Alzheimer : Quels sont les symptômes ? Quels sont les traitements ?

10 things you need to know about Alzheimer’s disease

Maureen Diament

29 Sep 2014

updated the 6 October 2015 à 23:39

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What is Alzheimer’s disease?
It is a neurodegenerative disease that engenders lesions and an inflammation of the brain area. A neurofibrillary tangle inside neurons and amyloid deposition outside the neurons is observed. The consequence is that neurons are damaged, even destroyed, and the connections between them do not work correctly anymore, and even stop existing. The disease does not arise overnight: it happens in a progressive way and sometimes 15–20 years can pass between the moment when lesions appear and when we observe the first symptoms.
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What are the symptoms?
There are many and various symptoms, according to the person. Among them: memory loss, of course, but also speech difficulties (using one word instead of another, for example), visual disorders (difficulty in identifying an object), anxiety, agitation, disinhibition, lack of motivation.... If sometimes the patient notices the problem, most of the time, it is the family who alerts the doctor.
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What type of specialist should you consult?
At first, you have to consult a general practitioner. If needed, this person can then guide the patient towards a neurologist, a psychiatrist, a geriatrician or a consultation specialized in memory.
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How is the diagnosis made?
Most of the time doctors make a clinical diagnosis, based on the symptoms as well as on the tests of memory and questionnaires. A scan or an MRI can also be conducted. For some atypical forms (for example, without memory loss) or in case of doubt, a draining of the cerebro-spinal fluid can be made to detect the presence of some specific proteins of the disease.
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At what age does the disease appear?
Alzheimer’s is an age-related disease, and we consider that 20 to 25% of people over 90 years old probably suffer from it. Even if the pathology appears most of the time after 65 years, there are rare cases from younger people.
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Is there a treatment?
There is nothing that can cure the disease or even stop its development. Available medicines are symptomatic, and aim to delay the appearance of annoying symptoms as long as possible. Numerous researches are in progress to find more successful treatments.
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Can the disease stop progressing spontaneously?
No, although the development of the disease can vary, according to the patient. We also know that the act of stimulating the brain thanks to adapted exercises can slow down the cognitive decline.
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What are the risk factors?
The most affected are women of more than 65 years with a rather low educational level. There are other risk factors such as metabolic problems (diabetes, high blood pressure). On the other hand, we know that having a good rate of vitamin D helps to prevent the disease, and that vitamin E seems to play a protective role. Training our memory regularly with games and having a well filled social life is also beneficial. A study moreover showed that doing voluntary work helped to prevent the disease.
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Are there susceptible people?
Alzheimer’s is not a hereditary illness. Nevertheless, in approximately 1% of cases, genetics could have a big influence, especially for the early cases (people of less than 65 years).
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How to help or be helped?
At present, there are numerous initiatives to relieve caregivers of sick people affected by Alzheimer’s to enable them to have some rest: day reception facilities, mobile teams for coverage at home, platforms of respite. You can also do voluntary work (remember that it helps to prevent the disease).

September 21st marked World Alzheimer’s Day. For that occasion, let’s review some facts about the symptoms of the disease, its diagnosis and treatments.

September 21st marked World Alzheimer’s Day. It is believed that today an estimated 36 million people in the world are directly affected by this neuro-degenerative disease, which causes, among other things, difficulties of speech and a loss of short and long-term memory, as well as behaviour disorders.

IT IS NOT ONLY THE PATIENTS WHO ARE AFFECTED BY ALZHEIMER’S

The person affected by Alzheimer’s, of course, is the one who goes through professional healthcare. But his family members and the close relatives and friends also have an essential role to play. It takes a lot of energy and time (6 hours a day on average to care for an Alzheimer’s patient), and hence a lot of those people’s lives are impacted by this pathology. This figure will not stop growing because, considering the ageing of the population, the number of those afflicted with the disease doubles every five years.

Here is a review of the signs that should alert us, the existing treatments, ways to prevent the disease and the structures that can help the patient and caregivers at the same time.

Maureen Diament

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IT IS NOT ONLY THE PATIENTS WHO ARE AFFECTED BY ALZHEIMER’S

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