Something that is not oft-mentioned regarding Alzheimer’s Disease is the physical toll it can exert on patients. What is so troubling about Alzheimer’s is that it is not only centered around the loss of memory, but what impact this loss of memory can have on a person’s physical condition. Though many of these symptoms are an indirect result of Alzheimer’s – and may affect each patient differently – they must be addressed by the patient and the family members who are also impacted by the disease.
Given that Alzheimer’s occurs in greater numbers for elderly patients, this demographic is already predisposed to having health problems. When you factor in dementia-related illness, in which a patient will not be as vigilant with self-care, it can lead to problems such as nutritional deficiencies, skin breakdown, bed sores or other infections. Because a patient may not have the cognitive ability to report on these symptoms, the problems worsen, leading to untreated health issues.
Inadequate Treatment for Alzheimer’s
The New York Times has an important article that should be read by every family member who has a family who has Alzheimer’s Disease at any stage. The crux of the article is that not only do Alzheimer’s patients have health issues that go untreated, but often when these issues are treated, the treatment is potentially ill-advised and harmful. From the article:
When the investigators looked more deeply into the reasons for treatment decisions, they discovered stark differences based on what family members knew about dementia. When they understood its progressive and terminal nature, only 27 percent of the patients received aggressive care. For family members who did not understand the disease, the figure was 73 percent.
“When family members understood the clinical course of dementia and the poor prognosis, the patients were far less likely to undergo these distressing interventions,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Susan L. Mitchell, senior scientist at the Institute for Aging Research of Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston. “Dementia is a terminal illness and needs to be recognized as such so these patients receive better palliative care.”
This study is vital because it involves the quality of life for Alzheimer’s patients. When family members do not understand the problems associated with Alzheimer’s Disease, they are more likely to approve aggressive and unnecessary treatment. What’s troubling, however, is these decisions being left to seemingly-uninformed family members, when medical professionals should be able to offer adequate and necessary treatment, regardless of the knowledgeability of family members.
What this suggests is that treatment decisions for an Alzheimer’s patient may often be left to those who can be the “voice” of the patient. Because an Alzheimer’s patient may not be able to voice his or her own concerns, a family member needs to be able to monitor potential health problems and convey these issues to medical professionals. The reason is to avoid this scenario: “The study also found that pain control was often inadequate. One in four subjects were clearly suffering from pain, but that number may understate the problem, because the patients were unable to talk about their pain.”
There is no doubt that Alzheimer’s is enormously frustrating for those close to the patient. What appears to be happening, as outlined by this study, is that family members are approving treatment because they want something to be done. In other words, because there is no Alzheimer’s cure, some may be subjecting an Alzheimer’s patient to needless tests and treatment that can actually worsen the situation.
As we’ve written here, an Alzheimer’s patient needs a sense of continuity to help curb the worst symptoms of the disease. Additionally, anything that produces anxiety can heighten problems with disorientation, already a symptom of the disease. Obviously infection needs to be treated, but this study shows that treatment is being utilized that is not commensurate with the problem – which then aggravates the original condition.
Palliative Care
The answer to this is palliative care: defined as “any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of disease symptoms, rather than striving to halt, delay, or reverse progression of the disease itself or provide a cure. The goal is to prevent and relieve suffering and to improve quality of life for people facing serious, complex illness.”
This would fit Alzheimer’s Disease directly, as there is no cure – there is only management of symptoms. Family members must be very careful to not embark on any treatment regimen that actually increases suffering, though it may have the purpose of doing the opposite. This treatment may come from a place of good intentions, but it may actually have a negative result. An Alzheimer’s patient needs a safe and stable environment to more-effectively manage symptoms.
The ultimate goal of Alzheimer’s research – and the research of biOasis into p97 and the blood brain barrier – is to avoid these problems once and for all. Once a better treatment model for Alzheimer’s is available, this type of choice between aggressive and non-aggressive treatment will be less of an issue. However, even when there was a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease, it is paramount that family members be well-informed about the implications of disease and its various stages, so they know what to expect from future treatment.
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The children with low school level have more of the double of probabilities that those that has studied to be diagnosed with the disease of Alzheimer in their oldness, this indicated findrxonline in article according to a new study. The Alzheimer is a disease that attacks the brain is progressive and degenerative cause problems of memory, thought and conduct. It affects in the attention, decision making, judgment, language and personality.
A low school level is tie with an increase in the risk of developing the disease of Alzheimer, this due to the first symptoms as they are: the lost one of the memory that affects the abilities in the study; difficulty in the execution of daily tasks, difficulty in the learning of new tasks; lost of the sense of the time and problems with the language, it indicated the main author of the study, Chengxuan Qiu, of the Research center of the Aging of the Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm, Sweden.
Previous investigations indicated that the school level of a person could be a factor of risk for the development of the disease of Alzheimer that is the most frequent cause of dementia.
Definitely – I wanted to cover the main physical problems associated with Alzheimer’s, as they do not get as much attention as memory-related symptoms. I’ve written about the Alzheimer’s-education connection as well. Take a look: Alzheimer’s Relationship to Education.
Thanks for the comment!