Death (blog 8)

  Today grandma has finally passed away at the age of 68.  Though it is sad, she has technically been dead for months as she had completely forgotten everything, including her husband's name.  Now that she has passed, it has been confirmed that she had Alzheimer's disease.  Not like it wasn't obvious, Alzheimer's isn't called Senile Dementia for nothing.  Even though I didn't have to heart to look into or ask my mom the cause of death, it was interesting to read on www.alz.org that the most common cause of death isn't the actual physical deterioration of the brain. Most deaths are caused by blood clots.  A lot of people with Alzheimer's disease don't even know that they have it, and many people just think it's a normal part of the aging process, so they don't get help when it can be prevented with simple medication.  In extreme, and I mean EXTREME circumstances people can 'forget' how to swallow, leading to them starving to death; luckily this probably will not happen as your brain more likely to simply quit before it gets that bad.

Decent into nothing (blog 7)

  Grandma has lately been losing hope, and so am I. Nothing can help prevent the disease from caring on because there is no real cure. The only thing that can prevent it is omega-3 fats. Which can only help stop it if you don’t have it. The DHA found in these fats help prevent Alzheimer’s when you don’t possess already. Since grandma has Alzheimer’s at a later stage there is nothing she can do. She is now forgetting everyday things that she does daily. Such as when she puts her car keys in her back pocket, two minutes later she doesn’t know where she put them.  It's very painful to watch.

What is Physically Occurring (blog 6)

  I have been doing some research about Alzheimer’s disease, and I’ve been finding some pretty scary stuff. The majority of the research is about the brain. In Alzheimer’s disease, the fragments accumulate from hard insoluble plaques. Plaques that from in between the neurons of the brain. Which progresses to the shrinking of tissue. As the disease worsens, the nerve cells begin to die. Which then destroys the brain's ability to comprehend the world. Since this is what I believe is happening to my grandmother, she is being affected socially and physically. She is having trouble remembering my name without a reminder. It is becoming harder and harder for her to do everyday tasks, that she used to do without a problem.

Image attached is a diagram showing the effects of Alzheimer's disease.

How it was found (blog 5)

My mom visited my grandmother yesterday and told me that she didn’t want to eat anything and she hasn’t eaten in about two days. So I called grandma and she kept hanging up the phone on me
because she didn’t recognize my voice. So I decided to do a little more research on the disease and found out that Alzheimer’s disease was found by Dr. Alois Alzheimer. He found out about it when he had noticed changes in the brain of a woman who died in 1906. Dr. Alzheimer lived in Germany and died of a heart failure in 1915. I found this information on https://www.alz.org/research/science/major_milestones_in_alzheimers.asp.

But The number of people with Alzheimer’s is increasing rapidly. Today there are about 3 million people with the disease, and by 2050 there’s projected to 16 million people with it. I found this information on https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/alzheimers/basics.

The picture is of Dr. Alois Alzhiemer.

Possible Treatments (blog 4)

It has been three years since grandma has been diagnosed with alziherm's diease and it seems she only seems to remember me around 50% of the time.  It's kind of strange, she acts like she know's she's supposed to know me, but sometimes she just doesn't.  We were also at Mcdonals with her the other day and she decided to walk out without telling us.  She was lost for an hour as we drove around town looking for her.  It's like the people with disease revert to being children.  As there is no cure, the doctor suggested that she performs some aerobic activities for 20 - 30 minutes a day as it help with cardio vascular health.  He also suggested some common pills that we can get a CVS, with a persciption of course, such as Donepezil, Galatamine, and Memantine.  We will be getting Galatamine as it's side effects arn't as bad as the seizures caused by Donepezil, and the drepressing caused by Memantine.  She has also begun seeing and Neurologist, as they study the brain, they can suggest excersises.  Along side the Neurologist, she has begun seeing a geriatrician, who focuses if elderly health.

Image attached is of two Donepezil pills.

Charities (blog 3)

  It has been two years since grandma's been diagnosed.  I did some research on what I could do to help her, and I came across some charaties.  Charities across the country are trying to find a treatment for Alzheimer’s. Then the people who have it have a hope of living a normal life. One of the biggest charities is the Alzheimer’s association who has touched millions of Americans since being established in 1980. 79 percent of of the expenses go to research.  Another 15 percent of the money goes to fundraising. Not only do they get money from charities, but also walks that they have in over 600 cities. In 2015, the Walk to end Alzheimer’s raised over 75 million dollars for the patients. There are also many centers for Alzheimer’s that help them improve their quality of life. Such as the Alzheimer’s Family Services Center. The doctor advised us that we should put her in this center to help her mentally get through some tough times. 

The Image attached is the logo to the Alzheimer's association.

Research (blog 2)

I stopped by grandma's house the other day. She was diagnosed almost a year ago and her condition is getting worse. When I walked in and tried to hug her, she backed up and seemed to get very scared and confused, she didn’t recognize me. But after some time she realized who I was, then she was happy for a little but out of nowhere she got angry. After this happened she got sad and started crying so I left. These were the violent mood swings the doctor warned us could potentialy happen. When I got home I started to research the disease and found out that Alzheimer’s is carried through a dominant allele, and the allele is carried on chromosome 19. Then I went on a nia.nih.gov and found out that it has something to do with the protein apolipoprotein. My friend, who was helping me research, called me and told me that it’s also caused by a mutation that occurs in a gene and is passed down to children. Now I’m worried if me and my mother will also have Alzheimer’s.

The image shown is of Human chromosomes number 19 is near the end. The image shown and most addition info was found on ghr.nlm.nih.gov.