Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative condition that manifests fundamentally as severe cognitive impairment accompanied by complex behavioral disorders. Generally, its typical form is characterized by the drastic loss of immediate memory and other essential mental capacities. Furthermore, as nerve cells or neurons die, different critical areas of the human brain gradually atrophy over time. Effectively, the pathology begins in the brain region called the hippocampus, where the central organ creates daily memories on a regular basis. For this reason, protein plaques and tangles destroy the hippocampus, causing initial difficulties in remembering the smallest and simplest things.
Once they invade the back of the brain structure, these harmful proteins work together, erasing the deepest memories. For that reason, persistent memory loss constitutes one of the first visible symptoms of this clinical ailment. Also, these anomalous substances invade other cortical parts, specifically those responsible for speech, abstract thought, logic, and decision-making. Subsequently, the section that regulates emotions is seriously affected, causing sudden changes in mood, personality, and feelings.
In summary, this pathology is incurable and terminal, appearing with notable frequency in people over 65 years of age. Currently, the cause of the exact origin remains an absolute mystery for the international scientific community. As this condition progresses, mental confusion, irritability, language disorders, and alarming memory loss progressively appear. There is also evidence of a clear predisposition to social isolation as the patient’s basic senses decline.
Generally, the illness usually has an approximate average duration after definitive diagnosis of about 10 years. Gradually, elementary biological functions are lost, which finally lead to the death of the individual in an inevitable manner. Lastly, current clinical treatments offer only moderate symptomatic benefits, but no medical therapy effectively delays or stops the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
