Difference Between Alzheimers’s and Senility

Alzheimer’s and Senility

Both Alzheimer’s and senility are encountered when a person gets old. Alzheimer’s disease is an illness but senility is not. Although both refer to the decline of a person’s ability to carry out basic body functions and cognitive functions. These are widespread common medical conditions that are gradually obtained with age. More and more people suffer from these Alzheimer’s and senility. Alzheimer’s disease alone is expected to increase its number of affected individuals by 11 million in 2040 and that’s just in America.

Here are some quick facts for Alzheimer’s and senility.

Alzheimer’s disease is a permanent and progressive brain disease that demolishes a person’s memory, thinking skills, and eventually includes difficulty in performing the slightest of the most common daily activities. Old people suffering from Alzheimer’s die earlier than they naturally should. The earliest symptoms of this disease are first encountered when a person arrives at his/her 60th year. For every eight people aging 65 and above, one suffers from this disease. The cause of Alzheimer’s disease or AD is still a mystery for scientists and doctors. Autopsy shows that people who die of Alzheimer’s have build- up of proteins in the brain. These protein build ups are shown in plaques (protein beta amyloid that gathers in the spaces between the nerve cells) and tangles (protein tau that gathers will within nerve cells). Plaques and tangles are believed to be blocking the nerve cell’s process to communicate with each other. This results to the deteriorating chance of cells to survive. Everyone, especially those who have parents with AD, can suffer the disease. And it cannot be prevented. External factors also contribute to the chance of suffering from AD. But there can be ways to lessen the risk or at least live a healthy life when aging and these are: active and healthy physical and mental activities, proper diet with green, mean and leafy vegetables, lower high blood pressure, maintaining healthy weight, social and intellectual engagement with people around the patients, and a whole lot more. Although AD still has no permanent cure, there are various medical treatments that help a patient cope up with the battle from AD. These treatments include delaying imminent symptoms, maintaining the basic mental functions like doing simple math problems, and managing behavioral symptoms. Behavioral symptoms include anxiety, sleeplessness, anger, depression, and many more. But if these symptoms are treated, it makes taking care of AD patients easier because they feel more comfortable.

Senility, which is commonly associated with dementia and Alzheimer’s, is a condition associated with old age. It’s not a disease but a condition that describes other symptoms like memory loss, diminishing reasoning ability, and reduction of other cognitive functions. This condition could be caused by a lot of reasons such as depression, addiction, alcoholism, stroke, imbalance of hormone and thyroid (Hashimoto’s Disease), and malnutrition. It could also be caused by other serious mental diseases such as Parkinson’s, Vascular Dementia, Hunti9ngton’s Chorea and the leading cause, Alzheimer’s. The first batch of senility causes is reversible with proper treatments; however, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s are not. Senile persons no longer have the ability to think, remember and imagine things the way they are done when the patients were younger. Senility is a degenerative condition that gets worse through time. Even though some of the conditions linked with senility are irreversible, an earlier diagnosis could help the patient and the family of the patient to create a managing plan that would make things easier for both of the parties.

SUMMARY:

1.

Both Alzheimer’s and senility are brain conditions associated with aging people.
2.

Alzheimer is a cognitive illness while senility is a cognitive condition that describes other symptoms.
3.

Alzheimer’s is not curable and could cause senility. Other senility not caused by Alzheimer’s is curable or treatable.

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