We would like to talk to you about the brain which is a big part of the nervous system. Your brain can be found …show more content…
For those of you who don’t know. Alzheimer’s disease is a type of dementia; it is a progressive brain cell death that can occur in middle or old age. It affects the memory of a person. The size of the brain gradually decreases, because the amount of neurons or nerve cells and connections are decreasing. Although they cannot be seen in a living brain affected by Alzheimer’s, autopsies always show tiny inclusions in the nerve tissue, called plaques and tangles. In the brain, there is a build-up of a protein called beta-amyloid. As a result, some plaques are found in between dying cell inside of the brain. The tangles are in the neurons of the brain as an effect of breakdown of another protein called tau. The cell death occurs because of the death of mitochondria. Mitochondria produce energy needed for any cell to function and survive. In Alzheimer’s disease, the abnormally high amount of beta-amyloid damage brain mitochondria which leads to the neuronal …show more content…
by testing balance, senses and reflexes.
Other diagnostics are:
• Sending off for tests of blood and urine samples
• Arranging brain scans (possibly including CT, MRI and EEG).
In some cases dementia symptoms are similar to an inherited disorder, so genetic testing might be done. If it is done, it would checking for memory loss and mental performance.
Before we watch a video, here is a fun fact about Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is named after a German doctor named Dr. Alois Alzheimer. He noticed some odd things in the brain tissue of a woman whom had died because of an uncommon mental illness. After her death, he had examined her brain and discovered many irregular clumps (now called plaques) and twisted bundles of fibers (now called tangles). As we know now, two of the main features of Alzheimer 's disease are plaques and tangles in the