What to do When Diagnosed with Alzheimer's

When a loved one, family member, neighbor or friend has Alzheimer's disease, there are health care team members who can help families and friends cope with the signs and symptoms of this disease and to start treatment. Here are some of the health care professionals that can help:

• Primary care physician
• Geriatrician—a doctor who specializes in treating the elderly
• Neurologist—a doctor trained to treat diseases of the brain
• Psychiatrist—a doctor who specializes in treating behavioral problems
 
To locate a doctor near you, visit the American Medical Association’s (AMA) website. If you do not have or use a computer you can use the phone to contact directory assistance (dial 411) to locate the AMA’s phone number in your state. There is no cure for Alzheimer's disease. Treatment for Alzheimer's Disease focuses on maintaining quality of life for the person with the disease. Some medications can help improve memory and others can slow the progression of
the disease. Not all treatments will work for everyone. The use of medication is a decision that you and your medical team must decide.

Prevention of Alzheimer's

Since we cannot prevent aging, it is unlikely that we can prevent Alzheimer’s disease. However, to date research has identified some actions that we can take to help reduce our risk for the disease. We know that adults with damaged blood vessels in their brain are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Blood vessel damage in the brain is more likely to occur in people with high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes. These diseases can be managed through medication, healthy diet and exercise. The more “under control” that these diseases are, the less damage or hardening of the blood vessels.

Seven Warning Signs of Alzheimers

1. Asking the same question over and over again,
2. Repeating the same story, word for word, again and again,
3. Forgetting how to cook, or how to do repairs, or how to play cards— all activities that were previously done with ease and regularity;
4. Losing one’s ability to pay bills or balance one’s checkbook;
5. Getting lost in familiar surroundings, or misplacing household objects;
6. Neglecting to bathe, or wearing the same clothes over and over again while insisting they have taken a bath or that their clothes are sill clean
7. Relying on someone else, such as a spouse, to make decisions or answer questions they previously would have handled themselves without hesitation;
 
When these symptoms are noticed and reported to the doctor, the patient is in a position to obtain treatment that may improve their quality of life. Early treatment in some cases has been shown also to slow the progression of this disease, and importantly, gives time to discuss care options while the diagnosed individual can still take part in decision-making for future treatment and care.

How is Alzheimer’s Recognized?

Family members are often the first to notice changes that could indicate the onset of Alzheimer’s. Family and friends should learn the early warning signs of the disease and be an advocate for the individual who they are concerned about to have an evaluation earlier rather than later, and to seek treatment.

Typical Early Symptoms of Alzheimer’s
• aphasia—or difficulty speaking,
• disorientation---or difficulty remembering place and time, and/or
• disinhibition—difficulty with self-management of behavior such as outbursts of violence without previous history of such.

Developing Alzheimer's Disease

This disease is not transmitted from one person to another, you cannot “catch” Alzheimer’s from someone who has it. You also cannot get it from the food you eat. Scientists are rather looking at a number of complicated causes related to “errors” that occur in our body’s proteins and genetic mutations that cause the disease to consistently appear generation after generation in some families. However, at this point in time we only have a number of theories as to the cause of the disease that may later lead to a definitive reason why people get the disease and when they get it, and hopefully a cure.

History of Alzheimer's

The first Alzheimer’s case was diagnosed more than 100 years ago. Dr. Alois Alzheimer, a German psychiatrist, identified what was to become the first case of Alzheimer’s Disease in a 50 year old woman in 1901. He was able to observe the woman until her death five year’s after her diagnosis. Upon examining the woman’s brain, Dr. Alzheimer identified brain tissue with abnormal clumps and irregular knots of brain cells. Today, these clumps (now called plaques) and knots (now called tangles) are considered the classic hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease.

From that time forward, the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease was given to people between the ages of 45 and 65 who had the symptoms of pre-senile dementia. Unfortunately, dementia was considered to be a normal outcome of the aging process for those over age 65 and was thought to be caused by age-related “hardening” of brain arteries. In the 1970s and early 1980s the name Alzheimer’s disease began to be used for all people who were afflicted with dementia
regardless of their age.

Familial Alzheimer's Disease (FAD)

This type of Alzheimer's disease is known to be entirely inherited. In affected families, members of at least two generations have had Alzheimer's disease. FAD is extremely rare, accounting for less than 1% of all cases of Alzheimer's. The disease typically has a much earlier age of onset (often in the 40s).