Alzheimeru2019s disease - Alzheimers Disease Walden...

Alzheimer’s
Disease
Walden University
NURS 6501N-12
Addie Gay
November 6, 2016

What is Alzheimers?

Historically considered the most common cause of dementia, accounting for
50 to 70 percent of all cases (Alzheimer’s Association, 2012) .

It is slowly progressive and can run over 5-10 years.

Begins with learning and recent memory impairment.

Anomia, aphasia, acalculia, spatial disorientation, and apraxis develop.

Frontal lobe gait disorder cause patients to shuffle.

Later stages paranoia, hallucinations, and delusions may occur.

Terminally ill patients are mute, incontinent, and bedridden (McPhee &
Hammer, 2010)

Pathophysiology of Alzheimer
Disease
•
The exact cause is unknown.
•
AD affects the 3 processes that keep neurons healthy: communication, metabolism, and repair.
Certain nerve cells in the brain stop working, lose connections with other nerve cells, and finally die.
The destruction and death of these nerve cells causes the memory failure, personality changes,
problems in carrying out daily activities, and other features of the disease (Lakhan, 2016).

Three forms:
1.
Early Onset
2.
Early Onset Familial- linked to three genes with mutations on chromosome 21
3.
Late Onset- related to the involvement of chromosome 19 with the apolopoprotein E gene-allele4
.