Alzheimer's Disease Outline

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an irreversible, progressive, degenerative disorder that attacks the brain’s nerve cells, or neurons. It slowly causes the nerve cells or neurons to deteriorate and die, disallowing the normal information transfers through the synapses of the brain to take place. When these information transfers cannot occur a person may experience loss of memory, thinking and language skills, and behavioural changes. The loss of memory that is socially associated with Alzheimer’s disease is also physically noticeable with an MRI brain scan (see image 1.0 below). A person with Alzheimer’s disease is gradually physically losing their memory and over time this disease will spread to other areas of the brain causing the loss of language…show more content…
It is estimated that in 2006 the worldwide prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease was 26.6 million and that by the year 2050 the prevalence is expected to quadruple; making 1 in every 85 persons living with Alzheimer’s disease [8]. Alzheimer’s disease is a disorder that affects people around the world, and is recognized as the same disorder by the biomedical system in North America. Although Alzheimer’s is a global disease there is a higher prevalence of dementia related Alzheimer’s found in the more developed regions of the world (see table 1.0…show more content…
http://www.alzfdn.ca/AboutAlzheimers/definition.html. Accessed November 24, 2011.
[2] Alzheimer Society Canada,2009. http://www.alzheimer.ca/english/disease/intro.htm. Accessed November 24, 2011.
[3] Alzheimer’s Disease Education & Referral Center, U.S National Institutes of Health: National Institute of Aging, 2011. http://www.nia.nih.gov/Alzheimers/Publications/adfact.htm. Accessed November 24, 2011.
[4] Alzheimer’s Disease Research, American Health Assistance Foundation, 2011. http://www.ahaf.org/alzheimers/about/symptomsandstages.html. Accessed November 24, 2011.
[5] On Memory, a Caregivers guide to Alzheimer’s Disease, Alzheimer Society Canada. http://www.onmemory.ca/en/about_alzheimers_disease/. Accessed November 24, 2011.
[6] H. Krentz. Personal Communication. 03, November 2011.
[7] Alzheimer’s Association. 2009 Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures, Alzhiemer’s and Dementia 2009;