Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia, disorders of cognition. Alzheimer’s disease typically effects elderly individuals, though less commonly, inherited types of the disease can present before age 65. Alzheimer’s disease affects different domains of cognition including short-term memory initially and then later long-term memory, judgment, analysis, and language deficits.
According to CDC in 2020, as many as 5.8 million Americans were living with Alzheimer’s disease. This number is projected to nearly triple to 14 million people by 2060
Over 45 million are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s worldwide. The number of people living with the disease doubles every 5 years beyond age 65.
Vega Tek Hub has provided this 2D animation video that presented on the attached YouTube link. You will see the symptoms of Alzheimer’s and how lifestyle can help patients live better.
symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are progressive and can differ at different stages. Some of these symptoms can include:
- Having trouble with memory (repeating questions, getting lost in familiar places)
- Having difficulty with completing tasks at home or at work such as forgetting to pay the bills, buy groceries, washing the dishes or cooking.
- Misplacing things and being unable to find them
- Unable to safely care for self (forgetting to take medications, forgetting to bathe)
- Mood and psychiatric changes such as feeling down or depressed and losing appetite.
Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease-causing atrophy or shrinkage of certain areas of the brain, including parts associated with memory formation. Changes in the brain start years before the symptoms appear. Age is the best-known risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. Some of the cases of Alzheimer’s disease are familial but most of them happen without any family links.
The disease is associated with decrease in neurotransmitter acetylcholine in some areas of brain. It is also associated with formation and deposition of pathological molecules and proteins in the brain, including amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles.
A healthy lifestyle may help reduce your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Those measures include regular physical exercise, mental exercise/activity, a nutritious diet, limited alcohol consumption, and not smoking. Also controlling high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol may reduce risk for cognitive decline.
This explanatory animation by VTH, helps us to enhance our knowledge and understanding of symptoms and might assist us in detecting this disease in its early stages.
Despite major advances of science in understating Alzheimer’s disease in recent years, we still don’t have a cure for this disease. However, it is important to know that there are many medical and therapeutic treatment options that can help individuals with Alzheimer’s and their families to live a better life. The offered treatment includes helping patients to maintain brain health, managing mood and behavioral symptoms, and in some cases delaying the symptoms of the disease. If you or your loved one experience symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, contact your primary care doctor or neurologist to discuss your symptoms. And remember, you will not be alone in this path.
Vega Tek Hub’s animation department helps to deliver medical content to the public by creating fantastic 3D and 2D animations and real videos.
