Alzheimers Disease Compiled - Annotated Bibliography Example

Alzheimer’s disease: An Annotated Bibliography of Alzheimer’s disease: An Annotated Bibliography Alzheimers Association National. (2012, December 7). 7 Stages of Alzheimers & Symptoms Alzheimers Association. Retrieved December 8, 2012, from alz.org: http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_stages_of_alzheimers.asp This article explicitly explains each stage of AD, focusing on its course and the changes experienced by individuals. The seven stages are derived from the work of Barry Reisberg, M.D., clinical director of the New York University School of Medicines Silberstein Aging and Dementia Research Center. The second stage is characterized by very mild cognitive decline, where an individual gradually starts experiencing memory lapses which may include forgetting of known words or places, but if tested no signs of Alzheimer’s will be detected either medically or by friends and relative. Here, the people around can notice changes and may start having problems working with them. Doctors or medical interviewers will be able to detect problems in memory and concentration. Problems with recalling, remembering new things, performing tasks in group, planning, organizing and forgetting are common in stage 3 (Alzheimers Association National, 2012) . Stage 4 becomes more serious with AD being easily detected clinically, and is known as moderate cognitive decline. At this stage, people forget their numbers, addresses, and have difficulties, but they still are not solely dependent on others. At stage 6, which is severe cognitive decline, the situation deteriorates even further with individuals becoming excessively dependent upon others as they lose their track, wander aimlessly, have problems in daily activities, could distinguish familiar faces but could not recall the names. Body movements, language, responsive reflexes as well as swallowing all impair. Alzheimers Foundation of America. (2012, December 7). Alzheimers Foundation of America. Retrieved December 7, 2012, from. Retrieved December 8, 2012, from alzfdn.org: http://www.alzfdn.org/AboutAlzheimers/definition.html The article taken is from an active American foundation working for Alzheimer’s patients, hence the information presented is accompanied with facts, figures, research, and examples; thus covering AD in a more practical and analytical manner than just defining major aspects of it. Article revealed not only the history of AD, but also presented some recent statistics. The article further mentions AD to be the cause of dementia, and describes AD as a disease which affects the neurons and their ability to produce neurotransmitters or to communicate with other neurons directly, affecting many areas of the brain such as hippocampus, cerebral cortex or hypothalamus and resulting in memory loss and subsequent dysfunctions (Alzheimers Foundation of America, 2012). Board, A. (2011, September 2011). Alzheimers Disease. Retrieved December 8, 2012, from ncbi.nlm.nih.gov: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001767/ The article categorized Alzheimer’s disease (AD) as a type of Senile dementia, and thereby covered it in detail. It includes symptoms, causes and risks. The author has discussed the methods of prevention, treatment and cure, explaining each one in a succinct and less complicated way. The article first defines AD as a form of dementia that becomes severe with time and leads to problems of memory, thinking and behavior. Mostly genetic and biological factors are determined to be the causes of AD. It may also include having a close relative with the same disease, inheriting certain genes that lead to AD, age, sex (females tend to be high on risk of AD), or having a history of head trauma and high blood pressure. As such, the cause could not be explicitly found. If symptoms appear before age 60, then the former would be true, if not then the latter (Board, 2011). As per article, AD causes dementia (a period of dysfunction of basic mental areas such as language, perception, emotion, cognition or memory), and MCI (Mild Cognitive Impairment) stage. AD builds up from small forgetting and difficulties in daily routines to severe memory loss problems. For instance, maintain normal blood pressures, increase antioxidants, consume low-fat diet, decrease consumption of linoleic acid or increase intake of cold water fish to reduce the exposure of AD to some extent (Board, 2011). Boyle, A., Lei, Y., & Wilson, S. (2012). Poor Decision