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Mental Health

Finding Out Early On About Alzheimers

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Alzheimers is an extremely debilitating disease. Presently, there are no known cure or treatment for this irreversible threat to a mature person’s mental and personal health. Once a person has been diagnosed with Alzheimers, the duration and course of the disease will vary from five up to twenty years.

Within the course of the disease, the sufferer will go through a whole range of deterioration from slight short term memory loss to the loss of normal bodily functions that cause complications and infections that then turns into death.

While the prospect of Alzheimers disease is truly grim, there continues to be steady breakthroughs from experts that help hope persist that eventually, prevention and cure for Alzheimers may be found. Before that though, there are lot of questions to be answered and the race to find the cure continues.

Despite this, it is important to take note of the early signs of Alzheimers, for friends loved ones and yourself. Taking note of the early signs of Alzheimers will help everyone involved prepare and understand all that is entailed in arranging for care and what to expect as the illness progresses.

It is important to be on the lookout for early signs of Alzheimers if you or someone you care for is nearing the age of 65 or if there is known cases al Alzheimers in the family.
Below are some early signs of Alzheimers to look out for.

Downscale

While memory loss is commonly mentioned as the one of the early signs of Alzheimers, it has been noted that unexplained and sudden weight loss usually occurs within individuals who suffer from Alzheimers. They have found that the weight loss happens way before any actually memory loss begins.

If you or someone you care about begins to lose weight unexpectedly, consult your doctor for probable cause and if there are no reasons found then you should have tests for Alzheimers done.

Forgetfulness

The most common early sign of Alzheimers is the loss of short term memory. More often than not, at the very early stages, this short term memory loss often goes unnoticed so it is important to pay close attention and see if it is normal memory loss or is it an early sign of Alzheimers.

While everyone will forget something once in a while, but Alzheimers sufferer never recall back what has been lost. So pay attention for peculiar incidences of short term memory loss that result in the distress, however much slight, in everyday routine.

Disability

Alzheimers will rob one of the ability to do the things that used to come second nature to them. It is as if the individual with Alzheimers can no longer remember or are familiar with tasks or actions that used to be part of their everyday routine. Watch out for this telltale sale that is quite an indicator included in the early signs of Alzheimers disease.

More Changes

Another early sign of Alzheimers is the increasing problem of communication. Often, people with Alzheimers will have a difficult time communicating because they begin to lose their ability to handle language. They begin to forget simple words and terms and their sentence construction begin to be difficult to understand.

There can also be a change in behavior or mood that is not normal for the person with Alzheimers disease. Over and above moodiness, a person with Alzheimers can switch moods or behavior without reason.

Mental Health

What Exactly is Alzheimers?

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As uncommon as the name of the disease sounds, its prevalence and incidence rates are not. In fact, almost four million people in the United States are affected by this problem. All can be affected, men or women, across all social status and economic position in life.

Alzheimers is a progressive and degenerative problem under the umbrella of diseases called dementia. It is characterized by disorientation and impaired memory. It is apparently caused by an attack in the brain, affecting ones memory, thinking skills and judgment. Most patients will experience a change in language ability, in the way they use their mental processes and of course their behavior.

While anybody can be affected by this problem, only those that are older than age 65 experience the lagging in their thinking skills. Still, there are some who gets Alzheimers even when they are just 30 years old but these cases are very rare and can only account for a small percentage of the total number of cases. One out of 10 people over the age 65 has Alzheimers and nearly half of these patients are over 85 years old. In a national survey conducted in the United States, almost 19 million Americans have one family member who suffers from this dreaded problem.

In addition to old age, family history of dementia can also predispose someone to the disease. This is because Alzheimers is said to be caused by a problem in the genetic mutations. Still, when you study the cases, Alzheimers is commonly the result of a host of other factors besides genes. In fact, environmental factors such as hobbies and mental pursuits are things that can help prevent the onset of the problem.

What is difficult with Alzheimers is the fact that its symptoms are basically the same with ordinary signs of old age. At the beginning, there will be some memory loss. The person with Alzheimers will also experience confusion and disorientation even with things that they are used to doing. The trick is to make sure that one can recognize what a normal memory loss is against something of Alzheimers caliber.

