Showing posts with label alzheimer's versus dementia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alzheimer's versus dementia. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Age dementia.

The key to it all is using our brains. Here are only a few paths to boost our brain power and banish Alzheimer’s :

1. Take part in mental activities. Intellectual activities keep our brain cells firing. What’s that saying “Use them or lose them?” The same applies in this particular instance. By keeping yourself mentally active, you’ve got the capacity to not only develop new brain cells but also forge new neurological paths between the nerves in your grey matter. To paraphrase, you are keeping your cerebral cortex awake. If you’re retired, look into some adult continuing education classes at a local college or library. Tackle a crossword puzzle, sudoku, or word games. Attend cultural events like plays and concerts.

2. Work on your private life. A lot of research has demonstrated for years that having great friends promotes a longer life. Involve yourself in social activities. Go to your area block party and meet new people. Have a hobby? Find a local group that enjoys similar things you do. Walking clubs and canasta or bunko groups are favored. Volunteer at your local food bank or other community organization. Read or tell stories to kids at library activities. Walk your pet or travel with pals.

3. Get your body moving. Exercise is always a stimulus for boosting brain power. If you get the blood pumping, more oxygen feeds into your cortex, giving you a natural “high.” Besides, exercise improves your physical stamina! When you exercise, you are shedding weight, lowering your blood pressure and chance of stroke. Take a risk and try for a health club or gym membership. Access to varied exercise classes like yoga, tai chi, and heart activity like aerobics helps with skyrocketing brain power.

4. Get rid of the junky, preprocessed food. A sensible diet loaded in vegetables and fruit helps build brain cells. Lowering the cholesterol and fats in your diet not only lowers your chance of stroke or coronary, but it reduces the chances of Alzheimer’s. The term antioxidants has always been bandied about and hailed as a protector of brain cells. Some fish and nuts are excellent for you as is dark, leafy veggies. Visit a nutrition expert to develop the best eating plan for your way of life. You hear that life includes no guarantees. The same applies to the varied ways listed above to increase brain power.

It is irrelevant if you’re genetically inclined to have Alzheimer’s disease or not. Maintaining a healthy active approach to life never hurt anybody. Actually, following through with this “boosting brain power” plan can even slow or halt the illness. So rather than brooding about whether you “might” get Alzheimer’s, starting enjoying life and looking after it.

Dementia alzheimers disease.

For many, the term “Alzheimer’s disease” is a hazy term for a sickness they do not truly know very much about. It is only when a person who is close to them is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease that they begin to realize the true extent of this especially devastating illness. Alzheimers disease is a very severe form of dementia. Dementia is a brain disease which affects its sufferers to varying degrees. It depends on what kind of dementia they have and how progressive it is as to how much they will be influenced by it. Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive illness which seriously effects an individual’s ability to perform their daily life.

Characterized at first by memory loss, it steadily progresses to where the person becomes only a shell of their previous self. (It is not called the living death for nothing!) Alzheimer’s disease effects the portion of the brain that involves thought processes, memory, and language. And though there’s continuing research into Alzheimer’s disease by pharmaceutical companies, scientists, and doctors, there is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s.

Many of us believe Alzheimer’s disease to be an illness which is confined to the elderly. While older people certainly make up the majorority of sufferers, younger people can also develop Alzheimer’s disease. An individual is much more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease after the age of sixty, with roughly five percent of those in the 65-74 age bracket. It should be noted, however, that developing Alzheimer’s disease isn’t an ordinary part of the process of aging and shouldn’t ever be treated as such.

Alzheimer’s disease could only be diagnosed one hundred percent post mortem until quite recently. Diagnosis was often accomplished by a number of mental ability tests that the patient had to go through to discover the condition of their mind. This regularly led to a mis-diagnosis.

With the arrival of scanners and other specialized xray equipment if Alzheimers illness is suspected, a patient can be referred for tests and a definite diagnosis can now be made. One of the main traits of Alzheimers illness is unnatural clumps in the brain tissue known as amyloid plaques. They also have tangled bundles of fibers in their brain which are called neurofibrillary tangles. Other changes in the brain which scientists have discovered are the death or interruption of nerve cells in the areas of the brain which are vital for memory and thought. Some have speculated that particular chemicals that carry messages back and forth in the brain are lacking. If this is so, it may be the clue to why Alzheimer’s disease develops in the first place. Only time and further research will prove these speculations to be correct or not.