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Alzheimer Disease
The topic I am searching for is about Alzheimer’s infection. This topic of interest to me because society has lost many people due to this fatal disease. I have heard and seen people die of this disease due to their inability to afford the costs of treatment and cases of diagnosis as most people realize they have the disease when it’s too late and by this late stages and treatment becomes very difficult (Tai et al, p 465-488). This is quite a terrible disease and the bad news is that the cases of people dying of this disease are increasing by the day. The cause of Alzheimer’s disease was initial recognized back in the year 1991 by Dr. Alois Alzheimer when he noticed abnormalities in the brain tissue of a lady who had died of strange mental illness. Since this time, there was a suggestion of whether the individual physicians could be working jointly or individually towards finding a cure for this infection. Up to date the research towards the cure for the infection is still ongoing with several organizations established to work towards the infection.
I have an interesting question regarding what are the key causes. How can we prevent the disease? Will one day the cases of infection be mitigated to minimize the number of deaths. Are the current therapies and treatments effective against Alzheimer’s infection? However, to effectively answer the big research questions, other research questions are relevant in this research. Most of these questions are clinically based. For instance, what is the variation between Alzheimer’s infection and dementia? What are the main stages of Alzheimer’s infection? Is Alzheimer’s disease hereditary and are there any sources of financial help for individuals with Alzheimer’s or their caregivers? The topics I believe those researchers will have some of the answers that I will need for the essay. Also, am very interesting in research about if gastronomy or other invasive methods to the patient in the terminal stage of Alzheimer’s would be best to choose.
I will use those researches from college databases like the “U.S National Library of Medicine on Alzheimer’s Disease”, the National Institute on Aging and the NIH”. I will also use researches from “the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and stroke.” Based on those topics from the researches I believe I will have the answers that I need for the essay (O’Bryant et al, p 45-58). However, there have been several controversies regarding the exact cause of the increased mortality due to Alzheimer’s disease. The following research evidence will be necessary to answer the above-mentioned research questions.
Based on the U.S National Library of Medicine, Alzheimer’s disorder is a popular type of dementia occurring among the older population. Dementia disorder normally affects individual ability to perform daily activities. AD normally progresses slowly by attacking the pert of the brain that controls memory, language including thought. Another similar disorder is the MCI which usually causes more memory problems to individuals than normal people of the same age. Alzheimer’s according to the current research accounts for about 80% of all dementia diagnoses (Lichtenthaler, p 148). However, in the U.S, the overall death of AD is has increased by 89% as from 2000 to 2014. The direct and indirect costs associated with healthcare have been approximated to be $500 billion every year.
The invention of non-invasive detection imaging has led to a test that enhances the detection accuracy in AD. The diagnostic technique involves injecting a radiolabeled tracer agent; the patients are then subjected to a PET examination that examines for the deposition of certain peptides that occurs as a plaque in the brain. Health professionals have been able to identify and detect the medical condition using the method up to 100% specificity and up to 96% sensitivity. Some researchers from the University of Pittsburgh have come up with the first ever tracer (O’Bryant et al, p 45-58). However, the use of PET imaging has been proved to be limited due to the high costs which offer a challenge to those people who do not have insurance. Research has indicated that there is a good number of patients who are subjected to amyloid PET examination or imaging do so as a way of participating in medical trials.
A less costly and more effective method of evaluation has been the screening of CSF for Aβ42 hyperphosphorylated tau peptide. However, this diagnostic method has been estimated to have a less diagnostic accuracy of between 85% and 90% has risks associated with lumbar puncture procedure as well as a long period of waiting before the results are obtained. This delay has been attributed to the complexity of laboratory instruments that do analysis on the fluid. A clinical comparison has proved that there is no significant difference in the detection accuracy between amyloid PET imaging biomarkers and CSF Aβ42:p-tau which implies that the ideal diagnostic test for individual patients varies based on cost, availability and patient preference (Tai et al, p 465-488). Currently, there are less-invasive serum assays made to detect the level of circulating proteins in individuals with AD. On the other hand, a study done in 2017 found that a test could be lead to discrimination among normal cognition, dementia, and MCI as a result of a small number of individuals with specificities of 88% and sensitivities of 84%.
