     Assist | Friday, December 01, 2000 - 10:56 pm
Nacima,
Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of the dementias, but remember that there are many types of dementias — some reversible, and others, like Alzheimer's disease — irreversible.
The question is what is dementia? Dementia is the loss of intellectual and social abilities severe enough to interfere with daily functioning. Symptoms of dementia vary in severity, order of appearance and with the type of dementia. But all dementias involve some impairment of memory, thinking, reasoning and language. Personality changes and abnormal behavior may also occur as dementia progresses.
The disease was named after Alois Alzheimer, a German physician. In 1906, Dr. Alzheimer noticed changes in the brain tissue of a woman who had died of an unusual mental illness. He found abnormal clumps (plaques) and tangled bundles of fibers (tangles).
Other changes in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease that has been discovered include a loss of nerve cells in the areas of the brain vital to memory and other mental functions, and lowered levels of neurochemicals (esp. Acetylcholine) in the brain that carry complex messages back and forth between billions of nerve cells important to thinking and memory.
The first sign of Alzheimer's disease may be mild forgetfulness. The disease progresses to affect language, reasoning, understanding, reading or writing. Eventually, people with Alzheimer's disease may become anxious or aggressive, and may even wander from home.
There are yet no cures, but researchers studying Alzheimer's have made progress, especially in the last 5 years. New drugs that can temporarily improve mental abilities in some people with mild Alzheimer's are now available, and more drugs are being studied. Researchers also have discovered several genes associated with Alzheimer's. Furthermore, scientists are defining subgroups of dementias and their distinguishing characteristics in the hopes of refining treatments.
I hope that this information will give an idea about what you are looking for.
Ramadan Kariim
Universita of Southern Mudug, Hobyo
Department of Neurology, Research Unit |
| Assist | Monday, December 04, 2000 - 12:10 am
Nacima.
Sis, how do you know that we have learnt it by doing copy and paste. Was this your first report on a certain disease?
I did not want to teach you anything , but I tried to add it to a comprehensive info about the disease that you mentioned in order to let other people to understand what you were talking about.
I am glad that you are aware of it, though it appears that it costed you to have done a report on it (much better than to copy and paste....)
It seems to me that you are one of us, but who just has emigrated to the one of developed country and then has had a functioning brain-wash by your educational Institution regarding the third world's knowledge.
I am afraid that few Somalis know about it. Although it depends on the general knowledge of the person and wether the person (him/herself or his/her relatives) has happened to get it or no.
In the past we thought about doing a survey of some CNS degenerative disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases on Somalis in our region, but due to the highly threatening infectious diseases -which are endemic in Somalia - and lack of fund we decided to address our already scarce resource to the diseases such as TB, Malaria and AIDS.
I hope you will not make again such selfishness and unprofessional statement to others thinking that most of the knowledge is only on your report and what they do others are only to copy and paste.
Assist |
