Should Young People Worry About Alzheimer’s

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                                                   Abilkhanova Perizat

                                                        ID: 20142040

                              Should young people worry about Alzheimer’s?

                                                                  Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Why Alzheimer’s? ……………………………………………………….…………………………3

History of Alzheimer’s………………………………………………………………………………3

Early-onset Alzheimer’s……………………………………………………………………………..4

Differences between traditional and early-onset Alzheimer’s………………………………………4

Cure from Alzheimer’s disease……………………………………………………………………..5

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

When symptoms begin before age 65……………………………………………………………….6

Everything is on a genetic level……………………………………………………………………...6

Alzheimer’s, family and job…………………………………………………………………………6

“Still Alice”…………………………………………………………………………….....................7

How to keep life as long as possible………………………………………………………………...9

CHAPTER THREE: INTERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Introduction the the interview……………..……………………………………………………….10

Interview results…………………………………………………………………………….………10

Survey results…………………………………………………………………….…………………14

Summary of key findings…………………………………………………………………………..16

CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Summary……………………………………………………………………………………………17

Advice to  the  audience……………..……………………………………………………………...19

REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . 20

                                                          CHAPTER ONE

                                                         INTRODUCTION

            Should young people worry about Alzheimer’s? That is the main question of my research paper. Every evening on weekdays my mother and I watched TV serial called Grey's Anatomy. The medical drama series focuses on a group of doctors at a hospital in Seattle, including several who began their careers at the facility as interns. One of the doctors, Meredith Grey, is the daughter of a famous surgeon, who was later diagnosed with Alzheimer's. On one of those evenings when we watched the serial, I asked my mother, who is also a doctor, what is Alzheimer's disease. Since then, I became interested in the study of Alzheimer's disease. That's why I have chosen this topic for my essay. I hope that during the writing of this essay, I will get more knowledge about Alzheimer's disease.

            Alzheimer’s disease is a degenerative disorder of the brain that is slowly progressive. This disease has a huge impact on the human brain and eventually results in death. Physicians and philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome connected old age with the mind weakening, but it was only in 1901 that the German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer noted the disease which was later named after him. He described the changes in the brain tissue of 55-year-old woman, Auguste Deter, of Frankfurt, who died after several years of progressive mental impairment marked by rising confusion and loss of memory.

            It is known that the disease is based on the gradual destruction of the cells and tissues of the brain. In the next five years after A. Alzheimer’s finding there appeared eleven similar descriptions in the medical literature. Moreover, some of them used the term "Alzheimer's disease". Emil Kraepelin, a German psychiatrist, was the first who called that disease Alzheimer. In addition, in 1910 he identified it as a subtype of senile dementia.

            Alzheimer's disease is the leading cause of dementia in the elderly. According to the article “Early-onset Alzheimer's: When symptoms begin before age 65” written by Glenn E. Smith, Ph.D., a neuropsychologist at Mayo Clinic, the first symptoms may appear after the age of 40, but in 70 years the incidence reaches 30% (2014). The study of Alzheimer’s found that heredity plays a role in 79% of cases of Alzheimer's disease, in other cases, external influences were the main importance.

            In the article “Reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease: knows and unknowns” Margaret Gatz, the head of Alzheimer’s research, writes that the environment can be significant not only in the fact of developing the disease, but also affect the age at which it occurs (2011). When Alzheimer’s disease occurs in someone under the age of 65, it is known as early-onset (or younger-onset) Alzheimer’s disease. Nevertheless, Alzheimer's disease affects different people differently. Much of this depends on how the person lived before the illness. For example, it depends on their personality, physical condition or lifestyle. It is very difficult to determine whether it is Alzheimer’s or just the so-called age-related forgetfulness, which affects a huge number of elderly people. Who of us has not been a witness to how people are looking for keys or a watch that just a moment ago lay before his eyes, and suddenly vanished into thin air? It is well known that the human memory weakens with age, but you should understand that Alzheimer's disease is not just age-related changes in memory or signs of aging. Alzheimer's disease is an insidious and yet incurable disease in which memory fails completely.