By all reputable predictions, as baby boomers age and as Americans' lifespans continue to increase, the next few decades will likely see a rise in Alzheimer's disease and other diseases that affect older people, even though dementia is not a normal part of aging.
The words dementia and Alzheimer's are sometimes used interchangeably but they are not the same thing.
According to a useful online publication, 2008 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures, from the Alzheimer Association, dementia is a clinical syndrome characterized by declines in memory as well as declines in at least one of the following cognitive abilities:
- Ability to generate coherent speech and understand spoken or written language
- Ability to recognize or identify objects, assuming that the senses are intact enough to allow for perception
- Ability to perform motor activities, assuming one has the necessary motor and sensory skills to act, as well as the ability to comprehend the task
- Ability to think abstractly, make sound judgments, and plan and carry out complex tasks
One final requirement: These declines must be severe enough to interfere with the activities of daily living.
Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, although no blood test or other procedure can diagnose Alzheimer's with certainty. It usually begins gradually with a person having increasing difficulties remembering new information. Eventually, irreversible damage to nerve cells in the person's brain leads to:
- confusion
- impaired judgment
- disorganized thinking
- disorientation
- difficulty in making oneself understood
- unsafe, unsupervised wandering
- inappropriate behaviors
People with advanced Alzheimer's disease need help with bathing, dressing, eating, using the bathroom, and other daily activities. In its final stages, Alzheimer's renders people totally unable to communicate or to recognize family members. They become bed-bound and must have round-the-clock care.
Ultimately, Alzheimer's disease is fatal. In fact, Alzheimer's was the 7th-leading cause of death in 2006 for Americans of all ages, and the 5th-leading cause of death for people age 65 and older.
And the number of deaths attributed to Alzheimer's has been growing rapidly, increasing by 45 percent from 2000 to 2005, while deaths from heart disease — still the No. 1 killer in the U.S. — fell by 9 percent during this same period.
How likely are you to develop Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia? An American woman who lives to at least age 55 has a 17 percent chance of developing Alzheimer's, and a 21 percent chance of developing any type of dementia during the remainder of her life. An American man who lives to age 55 has a 9 percent likelihood of developing Alzheimer's and a 14 percent chance of developing any type of dementia in his remaining years.
Women are not really more likely to develop these disorders; it only looks like women have a greater risk because they live longer than men.
Despite these deprerssing statistics for dementia, it is important to recognize that some forms of dementia are reversible — for example, those produced by depression, thyroid disease, vitamin B12 deficiency, alcohol, some medications, and normal-pressure hydrocephalus (a stable accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid surrounding the brain).
In fact, one study found that about 20 percent of patients brought to a hospital in a demented state had a reversible form. So, it is important that individuals be brought to a doctor or hospital emergency department when they first develop manifestations of dementia.
Enormous scientific efforts are needed to overcome this gloomy outlook concerning dementia — a class of disorders for which the causes are so little understood and for which really effective measures for either prevention or treatment are lacking.
