Welcome back to my blog. This is for the second Action Project for the STEAM class, Disease. In this class we have been learning about various mental disorders such as autism and OCD. Many disorders have causes that still are not fully known and some diseases do not have treatments. Some diseases are fatal and can be difficult to stop. We have also been looking at the different brain waves that are active during parts of the day. These brain wave patterns could be graphed and calculated with their slope ton find the dominant brain wave at different intervals. To learn more about how people can be diagnosed with certain mental disorders by meeting specific criteria we explored the DSM-5. The DSM-5 is a large manual that explains many mental disorders for the use of medical professionals. In this Action Project I chose to research and do a simulation for Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's is a slow progressing disease that starts with memory loss and gradually leading to the complete shutdown of the body. I have recorded a video of myself for the simulation of this disease which can easily be recreated and done by you at home. This blog post includes research on Alzheimer's, where to find support, and the simulation.
Alzheimer’s disease is a slow, fatal disease of the brain that can affect about one in ten people starting from around the age of sixty five or higher. It is the most common cause of dementia and is considered a neurodegenerative disease. Alzheimer’s can be split into two groups: sporadic and familial. This is the majority of Alzheimer’s cases and comes along due to genetic and environmental factors as our research suggests so far. In sporadic cases, a person can be more likely to develop Alzheimer’s at around eighty five years of age. Familial cases can be described by a dominant gene that was inherited which could speed up the development of Alzheimer’s. The cause of Alzheimer’s disease of course appearing in sporadic cases is unknown at the time. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, “Researchers believe there is not a single cause of Alzheimer’s disease.” A few risk factors are age, family history, genetics, and other factors coming from conditions like head or heart injuries. The death rate from Alzheimer’s has increased 145% from between 2000 and 2019. The cost of care for people with Alzheimer’s is substantial with about 355 billion dollars as the projected cost. These numbers will continue to rise and can reach the trillions by 2050 unless a cure or treatment to slow or stop the disease is found. Many years ago flu shots were feared as being a risk factor to developing Alzheimer’s. Although there has not been much over time since then to support that claim some people still believe it as a cause. A study conducted in 2001 showed that the exposure to vaccines for the flu and other viruses was a protector against Alzheimer’s and not a risk for development of it.Two protein fragments called plaques and tangles gather in the brain and kill brain cells. Alzheimer’s starts in the hippocampus which is the part of your brain that first forms memories. Over time, the plaques and tangles will destroy the hippocampus and it becomes harder to form new memories or remember what might have happened a few hours ago. The plaques and tangles then move onto the part of the brain that processes language making it harder to form words or sentences. Next is the front of the brain which controls logical thinking. Eventually the ability to solve problems or understand things is lost. The proteins then move to where emotions are managed and as it slowly gets destroyed someone with Alzheimer’s will lose control of their moods. The disease travels to the section of the brain where it understands the things taken in by a person’s senses. Hallucinations could form and the senses are wrecked. The plaques and tangles eventually erase a person’s oldest and most valuable memories. Near the end of the disease’s course, it compromises a person’s balance and coordination. Finally, the disease invades the part of the brain that controls the heart and breathing causing death.
The Alzheimer’s Association website lists many symptoms of the disease. One symptom is memory loss which disrupts daily life. This means that an individual may be forgetting recently learned information without ever remembering again. Another symptom is difficulty in completing familiar, daily tasks. This symptom can be seen frequently with Alzheimer’s cases and can be possible to show during simulations of Alzheimer’s. The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM-5 can be used to facilitate the more reliable diagnosis of mental disorders. It includes diagnostic criteria for Alzheimer’s disease which states that the possibility of Alzheimer’s should be diagnosed if the patient has, “Clear evidence of decline in memory and learning, steadily progressive and gradual decline in cognition, and no evidence of mixed etiology.” This criteria is saying that if a patient shows clear signs of memory loss and difficulty learning, the continuous failure to acquire knowledge, and no signs of different diseases that may cause the other criteria’s decline then they should be diagnosed with the possibility of having Alzheimer’s.
The Alzheimer’s Association or alz.org is a great resource for support and understanding of Alzheimer’s and Dementia. One contributor to the Alzheimer’s Association is Victor Garber. Garber lost both of his parents to Alzheimer’s and was more involved in the care for his mother. As an actor, Garber was more fortunate to be able to help his mother get moved into a facility that would be comfortable for her and the progression of the disease. He says he has empathy for people who have to give up their jobs to take care of parents who develop Alzheimer’s. Garber says that it can be crucial to ask for help because taking care of someone all the time can be difficult. In a prweb.com article, Garber says, “Take care of yourself, because you have to function. Make sure you have support in place, in any way that you can.” To care for others you must also be caring for yourself because if you aren’t in a good condition it will be difficult to help someone else. Alzheimer’s.net is a social network that provides resources for Alzheimer’s disease such as tests and research. Another good resource for Alzheimer’s support is the University of Chicago Medicine that has done research on the disease and also has appointments for anyone to be tested and cared for by their highly trained team.
After finding more about our disease we had to create a simulation for it. In this simulation I completed three simple household tasks that I should regularly be able to do with ease. These three tasks had to be attempted or finished with some items which can change my perspective of the situation. The tools that are used in this simulation affect my vision, hearing, and movement. By having similar mobility and other senses weakened I can see if my ability to do these tasks has gone down. This is done to show what people with the disease experience in their daily life.
During this simulation you should be experiencing the switch of two different types of brain waves, alpha and beta. Alpha waves can occur when you are taking in information like observing your surroundings or watching something for content. Beta waves occur when your mind is at work, trying to solve a problem or plan something. In the graph below you can see how the different brain waves were active during each minute of the video. The piecewise function which is in red describes which brain waves are dominant during the simulation. The math in white shows the slope of each line segment and where the brain is active during each minute.
I chose to work on Alzheimer's disease because I did not know much about it other than it involving memory loss and being fatal. After researching the disease some more I became pretty invested in how it works to slowly destroy the brain. Alzheimer's is interesting because it is the more common case of dementia which is more involved in short-term memory loss. Alzheimer's spreads through the brain and not only affects short term memory and cognitive thinking but also moving around to where our senses cannot be deciphered and making us lose the memories that we hold dear like birth of your child and other events that are important until it unfortunately causes death. Although I have not had any experience with Alzheimer's in my family that I know of, I now think that this is something I want to be more involved in with supporting. Through this project I have thought about how difficult it can be to care for or support an individual with Alzheimer's and other diseases that can drastically change lives. Thank you for reading this blog post and I encourage supporting the Alzheimer's Association or other groups that are involved.
Sources:
Alzheimer's Association, 2021, https://www.alz.org/, 11 March 2021
Alzheimers.net, 2021, https://www.alzheimers.net/, 11 March 2021
"Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia." UChicago Medicine, 2020, https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/conditions-services/neurology-neurosurgery/conditions-services/alzheimers, 13 March 2021
Wasser, Sarah. "Mediaplanet Partners With Victor Garber in the Fight Against Alzheimer's." PRWeb, 2017, https://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/12/prweb14965658.htm, 12 March 2021
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