ALZHEIMER: A FORGOTTEN DISEASE

• DOI: 10.22533/at.ed.1593852311105

• Palavras-chave: Alzheimer’s; Etiology; Aging.

• Keywords: Alzheimer’s; Etiology; Aging.

• Abstract:

  As we age, some changes occur in different areas of our cognition and behavior, and these changes occur in a temporal order. People over 65 often complain of difficulties with memory and other cognitive abilities compared to their own performance in previous years. Thinking about the prevalence of AD and other dementias that affect cognition, this complaint is understandable and requires careful attention. The objective of this work was to describe the main etiologies of Alzheimer's and its respective treatment. RESULT AND DISCUSSION: Sudden changes in cognition can predict the onset of AD within an approximate period of seven years. In longitudinal research carried out by Sliwinski et al. (1996) apud (Kaszniak AW 2001), where patients with pre-clinical symptoms of AD were included, significant effects of age on cognition were found. Therefore, many changes are not common to normal aging, but are the result of changes that precede AD. In research comparing groups of patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), mild AD and normal elderly people, it was found that the AD group presented more severe episodic memory deficits and visual-spatial impairments. As for executive functions, they showed milder impairments at the beginning of the disease than those observed at the beginning of FTD. However, some executive dysfunctions are present at the beginning of the disease, and perhaps these patients who present these difficulties are part of a subgroup of AD, with severe frontal neuropathology. The FTD group demonstrated severe impairment of executive functions and episodic recall memory with greater preservation of recognition memory in the early stages (Perry RJ, Hodges JR, 1999). CONCLUSION: The numerous studies reviewed above demonstrate that executive functions act directly on the global cognitive functioning and activities of daily living of the elderly. Knowing that changes in these functions can be observed in normal elderly people and are generally observed in patients with AD, it is important to carry out a differential diagnosis and refer them to appropriate treatments. Finally, it is important that future research investigates in a systematic and controlled manner the heterogeneity of cognitive deficits observed in AD, as in the case of patients with predominantly executive function deficits.