Informative Speech On Alzheimer's Disease

Topic: Dementia Written By: Roxanne Lim, Panchami Chandukudlu, Aditi, Jenny Sui Yuan Abstract: 1. Brief Outline Dementia, commonly referred to as senility, constitutes a vast branch of neurodegenerative disorders that affect the cognitive well being of an individual’s ability to think, remember and act. More commonly addressed in its chronic form, dementia is associated with a range of diseases such as Alzheimer's Disease, the most common form of dementia (making up to 70% of cases), Parkinson’s Disease, vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and frontotemporal dementia. 2. Causes There are four reversible causes of dementia- hypothyroidism, vitamin B12 deficiency, Lyme disease, and neurosyphilis.

Cerebral Palsy is caused by brain injuries or brain malformation that occurs before during or after birth that affects the brain's development. There are many ways to prevent Cerebral Palsy according to which category it falls into. There are three categories, congenital, acquired and genetic predisposition. Congenital cases are the result of brain damage before the child is born and often happens because of birth complications. It can be acquired in multiple ways such as having a stroke or being in a car accident and it may also be the effect of shaken-baby-syndrome, it can also happen because of an infection or condition that slows down the blood flow to the brain.

Finally, the vegetative state can be a as a result of progressive brain damage. This is a situation where the brain gets damaged gradually as a result of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease or a brain tumour and eventually leads to the individual going into a vegetative state (Gosseries et al, 2011). Categories of the Vegetative stage There are two categories of the vegetative state depending on the length that the patient has been in the state. The two categories are the following: i. Continuing/ persistent vegetative

Dementia is an umbrella term for a condition which causes damage to the brain cells and issues with the brain function. There are many different types of dementia such as Lewy Body dementia which causes hallucinations,

According to a site that specializes in providing information about dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, states that “Dementia is a general term for loss of memory and other mental abilities severe enough to interfere with daily life. It is caused by physical changes in the brain.” (Alzheimer’s Association) Whereas Alzheimer’s is a “Type of dementia that causes problems with memory, thinking and behavior.” (Alzheimer’s Association) Generally speaking, one could imagine

Mainly, language problem, persons memory, other intellectual disabilities, impaired judgment, memory loss are the signs of vascular disease. Except this incontinence, weakness, paralysis, mask-face facial expression, non-cognitive hallmarks may appear. Vascular dementia (all forms of stroke e.g., ischemic and hemorrhagic forms) is also a type of dementia. Alzheimer society UK,

Literature Review: According to the study conducted by Glickstein (1997), Alois Alzheimer was the person who identified the Alzheimer disease for the first time in 1906. Alois Alzheimer was a doctor and he identifies the Alzheimer disease in his patient (Auguste. D.) who was showing symptoms of paranoia, psychological changes and loss of memory. During the autopsy of the patient, Dr. Alois Alzheimer observed the shrinkage in brain cells and around the brain cells. In earlier days after the discovery of the Alzheimer disease, no treatment was given to Alzheimer’s patients because loss of memory or Alzheimer disease was considered as a natural process which happens with every individual.

It shows symptoms of loss of motor control, pain and paraesthesia. When there is an inflammation in the white matter or gray matter region of the spinal cord or connecting with brain results myelitis. In myelitis, paralysis and sensory loss can occur due to the damage caused in myelination of the axon. Anterior spinal artery syndrome is a condition that arouse when the blood carrying artery is interrupted. It is common syndrome with symptoms of loss of sensory and motor sensation due to injury.

According to Groome (1999), the causes of amnesia can be of two types which are the physical cause (organic amnesia) and psychological cause (psychogenic amnesia). Organic Amnesia occurs when there are physical damages or injuries to the brain. Some examples of organic amnesia includes Alzheimer disease, Korsakoff’s syndrome (Korsakoff’s amnesia), Herpes Simplex Encephalitis (HSE), temporal lobe surgery, Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and other injuries affecting the brain such as stroke, Huntington disease and Parkinson’s disease (Groome, 1999). Whereas Psychogenic Amnesia is related to psychological aspects such as one’s forgetting of self-identity following from a trauma or tragic experiences. The triggers for physical cause of amnesia includes: • Stroke • Encephalitis • Coeliac disease • Oxygen deprivation like carbon monoxide poisoning • Some medications like sleeping pills • Brain tumor • Seizures Where the triggers for psychological cause of amnesia includes: • Victim of a violent crime • Victim of child abuse • Sexual abuse • Being involved in a natural disaster • Being present during a terrorist attack On the other hand, based on findings of Banich and Cohen (2003), they argue that the causes of amnesia are divided into two major types which is the injury to the

In addition, many psychiatric and neurological diseases cause impairments in the process of memory(4–6). Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a clinical state between normal aging and dementia, and in many cases occur before dementia

There are different types of dementia and are described as follows: Fig 1.2 (a) different types of dementia with their percentages There are different types of dementia are Alzheimer’s, vascular, mixed, dementia with lewy’s body and frontotemporal dementia etc. and there are other types of dementia too such as AIDS dementia, Parkinson’s dementia etc. The Alzheimer’s is most common form of dementia. Let us describe the each of them in detail:  Alzheimer’s dementia: Fig 1.2(b) area of brain affected and cross-section that is seen from the front in Alzheimer’s dementia. These type of dementia occurs about; this occurs due to the short-term memory loss.

Qualitatively, this disease can be seen with senile plaques on the brain, and neurofibrillary tangles that affect physical changes to the brain. Since there are so many branches of dementia, it can be hard to determine which type of dementia a patient is experiencing, needing to be looked at more closely. Some warning signs of this disease include getting lost, paying for bills and trouble managing money, retelling the same stories, repeatedly asking the same questions, and losing/ misplacing items, but not being able to recall how to find them (532). Though not all people progress through this disease at the same pace and times in their lives, these are just some of the few symptoms and abnormalities that those who have Alzheimer’s can display as opposed to someone their age with a normal functioning brain and having no dementia. Quantitatively, research has shown that Alzheimer’s disease accounts for 50-70% of all neurocognitive disorders (531).

People that suffer from head trauma like Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) have long term consequences but how does this affect their life and what are people suggesting to do about it? ALS and CTE are two forms of diseases to the brain that causes severe symptoms such as muscle weakness, memory loss, shortness of breath, and confusion. ALS is a rare disease with fewer than 20,000 cases per year found in the U.S. This type of disease affects nerve cells in the brain and in the spinal cord. CTE is some what similar to ALS but this other disease is commonly found in athletes with a history of repetitive brain trauma.