Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, neurodegenerative disease, first described in 1907 by German psychiatrist Alzheimer. As a rule, it is a disease of people over 65 years, but there are also early Alzheimer's disease - a rare form of this disorder.
Typically, the disease starts with inconspicuous symptoms, but over time it progresses. Most often at early stages of development of the disorder loss of short-term memory, for example, the inability to recall recently learned information, can be noticed. The next stages of Alzheimer’s disease are guided by problems such as the loss of long-term memory, destruction of speech and cognitive functions; patients lose the ability to orientate in the environment and care for themselves. The gradual loss of physical functions leads to death. The average life expectancy after receiving the diagnosis is approximately seven years, less than three percent of patients live more than fourteen years (Sperling, Aisen, Beckett, Bennett, Craft, Fagan & Park, 2011).
Maintenance and care of the patient is extremely important because of the incurability of the disease. A spouse or close relative often takes on the role of the one who care about patients with Alzheimer disease. Such a heavy burden is strongly reflected in the social, psychological, economic and other aspects of life of an individual taking care of patients.Because Alzheimer's disease is incurable and eventually nullifies a person's ability to care for themselves care for a patients in fact is the basis of therapy and deserves special attention throughout the illness (Thompson, Spilsbury, Hall, Birks, Barnes & Adamson, 2007).
During the early and moderate stages of the development of disease patient safety can be improved the burden of caring for him/her can be decreased by making lifestyle and environmental changes. Among measures which can help in caring for patients with Alzheimer`s disease there are the change of daily routine, hanging safety locks, writing labels for home accessories with an explanation how to use them. The patient may lose the ability to eat independently; in this case a caregiver should to grind food. If a patient has trouble with swallowing food feeding through a tube may be required. In this case, family members of patient and healthcare workers face ethical question of how long to continue feeding a patient in this way and if such way of feeding is efficient from a medical point of view. The need to fix a patient physically is rare, but in some situations, it is necessary to resort to fixing a patient for protecting him from harming oneself or others.
Among those who care about the Alzheimer patients, there is a high level of somatic diseases and mental disorders. If they live together with the patient, if the patient is a spouse, if the patient is depressed, behaves inappropriately, hallucinates, suffers from a sleep disorder and is unable to move normally - all of these factors, according to research, are associated with increased number of psychosocial problems. Caring for the patients and necessity to spend with them on average of 47 hours per week, often influence the decrease of working time. At the same time direct and indirect costs of Alzheimer patient care in the US on average are aproximately $ 18,000 to $ 77,500 per year, according to various studies (Small, McDonnell, Brooks & Papadopoulos, 2002).
Thanks God, I have never had personal experience of observation patients who suffer from Alzheimer`s disease or people who have relatives suffering from this form of dementia. However, the topic of Alzheimer disease is widely discussed and presented in many popular movies. I think that this disorder is very serious problem, because there are no cures for managing it and no scientifically proved methods to prevent it.
References
Small, G. W., McDonnell, D. D., Brooks, R. L., & Papadopoulos, G. (2002). The impact of symptom severity on the cost of Alzheimer's disease. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 50(2), 321-327.
Sperling, R. A., Aisen, P. S., Beckett, L. A., Bennett, D. A., Craft, S., Fagan, A. M., & Park, D. C. (2011). Toward defining the preclinical stages of Alzheimer’s disease: Recommendations from the National Institute on Aging-Alzheimer's Association workgroups on diagnostic guidelines for Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's & Dementia, 7(3), 280-292.
Thompson, C. A., Spilsbury, K., Hall, J., Birks, Y., Barnes, C., & Adamson, J. (2007). Systematic review of information and support interventions for caregivers of people with dementia. BMC geriatrics, 7(1), 18.
