Disease Description
Alzheimer disease is a progressive disease of the brain, which leads to the death of nerve cells. This is the cause of the gradual loss of mental and everyday practical abilities.
The first signs of the disease are a growing forgetfulness and difficulties in keeping track of time. Increasingly often, things are being misplaced, appointments are missed and problems arise in coping independently with everyday life. Sometimes, it is not possible to tie one’s shoelaces any more. Finding the right words for certain things becomes difficult, or friends, family or acquaintances are suddenly no longer recognised. Basically, anyone can develop Alzheimer disease. Its precise cause, however, still remains a mystery to medical research. Although admittedly, there are indicators to some risk factors, it appears that there is not one single cause that explains everything. It is also still unclear why one person falls ill and another remains healthy. Alzheimer disease is not a normal consequence of getting older. Nevertheless, the risk of developing it increases greatly with age. One in twenty people between the ages of 70 and 74 are affected and even almost one in every three over the age of 90. In 2009, about 35 million people world-wide have been living with the diagnosis. Since in our society, the percentage of older people is constantly increasing, experts reckon there will be a drastic rise in the disease. It is assumed that the number of Alzheimer patients will roughly double every 20 years. This means that by 2030, some 66 million people would be affected.
The loss of everyday competence – step by step. It is not only memory, but also many abilities important for everyday life that are affected by Alzheimer’s.
“Daily living skills” means being able to manage the everyday things of life independently – those tasks that come naturally to healthy people, but which become an increasing hurdle for those with Alzheimer’s disease. We can divide daily living skills into four areas:
- Cognitive abilities
- Communication
- Basic everyday activities
- Social behaviour
The progression of the disease in Alzheimer patients causes a gradual deterioration in all four areas. But the course of the symptoms differs markedly between individuals. So the extent to which the individual areas are affected is different in every patient.
What happens in the brain?
The human brain is a highly complex organ. In a healthy person, 100 billion nerve cells ensure that every moment countless impressions and bits of information are recorded and processed
So that it can work smoothly, the nerve cells in the brain are immensely active: signals are constantly being sent by nerve cells and received from others. One can think of it as the nerve cells permanently “talking” to each other. They communicate among themselves what has just happened and what is to be done.
Healthy nerve cells require messengers.
Messengers play an important role in the exchange of signals between nerve cells. To put it simply, these transmitters are like specific keywords – the common “language” that the nerve cells use to optimally understand each other. 70% of all nerve cells exchange information using the transmitter “glutamate”. Another important transmitter is called acetylcholine. This is the way that all processes in the body are controlled – from the simplest sensory perception up to highly complex feats of memory.
Alzheimer disease – the exchange of signals between nerve cells is impaired.
A small protein molecule called beta-amyloid is produced in excessive amounts in the brain of Alzheimer patients. Beta-amyloid is deposited on the nerve cells like a kind of litter. These deposits are partly responsible for causing massive disturbance to the work of the transmitters in the brain. The exchange of signals between nerve cells is thus increasingly impaired.
In simple terms, the signals become weaker and weaker and under these conditions, communication between nerve cells becomes increasingly difficult. “Misunderstandings” occur in the passing on of information and, eventually, there is complete “silence”, because in the long term, the affected nerve cells cannot survive this disturbance and die off. The transmission of signals is now irretrievably interrupted.
