Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease with an insidious onset and progressive development. It is characterized by comprehensive dementia manifestations such as memory impairment, aphasia, loss of use, loss of recognition, impairment of visuospatial skills, executive dysfunction, and personality and behavioral changes, the cause of which is unknown to date.
Precursors of Alzheimer’s disease: 1. Decreased memory function: Occasionally forgetting appointments, occasionally forgetting a colleague’s name or phone number, but being able to recall them afterwards are all normal manifestations. Dementia patients are not, such as patients will forget what they have just said or done, such as going to the street to buy food and forget to bring it back; they not only often forget things, and can not recall afterwards, and even most patients will deny that they have memory impairment, deny that their work and life are affected by poor memory.
2. Language impairment: Anyone may have difficulty finding the right words to express their meaning for a while, and patients with dementia may be so severe that they forget a word but cannot find the right word to replace it, as a result, others cannot understand the meaning he expressed, and in severe cases, they cannot even call the names of commonly used items.
3. Temporal and spatial disorientation: People with dementia can get lost in places they are familiar with, not knowing where they are, how they got there, or how to get home. Some people with dementia do not even know what season it is, or the year, month, date, etc.
4. Changes in intelligence: poor calculation, slow thinking, diminished ability to synthesize and analyze, inability to prioritize, and even inability to understand basic common sense. Patients with dementia may completely forget all the numbers, or even be overwhelmed by the numbers and have difficulty in completing even simple calculations. The ability to perform daily life is diminished, and the person is unable to perform the work he or she was familiar with.
5. Poor judgment: Easily misplacing things. Anyone can misplace their wallet or keys, and people with dementia can put things in particularly inappropriate places, such as putting an iron on the refrigerator or a watch in a rice bowl.
6. Mental symptoms: As older people age, their temperament changes somewhat, but people with dementia have very dramatic mental behavior changes and rapid mood swings, sometimes crying suddenly for no reason or suddenly becoming extremely angry. They may become extremely sensitive and suspicious or very fearful, or increasingly irritable and stubborn, and some may have transient hallucinatory delusions, such as hallucinations of being stolen or persecuted.
7. Loss of initiative in life and work: Normal people sometimes feel bored with housework, work and social obligations, but after a period of adjustment, they can quickly regain their work initiative. People with dementia, on the other hand, are extremely passive and passive, spending their days doing nothing and wandering around the house aimlessly.
Prevention of Alzheimer’s disease: 1. Develop good living habits: First of all, arrange your diet rationally, food must be diversified, and you should eat more healthy foods, such as walnuts, beans and their products, fish, lean meat, melon seeds, peanuts and fresh vegetables and fruits. Get up and live regularly, to ensure that the daily sleep is not less than 8 hours.
2, actively prevent and treat various chronic diseases. Research has proved that chronic diseases such as hypertension, arteriosclerosis, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke and chronic bronchitis are closely related to the occurrence of dementia.
3, diligent use of brain, think more, cultivate sentiment, optimism.
4, appropriate physical exercise to enhance physical fitness. According to your own characteristics, choose one or two suitable exercise methods, such as walking, jogging, playing Tai Chi, doing aerobics, playing gateball, etc.
For patients who have developed Alzheimer’s disease, early drug treatment can stop the further development of the disease and improve the quality of life of the patient. At present, the main application is cholinergic drugs, which can partially improve the cognitive impairment of dementia patients and slow down the development of the disease.