood pressure, diabetes, and smoking are cardiovascular risk factors that increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease. It is possible to reduce the risk with blood pressure medications. The use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for a long period of time was thought to lower the possibility of Alzheimer's disease in 2007. However, they have been suggested as a presymptomatic preventive strategy in 2011 since they have no apparent clinical benefit as a treatment.

LifeStyle to Avoid the Alzheimer:

Various studies have shown the relationship between higher educational attainment, occupational attainment, and leisure participation, and a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer's, or delaying the onset of symptoms. The onset of Alzheimer's disease is delayed by education, but the disease does not necessarily get worse. The likelihood of developing dementia is decreased with physical activity.