Alzheimer's disease is one of various types of dementing diseases. Difficulty in remembering, and forgetting routine everyday matters, is usually the first sign to the patient's family that there is a pathological disturbance in brain function. As a result of memory loss, disorientation in places, particularly unfamiliar ones, gradually develops. Later, even places that the person visits often, such as his children's homes or even his own home, become strange to him. The sense of time becomes confused as does memory of the chronological order of past events. Recent memory is much more affected than distant memory, and only in later stages of the illness does distant memory suffer. Perhaps because of the difficulty with recent memory, past experiences and memories become more meaningful in everyday life, and the patient seems to live more in the past than in the present.
A common reaction by the patient to his memory loss is to blame others for misplacing, or stealing his things. Sometimes this paranoid reaction extends to actual delusional thinking, with thoughts of persecution and hallucinations - a form of psychosis associated with Alzheimer's disease. These phenomenon cause much distress to the family, and often to the patient, who may become frightened, confused or agitated.
Thinking and concentration are also impaired, so that interest wanes in subjects that occupied the patient previously, and skills of once familiar procedures such as cooking, housework, drawing, sewing, and former hobbies are lost. This loss of skills may extend to ordinary activities of daily living, such as dressing, which the patient appears to "forget". However this in fact represents a loss of ability to perform coordinated activities (apraxia). Slow thinking combined with memory deficits leads to impaired judgement. Specific deficits of calculation, vocabulary, speech and verbal communication, understanding words, orientation in directions - all or some of these problems may arise in the course of the cognitive decline over the years of the disease's progress.
Perception of situations, such as seeing photgraphs or hearing conversations, becomes disturbed, such that it seems as if the patient does not see to read , or does not hear what is said, when the real problem is the inability to grasp the significance of the subject at hand.This lack of perception also extends to recognition of people and faces, and in late stages of the disease, even close relatives may not be recognizedor acknowledged. Sometimes there is also a true loss of the ability to read or write as well as the difficulty in comprehending speech.
Not all these problems happen at once, nor do they occur in every person with Alzheimer's disease. People vary in the rate of the decline, which often continues gradually for years.
The situation described seems very difficult but there are many things to do to improve the quality of life of the person with Alzheimer's disease and their family. Melabev provides services such as day-care centers and memory clubs, home care and support groups for caregivers.
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