FREE ESSAY ON ALZHEIMER'S: IS THERE A CURE?

ALZHEIMER'S: IS THERE A CURE?

Alzheimer's: Is there a cure?
In February of 2000, I lost my grandmother to Alzheimer's disease. She was diagnosed with
the disease just less than two years prior to her death. Throughout that time, I watched
changes in my grandmother that made her seem like an entirely different woman to me. She
gradually began losing her short-term memory and we began to see signs of her long-term
memory degrading too. It began to get harder and harder to take her out into public
without being afraid of what would happen next. Her emotions would fluctuate with the
changing of each minute it seemed. Physically she became weaker and weaker and would
often scare us with falling while she would be walking. Eventually she had to be moved
into the extended care unit of our local hospital because my grandfather could no longer
handle taking care of her alone. The hardest part of it all was letting other people know
what was wrong. For a while there were no physical signs that there was anything wrong
with her. When we would be at a restaurant and she would suddenly decide to start yelling
at the waitress for wearing white shoes, we all had to deal with the looks and stares,
and sometimes even the comments and questions from strangers wanting to know if she was
alright. That is why I chose to write this paper. I feel that people need to be more
educated on what this form of dementia truly is and what the signs and symptoms can be.
They should also be aware of what it is they can do to help make families dealing with
this disease more comfortable, whether it be at a nursing home, a restaurant, or even if
they are just visiting.
Alzheimer's disease is one of the most common forms of dementia. It is an incurable
disease that strikes most elderly people gradually, by destroying nerve cells in their
brains and little by little it erases their ability to remember, to think, and to take
care of themselves (Izenberg, 2000). Often times this disease has been called "the long
good-bye" because the symptoms progress so gradually. Most often the disease shows itself
in the elderly around the age of about eighty, and is rarely seen in people under the age
of sixty-five. One of the characteristics of this disease that makes it so hard for
scientists to find a cure, are the numerous factors that present themselves in different
patients. It seems as if no two cases of Alzheimer's can be exactly alike.
In 1906 a physician, named Alois Alzheimer, cared for a fifty-one year old patient with
severe dementia. Upon her death, he was able to examine her brain at autopsy. Dr.
Alzheimer was able to take advantage of recent innovations in microscopy and histological
techniques that allowed him to study in detail the cellular components in nervous tissue.
He found that the brain of his patient had severe cortical atrophy and described the
neurofibrillary bundles and plaques that are now the hallmark for definitive diagnosis of
what he at that time called "presenile dementia". An account of his first patient was
published in 1907. It is a little ironic that reevaluation this case has lead some to
believe that this first patient did not suffer from the Alzheimer's disease at all.
Instead they believe she suffered from a different, rare disease called metachromatic
leukodystrophy (Izenberg, 2000). 
The term Alzheimer's Disease was coined by Emil Kraepelin who pioneered early work that
examined psychiatric disorders from a biological perspective. There is some disagreement
about whether Kraepelin considered "presenile dementia" a disease distinct from other
forms of dementia, but he referred toAlzheimer's Disease in his influential book
Psychiatrie, and the name has stuck ever since. 
Alzheimer's disease gained relatively rapid acceptance as a distinct disease state. In
spite of this, it unfortunately gained very little attention until about the 1980s, but
has received much attention recently. In fact, it has been referred to by some as the
disease of the century (Izenberg, 2000). Several reasons for this increased attention
have been considered. Advances in both safety and medical sciences have resulted in a
lengthening of our lives and have increased the chance that any of us will suffer from
illnesses that tend to occur later in life. This problem is combined with the population
surge that occurred shortly after World War II. The result is an increasingly older
population. As our population ages, the number of Alzheimer patients could triple to 14
million. Additionally, people do not die directly from Alzheimer's disease but from
complications, such as pneumonia (Izenberg, 2000). 
Recent studies have found many different drugs to be effective in treating the disease,
but none that truly cure it. Scientists of the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Dementia
Research are doing a study looking at the effects of cholesterol-lowering drugs. These
drugs, also known as statins, have revolutionized the treatment of cardiovascular disease
and now may also have the ability to prevent or at least delay the onset of Alzheimer's
disease. Over the years, there's been a lot of clinical, epidemiological, and more
recently, laboratory data that support a link between cholesterol... and susceptibility
to Alzheimer's disease, says Lorenzo Refolo one of the scientists from the Institute
(Travis, 2001). Michael J. Mullan, of the University of South Florida in South Tampa,
says this about statins, we may have, right at our fingertips, very good drugs for
preventing or treating Alzheimer's disease. It must be kept in mind that it will take
some years to confirm the benefit of these drugs (Travis, 2001).
Just recently, the company of Johnson & Johnson received Food and Drug Administration
approval for a new drug to help the fight of Alzheimer's disease. The drug, Reminyl, is
said to be able to treat mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's cases. Reminyl was shown to be
effective in improving or helping to stabilize the patients' ability to think and perform
daily tasks in studies involving more than 2,650 subjects (Health & Technology, 2001).
Johnson & Johnson say that the drug will be available starting in May. 
