Elderly forgetfulness and Alzheimer's disease

What is senile amnesia?

The decline of human memory is directly proportional to the increase of age. Elderly amnesia is the physiological decline of intelligence in the brain after old age, and the symptoms of amnesia appear, but the symptoms are mild and have relatively little impact on life.

What is Alzheimer's disease?

Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disease with unknown etiology. It is the most common cause of dementia in the elderly.

A series of neurological dysfunctions are caused by long-term and progressive damage to the brain. Its clinical manifestations include decreased memory function, visual-spatial relationship, language, abstract thinking, learning, calculation ability and behavioral ability, and severe cognitive impairment; depression, hallucinations, suspicion (always saying that others steal their things), aggressiveness and other mental and neurological symptoms may also occur, and personality changes may occur; more serious cases may include: loss of daily living ability, not recognizing relatives, and inability to dress, eat, and defecate; serious consequences often occur due to bedridden infection.

The disease usually occurs at a certain age (over 65 years old).

The difference between the two

Alzheimer's disease is a manifestation of physiological changes in the elderly, namely, the brain undergoes physiological intellectual decline and symptoms of forgetfulness appear, but the ability to recognize major events remains basically unchanged.

Alzheimer's disease is a pathological change. The early manifestation of amnesia is that you can't remember it at all. The same kind of amnesia continues to occur many times, and the memory process is impaired. In addition to memory impairment, Alzheimer's patients also have personality, language, cognitive, and visual-spatial disorders. Alzheimer's patients initially only have symptoms such as clumsy movements and talking to themselves. As the disease progresses, the dementia will become more and more serious: slurred speech and incoherent speech; significant memory loss, forgetfulness after speaking, and sometimes even unable to tell one's own name and age; even forgetting where they live when they go out and cannot go home. In the later stages of the disease, the patient is completely in a state of dementia, with slow movements, listlessness, silence all day, or irrelevant answers, incoherent speech, and inability to take care of themselves.

Therefore, the causes of senile forgetfulness and Alzheimer's disease are different, and the clinical manifestations are also different. If you observe carefully and then go to the hospital for examination, you can still distinguish them.

How to recognize the signs of Alzheimer's disease?

The following symptoms are more common:

1. Memory loss affects daily life.

Due to damage to brain synaptic function, newly established information channels are unstable and easily damaged, and newly acquired information is forgotten immediately. The impact on short-term and recent memory is one of the most common early signs, such as:

(1) Forgetting what you just did, wearing glasses on your head or holding them in your hands, and looking for them everywhere in the house, and this phenomenon happens frequently;

(2) They can’t find the right words to speak, they keep talking nonsense and explaining too much, and they are becoming more and more confused;

(3) Having difficulty with vocabulary, for example, calling a “watch” a “clock on the hand” or saying “want a hat” as “want pants”.

2. The ability to plan things and judgment deteriorate or weaken, making it difficult to solve problems.

3. Changes in mood and personality.

The patient will become confused, suspicious, depressed, fearful, or anxious. As long as they leave their own "comfort zone", they will easily become upset. They always accuse others of stealing things. People who used to be very clean and generous in life often go out to pick up things and take them home to hide them.

4. Confused about time or place.

Sufferers lose track of dates, seasons, and time of day. Sometimes they may forget where they are or how they got there.

5. There are difficulties in understanding visual images and spatial relationships.

6. Difficulty finding words when speaking or writing. Difficulty finding words may be the earliest language barrier, which is manifested in not being able to find the right words, using empty words, and giving too many explanations.

7. Loss of the ability to self-correct, that is, the ability to redo and go back to look for items if they are misplaced or lost.

How to prevent Alzheimer's disease in daily life?

The latest research shows that maintaining a healthy lifestyle can help reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease. We can focus on eating, drinking, playing and having fun in our daily lives.

Eat: Balanced diet, eat more vegetable protein and calcium-containing foods, supplement vitamin E and lecithin, folic acid and B vitamins in moderation, fresh vegetables and fruits. Walnuts and other nuts have a "brain-boosting" effect. Walnuts have a high proportion of monounsaturated fatty acid oil (58% to 74%), which can increase the nutritional supply of the brain. The trace elements and phospholipids they contain can promote the proliferation of nerve cells and are high in antioxidants. In March 2004, the US FDA published materials saying that it can be beneficial to coronary heart disease and reduce the incidence.

A foreign research institute published an experiment on transgenic mice with Alzheimer's disease. The mice aged 4 months were divided into two groups. One group ate walnuts aged 9 to 15 months, and the other group did not. When they grew up to 13 to 14 months and 18 to 19 months, they were examined respectively. The results showed that the mice that did not eat walnuts had memory defects, anxiety-related behaviors, impaired spatial learning ability, impaired position discrimination learning ability, motor coordination and other problems, while the mice that took walnuts aged 9 to 15 months had significant improvements in learning, memory, movement, and emotional regulation.

To supplement antioxidant foods, you can also refer to the Mediterranean diet. The Mediterranean diet mainly includes fish, grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts and olive oil, usually with a moderate amount of red wine. Meat and dairy products are very small.

In addition, the principle that needs special attention is: eat in moderation and do not overeat. Long-term overeating can easily cause cerebral arteriosclerosis, premature brain aging, intellectual impairment, etc.

Drink: Drink moderate amounts of drinks such as wine and green tea that have a "brain-boosting" effect.

Play: Keep using your brain. The more you use it, the smarter it will be. You should insist on choosing some memory-related sports such as Tai Chi, dancing, etc.

Persistent physical exercise can stimulate the brain to generate nerve cells, increase brain-derived neurotrophic factor, enhance synaptic function, increase learning ability, and improve vascular function.

Le: Studies have found that elderly people who have more social interaction activities have stronger cognitive functions than those who live in isolation, even when their overall brain pathology is equally severe.