Often, there will be a gradual memory loss. They will find it hard to read or to write or to think clearly. After which they will experience a decline in the ability to perform tasks that are already automatic and routinary. Believe it or not, in cases that are already in the terminal stage, the patient may even forget how to brush their teeth or how to use a spoon and fork, something that is really pretty basic with a lot of people.

This is one example of the difference of Alzheimers from ordinary memory loss. Forgetfulness will not affect tasks that are routinary. There will also be difficulty in learning new things and in memorizing things. Some patients may even forget the language that they are speaking with while others will no longer recognize their family. Personality will change in terms of the way they communicate with other people and the way they behave.

There is actually no change in personality per se but because of the problems in their memory, they may appear aloof and suspicious perhaps because they cannot recognize the people that they know before. Some may even become extremely fearful and passive for the simple fact that they cannot remember you. As the disease worsens, the patient will then become so incapable of taking care of themselves that they will require help even in eating and in sleeping.

General Health

Exercise Can Act As A Memory Booster

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Doctors are working to determine the benefits of exercise regiments benefits in improving cognition and reducing normal memory loss so that specific exercises can be assigned to improve memory. Adding to the long list of benefits that exercise provides to overall health and giving more reasons to get off of the couch and get active. Studies are now showing that physical activity reduces stress and anxiety disorders that contribute to many cognitive malfunctioning attributes as well as providing evidence that exercise may prevent or delay dementia. This is great news for the many people who want to preserve their mental clarity as they reach older ages.

Cognitive benefits of physical exercise for children and adults is not as clear as the benefits of exercise on the aging but it is a start in the search for finding answers to the question why do people forget things. The studies indicate that exercises will ameliorate the effects of aging on the brain reducing a normal age-related decline in cognitive functioning. Cognitive functions such as planning, organization and working memory are achieved through simple measure such as increased confidence in abilities with older adults and with younger adults in the same way. So if you have been feeling forgetful or slow to process simple things, it could be that you are not getting enough exercise.

Physical activity is a catalyst to increasing and maintaining proper mental processes. Therefore it can be said that some lifestyle changes may improve cognitive functioning. Studies indicate evidence that a healthy brain diet including foods rich in omega-3 fats, antioxidants, and low glycemic carbohydrates (whole grains), daily walks, relaxation exercises and mental exercises like crossword puzzles result in brain metabolism suggesting an increase in efficiency. Reducing blood pressure, weight and cholesterol and not smoking is important for brain health in all ethnic backgrounds. Even though countless studies make these suggestions it has not been established enough to recommend specific regimens for the desired results. Increasing brain cognitive functioning can be maintained throughout a persons life by simply living life to the fullest and by continually learning new things. While depressed moods, anxiety, and other psychological illnesses can be associated with both poor emotional and cognitive health as well, exercise is the determining factor in most improved cases.

For older adults mental stimulation is important in preventing age related cognitive declining. Regular light exercises for the elderly such as brisk walks, swimming, and other full body exercises will help to maintain the mental performance, stamina, endurance allowing for better memory and all over mental functioning and less cognitive decline. Improved blood flow to the brain will undoubtedly provide amazing benefits and prevent mental deterioration by stimulating the growth of nerve cells in the region of the brain that handles memory functioning. However conclusive the studies may seem different methodologies make it extremely difficult to make any conclusive determinations in the relationship between exercise and mental fitness. It is conclusive that regular exercise is the best treatment for improvement in overall health and maintaining overall health.

So get up, stay busy, and learn something new always for good mental fitness. Many people say that they would like to get started with exercising, but they dont have any opportunities to do so. The truth is that almost anything can be made into an exercise. Exercise is something that comes as a part of daily life, not something that you have to seek out. So, start getting in shape by doing the simple things, and then maybe you can progress to more strenuous activities. It could be a good idea to employ the help of a physical trainer who knows the human body very well and can help you to do what needs to be done. With the mental and physical benefits, there is no reason why you should not do so. Get started today.