September 21 World Alzheimer's Day

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Perhaps many of us have heard this term or neurological diagnosis, sometimes we have used the term derogatorily to make fun of someone who forgets things or is simply scattered or in the worst case, these people have so many things to think about and be aware of that they collapse and evidently there are things they forget.

Well, Alzheimer's is more than just forgetting things and today I want to touch on that topic, from the point of view of signs and symptoms. (we will see other things another time).

We can define this disease as a neurological disorder that causes neurons to progressively die, which is the expression that the brain shrinks, is a complete deterioration of the person in all aspects, physical, mental (dementia), skills to the point of death.

Symptoms

*.- Deterioration of the ability to walk, this is due to the fact that your brain is dying and little by little all the functions that were "normal" before become activities of great effort.

*.- Difficulty learning new things

*.- Begin to be slow with their understanding and comprehension of things.

*.- Loss of energy that only he can notice.

*.- Losing the "train" of thought in a sentence when conversing.

*.- In some cases, they may even invent words when they cannot find the right one for what they want to express.

*.- Not recognizing the faces of their relatives.

*.- Personality changes; these vary from day to day depending on the person's condition, we must keep this in mind if we live with a person with this disease.

*.- Speech is compromised, and he begins to have difficulty first with getting words and memories, then in being able to modulate words.

*.- Evidently the best known and most alarming sign is memory loss, especially short memory, she may eat and then ask for food or ask what time to eat, remember her family 20 years ago and not recognize anyone from her younger generation.

*.- The orientation of time and space is lost to the point of not knowing the year, the day where he is, and going out to the bakery that is a block away from his house and getting lost on the way back.

*.- His ability to solve simple mathematical problems is progressively lost, and he is unable to follow simple sequences of 12345 etc.

*.- In their final stages, they lose the ability to chew and swallow (remember there is a degradation of the brain), become less and less receptive, fall into bed and are vulnerable to infectious diseases, reach the point of not recognizing anyone.

In this space I have always emphasized many times that we are all different and that the symptomatology that may present varies in each person, so what I can place here is a generalized guide in each of the topics I deal with.

When we suspect that within our family there may be a case of this, it is important to be calm and take to a neurological consultation to be evaluated and begin to take the necessary measures, this is a disease that degenerates and begins perhaps up to 20 years before seeing severe symptoms.

So it is always good to know about these diseases that many times we do not give importance to those little signs that appear to us and we give explanations that have little to do with them.

See you next time.