Salt Lake Community College
Alzheimer’s
Zach watts
HLTH 1020
Jean Widdison
4/6/14
Zach Watts
Jean Widdison
HLTH 1020
4/6/14
Alzheimer’s disease is a very cruel nasty disease that has taken a few of my family member’s lives throughout the years I have been on this earth. Currently my grandmother is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s and is not supposed to live much longer than one or two more years. She lives with me and my family and is a constant reminder of what my future might end up being like if Alzheimer’s attacks me too. Alzheimer’s is a terrible thing to have happen to one of your loved ones, watching them slowly lose their mind is indescribable to say the least. The first thing that I noticed change about my grandmother was her short term memory. Right after my grandmother would ask me a question or tell me a short story, ten minutes later she would ask or tell me the exact something with no recollection that she had just told me. During the first stages of Alzheimer’s we really didn’t see it as a big deal, because it was only every now and then when she would forget what she said or thought. I can even remember me and my friends messing with her, because we knew what everything we said or did to her that she would forget in a matter of minutes. The fun and games only lasted for a couple months before it started getting annoying. Right now my grandmother is in the later stages of Alzheimer’s and she can hardly remember everybody’s name except for her daughter’s name (my mom). My family and I have to remind her every day to eat food, shower and brush her teeth. It’s almost like we have to take care of another child that happens to be our 85 year old grandmother. Alzheimer’s can only be given to an individual through genes that have been passes down through many generations. So the odds of me having the Alzheimer’s genes in my body are pretty great coming from my grandmother and now my own mom is starting to have early signs of the disease.
Alzheimer’s disease is a degenerative disease that slowly kills brain cells and causes substantial memory loss. There are seven stages to this form of dementia. The first stage is called no impairment, where there are no signs of memory loss and if interviewed by a doctor he/she would appear to be completely normal and zero malfunctions from the brain. The second stage of Alzheimer’s is when the patient starts to slowly forget things and having memory lapses, forgetting everyday items and common words. The second stage can start at a fairly early age for adults. Even though the patient is having memory lapses there should still be no signs of dementia during a medical examination. Friends and family shouldn’t be able to tell a difference in your memory in the second stage of Alzheimer’s. Memory lapses in the early stages just seem like you are not paying as much attention to your everyday needs, so people tend to overlook that it might be a form of dementia or even Alzheimer’s and never get it checked out. The third stage is when doctors can start to see signs of dementia or Alzheimer’s. Stage three Alzheimer’s is a mild cognitive decline where family, friends and co-workers can notice a difference in detailed conversations where the patient has trouble coming up with words to say, as well as concentrating on what is being said. According to alz.org common stage three difficulties are: noticeable problems coming up with the right word or name. Trouble remembering names when introduced to new people. Having noticeably greater difficulty performing tasks in social or work setting, forgetting material one has just read. Losing or misplacing a valuable object. Increasing trouble with planning or organizing.
Stage four Alzheimer’s is when the disease really starts taking its toll on the patient. To this point a medical examiner will be able to tell from tests if the patient has attained the disease from another family member. At this stage the Alzheimer’s disease has killed enough brain cells that patient’s start losing memory of important events that have happened in recent months. Not only does it destroy recent memories but it can also destroy memories from past years in their lives. My grandmother’s husband died when she was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and to this day she still thinks that Jim (husband) is coming home every night after a long day of work. It breaks my heart every time I have to break the horrible news that Jim isn’t coming home tonight because he passed away seven years ago. She denies it every time and doesn’t accept the fact that she doesn’t remember her own husband’s death. If we tell our grandmother she doesn’t remember because of the disease she has, she will argue for hours saying that she is completely normal and nothing is wrong with her even though she has no idea what is happening to her.
In these last three stages I’m going to talk about are pretty horrific to say the least. Stage five Alzheimer’s is moderate severe cognitive decline where patients begin to show significant signs of memory loss and everyday functions. In this later stage so many brain cells have been killed off that patients begin to lose memory of their own address and common areas where they live around. Even though at this stage they do not need assistant with going to the bathroom and putting on their shoes, but instead they need help with picking out the right clothing for that day and making sure they don’t put on shorts with a huge jacket and some combat boots when it is a hot summer day outside. There are still enough brain cells left in stage five Alzheimer’s that patients know detailed information about themselves and their family members. Even though patients in this stage can remember who they are and who their family members are the have a hard time using their brain to solve simple mathematical equations, like counting backwards from fifty or simple multiplication. During this stage with my grandmother it wasn’t that difficult because she still knew who she was and recognized who her family members were. At the same time if we would take her somewhere out of the house it was no so good. She would constantly be asking us where we are going, what we are doing, did you grab my purse. It was a constant reminder that Alzheimer’s was eating away at her brain and there was nothing we could do about her losing her marbles. This was the beginning of what we never wanted to happen.