Making Is a Consequence of Cognitive Decline among Older Persons without Alzheimers Disease or Mild Cognitive Impairment. Plos ONE, 7(8). Plos One , 7 (8), 1-5. A well established fact is that poor decision making is a consequence of cognitive decline which happens with individuals suffering from AD at its earlier stages of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia, but people fail to recognize that exceptions do exist. There are people with poor decision making abilities who are neither the patients of AD nor dementia who suffer from this cognitive degradation solely due to their old ages. This forms the basis of this article and the underlying hypnosis of the experiment mentioned in article (i.e. to study the correlation of age with poor decision making without any of the diseases.) Important decisions are made, and big steps are taken. But mainly, it is seen that the aged population does not decide prudently, and constitutes of the majority of the people who are scammed by the others. To study why this happens, an experimental group of 420 non-demented people from the Memory and Aging Project was selected, which was repeatedly tested for decision-making abilities and proneness to scam. A 12-item version was specifically created to test decision making, which included sets of questions closely related to real world problems of varying difficulty gauging decision-making performance related to finance as well as health. Similarly, a 5-item version was created for checking susceptibly to scams. Results were gathered over an average of 5.5years prior to the assessment, and then analyzed closely, which later asserted a negative relationship between age and cognitive performance. In simple words; with increase in ages, people tend to loose their cognitive skills and thus make poor decisions or get easily scammed even without AD, MCI or dementia. These findings suggest that changes in age, solely, may also affect the decision-making or the judgmental capabilities of individuals (Boyle, Lei, & Wilson, 2012). Buschert, C., Friese, U., & Teipel, J. (2011). Effects of a Newly Developed Cognitive Intervention in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment and mild Alzheimers disease: A Pilot Study. Journal. Journal of Alzheimers Disease, 25 (4), 679-694. This article showed positive effects on patients of amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) prodormal stage and patients of mild Alzheimer’s disease; taking this as an underlying concept, this article sets up an experiment to check for its hypnosis. 43 patients suffering from an amnestic MCI and mild AD were studied over a 6-month controlled and piloted environment (i.e. developed cognitive intervention) with multi-component group based cognitive programs, thereby regularly monitoring and recording of changes experienced throughout the course of study. The results of this experiment showed that individuals with amnestic MCI improved their cognitive and non-cognitive functions due to the developed cognitive intervention, but AD patients showed no evidence of such improvement (Buschert, Friese, & Teipel, 2011). News Medical. (2012, December 7). Alzheimers disease. Retrieved December 8, 2012, from news-medical.net: http://www.news-medical.net/health/Alzheimers-Disease.aspx The article views Alzheimer’s disease, a major cause of dementia, as a brain. Around 4.5 million people are estimated to be suffering from AD, with mostly 65 and above aged people being prone to it. With age, AD multiplies and exacerbates the situation which is why age is considered to be the most important multiplier of AD. As the result of Dr. Alois Alzheimer’s autopsy of the brain (1906), tangles and plaques were discovered to be consequence of this disease, hence getting its name from the doctor’s name. Together with plaques and tangles, scientists also discovered decreased stimulation of the brain, hampered connectivity or transmission of neural messages between the neurons as well as decreased levels of neurotransmitters in the brain, which thereby cause memory lapses, problems in day-to-day normal functioning, and with time severe memory loss. There is no cure for AD, but preventive measures like exercise, healthy diet, stem cells generation, and vaccines may help to prevent it (News Medical, 2012) . Staff, C. (2012, December 7). Alzheimers disease Definition. Retrieved December 8, 2012, from mayoclinic.com: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/alzheimers-disease/DS00161 The article by Mayo Clinic