Symptoms And Treatment Of Alzheimer 's Disease

Apart from donepezil HCl (or brand name Aricept), there exist several other drugs prescribed to treat the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Similar FDA approved drugs include galantamine, memantine, rivastigmine, and a donepezil and memantine mixture branded under the name Namzaric. Rivastigmine and

Burcham and Rosentheal (2016) talk about a medication called Aricept. Aricept is a cholinesterase inhibitor that was approved by the FDA to treat early stages of Alzheimer's disease. Cholinesterase inhibitors prevent the breakdown of acetylcholine, a chemical in the brain and the body that helps to communicate with other cells in the body. For AD patients, Aricept would increase the amount of acetylcholine and improve the function of neuron that have not been destroyed. Furthermore, Aricept does not cure the disease, it helps delaying the disease and preventing symptoms form becoming worse.

Alzheimer’s disease is a brain disease with many different stages that slows one’s lifestyle and has no real cure. Alzheimer’s disease is named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer. The disease first appears around the age of sixty. Studies have concluded that as many as 5.1 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease. A person with Alzheimer’s loses connections between neurons in the brain (1).

Dementia is a disorder that leads to a gradual loss of the cognitive capacity of an individual, ultimately affecting one’s daily activities. Dementia does manifests through the accompanying disorders because it does not exist on its own. In other words, dementia is a disorder that comes about through the existence of the related disorders. The main ones are four, but they are not the only disorders that cause dementia. These include Lewy Bodies dementia (LBD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VD). Others include mixed dementia, Huntington’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus and Frontotemporal dementia. According to Ram (2006), these disorders have a broad spectrum of impacts on the patients besides having devastating effects on the overall economy of the world’s nations especially when the number is significantly high. The paper intends to dig out the milestones the dementia disorder has undergone.

In drug therapy, studies show that cholinesterase blocker can reduce psychiatric symptoms in patients with Alzheimer 's disease. Moreover, Alzheimer 's disease could cause insomnia, irritability, visual illusion, delusions and other symptoms. The drug such as hypnotics, antipsychotic drugs, antiepileptic drugs, anti-depression drugs will have good effects to those symptoms. Furthermore, study shows that neuro protective agent Namenda can block glutamate for the destruction of brain cells. Therefore, drugs that slowing down the continuing loss of life skills are currently the main treatments of moderate and severe dementia.

This report talks about Maggie, A 62 year old lady who recently loss her husband and since then she been suffering from early dementia, which makes her leave her home in the night as she is confused between day and night and also forgetful. Maggie is extremely active and her family are concerned of this change of behaviour and they worried that she might forget to take her medication on time and skipping meals.

Medications can help for a time with memory symptoms. The current two drugs for Alzheimer is Cholinesterase inhibitors and Memantine. Cholinesterase inhibitors works by boosting levels of a cell-to-cell communication by providing a neurotransmitter that is depleted in the brain. Whereas the Memantine works in another brain cell communication network and slows the progression of symptoms with moderate too severe Alzheimer's disease. There are also other medications such as antidepressant, that are used to help control the behavioral symptoms.

Cholinesterase inhibitors – These boost levels of acetylcholine in the brain of AD patients, who show reduced levels, and increase cell-to-cell communication. They can also improve neuropsychiatric symptoms, such as agitation or depression. Commonly prescribed cholinesterase inhibitors include Donepezil (Aricept), Galantamine (Razadyne) And Rivastigmine (Exelon). Side effects include diarrhea, nausea, loss of appetite and disturbed sleep. In people with cardiac conduction disorders, serious side effects may include a slow heart rate and heart

Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, is a progressive neurological disease afflicting 24.3 million people worldwide. 4.5 million people in the United States are diagnosed with this illness annually (Leifer, 2009). Victims of Alzheimer’s disease reach a stage when they are no longer self-sufficient. Those with severe symptoms or lacking family support systems are relegated to nursing homes. Although scientific studies indicate that Alzheimer’s disease leads to a loss of memory and independence, researchers have proven that caregivers are also affected both physically and emotionally. Research is currently being conducted in finding ways to treat Alzheimer’s and helping their caregivers in the process.

Sill to this day there is no cure or successful treatment for Alzheimer’s disease (Glass, 2009). There are medications that help control some of the symptoms and help make it easier for the family to care for the patient at home. Often these medications help calm the patient when it becomes obvious that his or her mental abilities are fading (Glass,

Due to the natural complexity of the disease, it is unlikely that there will ever be one simple medicine that can cure it. There are, however, means to slow down the progression of the disease in order to retain mental functionality. Drugs known as Donepezil and Galantamine are used on patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s, while Memantine may be used on patients with late stage symptoms. These drugs work by commanding neurotransmitters, which may help to preserve memory, communication, and thought process. This is not a guarantee, however, and these still do not stop the progression of the disease, and eventually fail to help.

There are several drugs that can be used either for treatment or to delay the progress. Drug treatment depends upon the type of dementia. It includes donepezil, rivastigmine or galantamine for treatment of Alzheimer`s disease. For vascular dementia, there can be treatment of high cholesterol, diabetes or heart problems for delaying the progress of the

Eryn is an 18 year old female from northern Wisconsin who demonstrates concerns about her family medical history. Eryn has found out that her grandmother had passed away from Alzheimer’s disease after she was diagnosed prior to moving into a nursing home. She is currently in good health from recent records of her physical from last year. Her past medical history includes a broken pinky finger in 2005, a hyper extended knee in 2010, and a sprained thumb from early 2015. All three of these cases were fixed and the patient is not looking for treatment for any illness at the time. Patient reports that she is eating a well-balanced diet with a variety of food from all groups of food. She is currently a college freshman, trying to adjust to the college life. The purpose of this case report is to inform Eryn about Alzheimer’s disease, also to discuss genetic or heredity factors related to Alzheimer’s, and to create a prevention and intervention plan for Eryn based on the information that was collected in this case study.

A disease that sweeps across the nation and affects nearly 80% of the population ages 60 and up is known as Alzheimer’s. A misconception that many people believe about Alzheimer’s is that it is a part of getting older. It is not true. Alzheimer’s is an intricate neurodegenerative disorder associated with “protein misfolding and aggregation, oxidative stress, mitochondrial abnormalities and neuroinflammatory process at a molecular level” and “synaptic loss, cholinergic dysfunction, and abnormal protein depositions in the brain”. Some symptoms associated with this disease are delusion, inability to recall or retain information, mental decline, aggression, personality changes, mood swings, and etc. Though there are currently no cures for Alzheimer’s, cholinesterase inhibitors such as donepezil, galantamine, rivastigmine and NMDA receptor antagonist memantine are used as pharmacotherapy treatment to slow down the progression and temporarily alleviate symptoms. This essay is primarily focused on Donepezil and the cognitive alleviation it results in for patients with Alzheimer’s. The first part of the paper will summarize two preclinical and two clinical trials done on Donepezil to subjects with Alzheimer’s or Alzheimers like symptoms. The second part will describe the implications and future directions from all the results obtained.

Treatments of AD range from traditional cholinesterase inhibitor drugs such as Tacrine (Cognex), Donepezil (Aricept), Rivastigmine (Exelon) and Galantamine (Razadyne). Cholinesterase inhibitor drugs affect AD by inhibiting the enzyme acetylcholinesterase. Acetylcholinesterase breaks down into acetylcholine which is essential for memory and cognition. The inhibitor drugs work by slowing the progression of AD, thereby prolonging the patient’s lifespan and mental cognition (Borda 46-52).