Stage six Alzheimer’s is where things begin to decline increasingly fast and patients begin to lose their minds completely. Stage six is what I believe my grandmother is in at this moment. Some of the signs and symptoms of stage six Alzheimer’s are distinguishing familiar and unfamiliar faces but have trouble remembering their names. My grandma us to always only remember my parents and my name without any trouble, and would never remember my three sister’s names. In this past year she has grown to forget mine and my father’s name on a regular basis and can only remember my mom’s day to day. If we remind our grandma of what our names are she instantly can remember if it is the right name, but if we are just messing with her and telling her our name is something different she can recognize that we are telling her lies. Another sign that I noticed when reading about Alzheimer’s was that patients might make mistakes with putting on day time clothes and then later in the day putting on their pajamas right over their day time clothes without even noticing. My grandma loves to fold clothes for us and when she sees a shirt or socks that she likes she will immediately just put it on over her clothes and proceed to wear it until one of us tells her what she is wearing. It’s actually pretty funny to see your 85 year old grandma wearing one my nice shirts and some Nike socks! Another major sign is noticed with my grandma is her sleeping habits, it’s almost like she has become nocturnal. She sleeps all day long until about eight or nine at night and won’t go back to sleep until everybody is waking up the next morning. It’s not like she is just awake all night in her room looking at pictures, she will be banging on all of our doors so confused on why nobody is up and where she is at. It puts so much stress on my parents that every night they are going to be woken up to my grandma banging on their door yelling who’s in their or someone please help me. It scares me to think that my grandma is in the last stages of the disease that is going to kill her, and as I go down the list of signs and symptoms of stage six Alzheimer’s there is not one that I can say she doesn’t have.
The last stage of Alzheimer’s is a very severe cognitive decline in everything. This is pretty much the last straw for patients with Alzheimer’s; they lose almost all of their communication skills and most of their motor skills as well. Taking care of a patient that has stage seven Alzheimer’s would be compared to taking care of a six month old baby. Constantly having to watch over them making sure they don’t do anything that will cause injury. These patients lose the ability to hold their own head up and even not be able to smile anymore. One thing that I will always remember about my grandmother is her beautiful smile. Her smile could change my day from horrible to my life is pretty great. If my grandmother makes it to stage seven Alzheimer’s and loses the ability to smile, that’s when I will know that Alzheimer’s has taken over her brain entirely. Sometimes in the late parts of stage seven patients begin to forget how to swallow and end up choking themselves to death.
After reading all about what Alzheimer’s has done to my grandma one of the main things that really affected her energy levels was her diet. She was eating once or twice a day and she would hardly even eat the food that we prepared for her. We had to give her seven pills a day just to get her daily vitamins and minerals plus antidiuretics pills to help control her bladder. She was depending completely on my parents and us to keep her alive, she forgot how to eat food and even loss the sense of taste and she would say, I don’t want this food because I can’t taste it.
The one thing that surprised me the most when researching about Alzheimer’s was the fact that they had no cure to slow this disease down. There is no possible way for us to stop this disease from spreading because you only contracted Alzheimer’s through genetics. It’s not like normal viruses that we can kill off with antibiotics. This disease is in your DNA and can’t be killed. I think no one should every have to die by some disease taking over their brain and killing them slowly. Scientists are just starting up some drug and non-drug treatments that will have patients with both cognitive and behavioral symptoms. So hopefully in a couple years we will be able to find an antibiotic that will slow the disease down or even kill Alzheimer’s completely.
After having a grandma with Alzheimer’s for the past six years I did not fully understand what this disease does to your body. I have some much respect for anybody who has Alzheimer’s or a family member taking care of someone with the disease. It is the hardest thing in the world to sill there and watch someone you love lose their mind, and you can’t do anything about it but be there for them.
Works Cited
Content published originally on website. 7 stages of Alzheimer’s and symptoms. http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_stages_of_alzheimers.asp