The current treatment involves two categories of pharmacologic therapy that are applied to individuals with AD. Some of these drugs act as cholinesterase inhibitors and a good example is donepezil and galantamine. However, these types of drugs are suitable for patients who have severe, moderate as well as mild AD dementia and those individuals with Parkinson’s disease dementia. Another commonly used drug for the treatment of AD is the memantine which acts as a non-competitive inhibitor of N-methyl-D-Aspartate as well as dopamine agonist (Richardson et al, p51-58). This drug is recommended for those individuals found with moderate or severe AD. However, some drugs such as huperzine A are government-legalized drugs outside of the US and thus not approved by the FDA as a result of its effect on the purity and potency.
Researchers identified vitamin D as one of the potential risk factors known to cause the growth of AD dementia and essential supplements is recommended to those patients who are found deficient of the vitamin D. Meal such as fresh produce, whole grains, legumes, olive oil and seafood though reducing the intake of sweets, red meat as well as the consumption of treated foods has been found to lower the risks associated with the growth and development of AD and the risk of emergent cognitive deterioration. Physical exercise such as aerobic exercise shows reduced caregiver burden in individuals with AD (Geldenhuys et al, p3-5). The physical exercises as people age have been associated with the impact to prevent the loss of agility and strength as well as lowering risks of neuropsychiatric manifestations and care necessities related to AD. However, less atrophy was detected in patients having genetic danger associated with the development of AD.
P-tau seems to be the primary cause of the signs and symptoms in AD. However, different types of vaccines have indicated safety and effectiveness in animal models. In a particular study, ant-tau drugs have proven to be effective especially in the stimulation of the immune system of individuals with AD. The current trends related to Alzheimer’s disease indicate that about 14,534 individuals have been diagnosed with AD in Wales and the prevalence for AD in persons aged above 60 years was 2% while the whole incidence was approximated to be 1.5 per 100 person-years (Lichtenthaler, p 148). On the other hand, the prevalence for individuals between 60 and 74 years has risen to 1% while those with more than 75 years the prevalence has risen to 5%. By the use of properties of diagnostic dyes and their derivatives, a wide range of tests has been developed to detect amyloid plaques. The proposed early diagnostic technique aims at identifying plaques while using an invasively small sample of blood.
In conclusion, AD disorder normally affects individuals’ ability to perform daily activities. AD normally progresses slowly by attacking the pert of the brain that controls thought, memory and language. Alzheimer’s according to the current research accounts for about 80% of all dementia diagnoses. The diagnostic technique involves injecting a radiolabeled tracer agent; the patients are then subjected to a PET scan that examines and identifies the deposition of certain peptides that occurs as a plaque in the living human brain. Researchers identified vitamin D as one of the independent factors which potentially causes the development of AD dementia; as such supplementation is suggested to those patients who are found deficient of vitamin D. The proposed diagnostic technique will entail the identification of plaques using invasively small samples of blood rather than CSF.
Works Cited
Folch, Jaume, et al. “Current research therapeutic strategies for Alzheimer’s disease treatment.” Neural plasticity 2016 (2016).
Geldenhuys, Werner J., and Altaf S. Darvesh. “Pharmacotherapy of Alzheimer’s disease: current and future trends.” (2015): 3-5.
Lichtenthaler, Stefan F. “11 Predicting, Preventing, and Treating Alzheimer’s Disease.” Medical Ethics, Prediction, and Prognosis: Interdisciplinary Perspectives 17 (2017): 148.
O’Bryant, Sid E., et al. “Blood-based biomarkers in Alzheimer disease: current state of the science and a novel collaborative paradigm for advancing from discovery to clinic.” Alzheimer’s & Dementia 13.1 (2017): 45-58.
Richardson, Arlan, et al. “How longevity research can lead to therapies for Alzheimer’s disease: The rapamycin story.” Experimental gerontology 68 (2015): 51-58.
Tai, Leon M., et al. “APOE‐modulated Aβ‐induced neuroinflammation in Alzheimer’s disease: current landscape, novel data, and future perspective.” Journal of neurochemistry 133.4 (2015): 465-488.