Another approach to finding a cure for Alzheimer's Disease is finding something that will
block molecules that are possibly responsible for the disease. Bob Vassar designed and
implemented an ingenious method for isolating the gene for an enzyme called
beta-secretase, which is found to be a key culprit in the disease (Garber, 2001). While
other drugs that are approved only improve the functions of those with the disease, this
method could actually stop the progression, not just slow it down. There are some
drawbacks to this method. What is not known about the enzyme beta-secretase, though
seemingly linked to human development and cell division, is what the enzyme's normal
function in the body is. By blocking it could conceivably cause anything from hair loss
to psychosis (Garber, 2001). Finding an inhibitor for this enzyme will not happen
overnight, but it is possible to see a drug on the market in the next ten years.
Right now there are some drugs on the market that have been approved by the Federal Drug
Administration. One of these is the drug Aricept, which is said to help treat the
symptoms of Alzheimer's disease such as confusion or memory loss. Another drug that has
been approved is Exelon. It is also shown to help with the improvement of memory and
cognitive functioning. There are studies continually being done on things such as
aspirin, vitamin E, estrogen, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, calcium channel blockers, and
nerve growth factor (Bolla, Filley, & Palmer, 2000). 
With all the research that is continually being done, my feeling is that the "cure" from
a social standpoint lies in how we treat those dealing with the disease. It is easy for
those who don't understand this form of dementia to look at those suffering in a
belittling way. We need to remember that they are still people with real feelings. In
visiting the many nursing homes searching for the right one for my grandmother, we ran
across many different environments that were created for dementia patients. Some places
had set-ups where they were sectioned off completely from the rest of the nursing home.
They only ate and interacted with others suffering from dementia. I think one of the
problems with this type of design is that the patient is taken away from the type of
living that they were used to before the onset of their disease. It would be a hard
transition to make moving from possibly their own home to a place where it seemed they
were almost secluded to a dementia patients' way of life. The one common characteristic
of all the places we were was that it seemed that all of the staff working with the
dementia patients had been trained and understood how to treat the patients without being
belittling. They all seemed very understanding of the different emotions, outbursts, and
dispositions of the patients. 
I think that communities that have nursing homes in them or near them should definitely
be aware in just the same way that those on staff were of how to treat an Alzheimer's
patient. If there were a greater understanding of what these people were going through
and how to communicate with them, then I think it would make the lives of those involved
with Alzheimer's much easier. One step communities could take is to start programs in
schools where students are taught and even exposed to the different diseases and
conditions the elderly suffer from. Volunteering at nursing homes is one of the best ways
to be exposed to the elderly and their lives. As a volunteer you are not necessarily
playing a professional role, rather, you are playing the role of a friend to the
patients. Volunteering could be at different levels, such as helping with or planning
activities, taking in baked goods, flowers, or other things for their rooms, or even just
visiting with them one-on-one on a regular basis (Bell & Troxel, 1997).
Another aspect of social change is what we as Christians can do, and how we should treat
those suffering. As the elements of memory, personality, and the ability to think things
through begin to slip away, the person needs fellow travelers that can share the journey
and offer guidance along the road. We as fellow Christians should be that fellow
traveler. Other illnesses that have no cure take away not only a person's present but
also the future they were looking to have. With Alzheimer's disease the person is not
only robbed of the present and the future, but also of their past. The loss of memories
can have an extreme effect on the person's religious life. They may not be able to longer
recall Bible verses or passages. They may not remember what Christmas or Easter is about.
They may not even be able to remember accepting Jesus Christ as their savior and what
that acceptance means. I think it is important to emphasize to those suffering that even
though we as humans forget, God does not. As fellow Christians we should take the time to
spend time with those we know who are suffering. We can read the Bible to them, talk
about things that happen in church, and be a constant reminder to them of what it is to
be a Christian. I can remember when my grandmother would lose her temper, she would swear
on occasion, something that she would never had done in front of anyone before. Rather
than just telling her not to swear, my parents would always try and remind her that God
would not like to hear her talk like that. Her responses would vary, but most of the time
it would calm her down because I think part of her could remember that she didn't want to
act that way.
So, is there a cure for Alzheimer's disease today? I would say yes and no. No, because
scientists are still looking for the one drug that will put a stop to this debilitating
disease. I think yes, because we all have to power to "heal" within us. A simple visit,
card, or outreach of some kind is guaranteed to put a smile on a suffering person's face.
Alzheimer's patients are no different. Remember that they too have feeling just the same
as you do.
Bibliography
References
Bell, V., & Troxel, D. (1997). The Best Friends Approach to Alzheimer's Care. Baltimore:
Health Professionals Press.
Bolla, L., Filley, C., Palmer, R. (2000). Office diagnosis of the four main types of
dementia. Geriatrics, 55 (1), 34-46.
Garber, K. (2001, March). An end to Alzheimer's? Technology Review, 70-77.
Health & Technology: Johnson & Johnson Has New Anti-Alzheimer's Drug. (2001, March 1).
Wall Street Journal, pp. B.11.
Izenberg, N. (2000). Human Diseases and Conditions (Vol. 1). New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons.
Travis, J. (2001, February 10). Satins take on the brain: Cholesterol-lowering drugs may
also fight Alzheimer's disease. Science News, 92-93.