Signs, Risk Factors, and the Financial Toll of Alzheimer’s disease

Anyone who has read Going … Going …: The Abduction of a Mind by Jack Weaver cannot help but ponder living with Alzheimer’s disease. The book is about the author and his wife’s fifteen-year journey along the trail of the progressive disease and talks about how they lived through it through their love for each other and faith in God. Their story should compel readers to contemplate life with Alzheimer’s disease, whether they are caring for a loved one or are simply worried about their own memory.

Anyone who is saving and preparing for the future should as well prepare for a future with Alzheimer’s, whether they have a family history of this disease or not. What many people never know about this disease is that it could hit anyone anytime. It could affect when you can no longer support yourself mentally, physically, and emotionally. You could be diagnosed with the disease when you get weak and feeble in old age or when you are running out of cash at the bank. It is a painful fact that Alzheimer’s Disease affects anyone at their worst and at the wrong time.

Alzheimer’s disease is named after a German psychiatrist who made the first diagnosis and researches on the disease. It is the most common form of dementia, which is a general term for the loss of memory functions or other mental abilities that affect daily life due to damage or disease in the body. Alzheimer’s is a progressive degenerative brain syndrome affecting memory, thinking, behavior, and emotion. It impairs memory and eventually disturbs the reasoning, planning, language, and perception capacities of a person. The damages are severe enough to cause a decline in the sufferer’s usual functioning levels.

People at risk for Alzheimer’s disease may appear healthy but their cognitive function is deteriorating and self-management capacities are diminishing. They can no longer make sense of the world around them. In many instances, it takes a long time before they and/or their loved ones recognize the signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s:

• Memory loss, characterized by the inability to recall events, remember names and persons and retain information
• Difficulty in finding the right words to say
• Difficulty in understanding what people are saying
• Difficulty in performing familiar activities and tasks
• Changes in mood, behavior, or personality
• Disorientation to time, personal information, and place
• Poor judgment
• Difficulty with abstract thinking
• Loss of initiative
• Frequently misplacing things

There are causes and risk factors for every disease. As in the case of Alzheimer’s, these are:

• Old age – Advanced age is the number one risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. If you are approaching 65, you are entering the probability of developing this disease.
• Family history – You may not have the disease at the moment. However, if you have a parent, a sibling, or any close relative who suffers or had suffered from the disease, you are at greater risk.
  • Genes – There are two kinds of genes that are associated with the family history factor:
    • Risk gene (ApoE 4) – This gene increases the possibility of developing the disease but does not guarantee it.
    • Deterministic gene – This is much rarer than the risk gene and only found in few families around the world. If you inherited a deterministic gene, you will undoubtedly develop Alzheimer’s at a much earlier age.
• Lifestyle factors: There are lifestyle factors that contribute to one’s future development of the disease:
  • Serious head injury
  • Tobacco and alcohol abuse
  • Unhealthy diet
  • Lack of exercise or physical activity
  • Lack of social interaction
  • Not doing intellectually stimulating activities, such as chess, word games, puzzles, and other mind-stimulating activities and cognitive games
  • Heart disease or cardiovascular problems, hypertension, diabetes, and elevated blood cholesterol
• Sex – Because they live longer, women are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than men.
• Race – African-Americans are about two times and Hispanics about one and one-half times more likely than white Americans to have Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. However, both races are less likely than whites to have a diagnosis of the disease.  

Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia are one of the costliest diseases in the world, costing the U.S. health care system $290 billion. Governments worldwide spend more than a trillion dollars to provide treatment and patient care as well as maintain nursing homes and homes for the aged. Governments have to raise taxes to maintain medical facilities and training for healthcare providers and caregivers. Not only sufferers and their loved ones and affected families feel the burden of Alzheimer’s but taxpayers too.

Cases of (as well as deaths from) Alzheimer’s are increasing every year in America and other parts of the world. As society continues to age, the financial burden of the disease increases, thus paving the way for bigger expenditures.