Rising Incidence of Alzheimers Disease Essay -- Alzheimers Disease Es

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common dementia that destroys brain cells and causes problems with memory, thinking and behaviour. According to recent statistics (Alzheimer's Association, 2010), Alzheimer’s is the 7th-leading cause of death in the USA with the number of people suffering from AD only in America over 5.3 million. It affects more women than men, causing differences in symptoms depending on gender. There is no cure which can guarantee a recovery for diseased people to date. However, more possible cures exist for diseased females. As per Brian Ott’s article on gender differences in Alzheimer’s disease, females have huge changes in behaviour comparing with males. This process is tightly connected with emotional instability, mood swings, wandering, and refers to personality change. Over listed symptoms are the first one to show up, but eventually there become more and more consequences of the disease such as frequent delusions, hallucinations, and sun-downing – the exacerbation of syndromes in the afternoon and evening, which makes a person in early stages of Alzheimer’s more antisocial and unadapted to a daily life. Such difficulties with communicating with people makes lives of patients very complicated, make them suffer of misunderstanding, and lead to depression as it was proved by American Psychiatric Association (1980). Indeed, 69% of people with dementia were suffering from depression (from Neundorfer, 2001: American Psychiatric Association, 1980). A group of researchers has found evidence of difference in language comprehension and memory regression between males and females: the latter are more vulnerable to such changes in cognition due to influence of sex hormones on the brain (from Ott, 2005: Sherwin, 1997)... ...llet, X., N. Raoux, N. le Carret, J. Bouisson, J. Dartigues, H. Amieva. 2009. Gender-related Differences in Visuospatial Memory Persist in Alzheimer’s Disease. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology 24 (issue: unknown): 783-789. Oxford Journals. http://acn.oxfordjournals.org (accessed October 27, 2010). Neundorfer, M., M. McClendon, K. Smyth, J. Stuckey, M. Strauss, M. Patterson. 2001. A Longitudinal Study of the Relationship Between Levels of Depression Among Persons With Alzheimer’s Disease and Levels of Depression Among Their Family Caregivers. Journal of Gerontology: PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCES 56B (5): 301-313. http://psychsocgerontology.oxfordjournals.org (accessed November 12, 2010). Ott, B., D. Cahn-Weiner. 2005. Gender Differences in Alzheimer’s Disease. Geriatric Times 2 (6). http://www.cmellc.com/geriatrictimes/g011123.html (accessed October 23, 2010).