staff examines AD as a disease which progressively degenerates and kills cells in the brain which are vital for normal functioning because of which people tend to accumulate upon problems of dysfunction. With time, individuals loose their memory, thus face difficulties in carrying on daily routines. However, recent medications and strategies are opted to make the patients socially involved and interdependent, and various researches are being undertaken to come up with treatments that can slow down if not prevent or cure the process (Staff, 2012). Westin, K., Buchhave, P., & Nielsen, H. (2012). CCL2 Is Associated with a Faster Rate of Cognitive Decline during Early Stages of Alzheimers Disease. Plos ONE , 7 (1), 1-6. A well established fact is that Alzheimer’s disease (AD) cause dementia and that before this stage, individuals go through an earlier stage known as Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). However, this MCI does not always include people who are yet to be affected by dementia (a case known as prodromal AD), as there are also some individuals at this stage who are exposed to other types of dementia disorders other than AD (Westin, Buchhave, & Nielsen, 2012). Furthermore, it is known that Beta-amyloid plaques (sticky clumps of protein) and neurofibrillary tangles (insoluble twisted fiber) are formed in the brain as a result of AD. These plaques are usually surrounded by microglia, and if activated by the increased plaques, these glia cells produce inflammatory mediators and chemokines such as CCL2 (chemokine C-C motif ligand 2) that lead to neuronal dysfunction and even killing of the cells. Several studies have shown that increased levels of CCL2, thus, leads to cognitive decline during early stages of AD. CCL2 is one of the main levels of CCR2-ligands, with CCL11 (eotaxin), CCL13 (MCP-4) and CCL26 (eotaxin-3) being the rest (Westin, Buchhave, & Nielsen, 2012). Thus, to check the hypnosis whether CCL2 affects cognitive impairing during early stages of AD, an experiment was set with 119 people at MCI stage. The levels of their ligand as well as cerebrospinal fluid and plasma were recorded over a period of 5 years. The results were: 52 MCI patients were clinically stable, 47 developed AD (i.e. cases of prodromal AD stage at baseline), and 20 developed other dementia disorders. Furthermore, CCL26 and CCL2 levels were found to be high of people at MCI prodormal AD stage, with CCL2 playing significantly larger role in dysfunction of cognition abilities. Also, patients with high CCL2 levels got exposed to AD in short periods of time suggesting that CCL2 increases the rate at which AD is approached by a patient, and further exacerbates the situation. One of the positives of this experiment is that people can now control the levels of this ligand in order to slow down the rate of conversion of AD (Westin, Buchhave, & Nielsen, 2012). References List Alzheimers Association National. (2012, December 7). 7 Stages of Alzheimers & Symptoms | Alzheimers Association. Retrieved December 8, 2012, from alz.org: http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_stages_of_alzheimers.asp Alzheimers Foundation of America. (2012, December 7). Alzheimers Foundation of America. Retrieved December 7, 2012, from. Retrieved December 8, 2012, from alzfdn.org: http://www.alzfdn.org/AboutAlzheimers/definition.html Board, A. (2011, September 2011). Alzheimers Disease. Retrieved December 8, 2012, from ncbi.nlm.nih.gov: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001767/ Boyle, A., Lei, Y., & Wilson, S. (2012). Poor Decision Making Is a Consequence of Cognitive Decline among Older Persons without Alzheimers Disease or Mild Cognitive Impairment. Plos ONE, 7(8). Plos One , 7 (8), 1-5. Buschert, C., Friese, U., & Teipel, J. (2011). Effects of a Newly Developed Cognitive Intervention in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment and mild Alzheimers disease: A Pilot Study. Journal Of Alzheimers Disease , 25 (4), 679-694. News Medical. (2012, December 7). Alzheimers disease. Retrieved December 8, 2012, from news-medical.net: http://www.news-medical.net/health/Alzheimers-Disease.aspx Staff, C. (2012, December 7). Alzheimers Disease Definition. Retrieved December 8, 2012, from mayoclinic.com: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/alzheimers-disease/DS00161 Westin, K., Buchhave, P., & Nielsen, H. (2012). CCL2 Is Associated with a Faster Rate of Cognitive Decline during Early Stages of Alzheimers Disease. Plos ONE , 7 (1), 1-6. Read More