September 21st every year is World Alzheimer’s Day around the world. This is an international campaign aimed at raising awareness and challenge the common stigma that surrounds Alzheimer related to dementia.
Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease that impairs memory and other mental functions. It is the most common form of dementia that generalizes memory loss and loss of other essential cognitive abilities that are serious enough to interfere with an individual’s daily life.
Facts about Alzheimer's Disease:
- Alzheimer's disease is a progressive brain disease. It starts with forgetting things and develops short memory loss which results in difficulty in remembering recent events, eventually resulting in the inability to look after daily activities and even basic needs.
- Alzheimer's disease mostly affects elderly people. Since the population of elderly people is rising in India, this is the cause of alarm.
- The exact cause of Alzheimer's disease is not yet known. Certain complex events occurring in the brain appear to cause this disease.
- There is no cure for Alzheimer's disease. Early detection benefits the patient in treating this disease effectively.
- The treatment modalities include medicinal, psychological and care giving aspects.
- Family and social support plays a key role.
Helpful tips for prevention:
Engagement in physical, mental, social and recreational activities such as:
- Reading
- Writing for pleasure
- Playing musical instruments
- Taking part in adult education courses
- Playing indoor games such as crosswords, puzzles, scrabble and chess
- Swimming
- Group sports, such as bowling
- Walking
- Yoga and Meditation
World Alzheimer's Day Quotes and Sayings:
Man's memory shapes Its own eden within.
–Jorge Luis Borges
You can't converse with Alzheimer's sufferers in the way you do with others; the dialogue tends to go round in circles.
–Kevin Whately
What really scares me is Alzheimer's or premature senility, losing that ability to read and enjoy and to write. And you do it, and some days maybe aren't so good, and then some days, you really catch a wave, and it's as good as it ever was.
–Stephen King
Suffering is always hard to quantify especially when the pain is caused by as cruel a disease as Alzheimer's. Most illnesses attack the body; Alzheimer's destroys the mind and in the process, annihilates the very self.
–Jeffrey Kluger
Alzheimer's disease is death before death, and I'm terrified of it.
–Joey Comeau
I think the earlier stages of Alzheimer's are the hardest. Particularly because the person knows that they are losing awareness. They're aware that they're losing awareness, and you see them struggling.
–Patti Davis
Alzheimer's is a disease for which there is no effective treatment whatsoever. To be clear, there is no pharmaceutical agent, no magic pill that a doctor can prescribe that will have any significant effect on the progressive downhill course of this disease.
–David Perlmutter
The great tragedy of Alzheimer's disease, and the reason why we dread it, is that it leaves us with no defence, not even against those who love us.
–P. D. James
Alzheimer's is a devastating disease. It was painful for me and my family to watch my grandfather deteriorate. We must find a cure for this horrible disease.
–David Hyde Pierce
I think the best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I've got Alzheimer's.
–Terry Pratchett
Do you know what Irish Alzheimer's is? It's when you forget everything but your grudges.
–Dana Gould
It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer's you are an old fart. That's how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.
–Terry Pratchett
To put it simply our brain span should match our lifespan.
–Meryl Comer
Alzheimer's disease starts when a protein that should be folded up properly misfolds into a kind of demented origami.
People do not realize that Alzheimer's is not old age. It is a progressive and fatal disease and staggering amounts of people develop Alzheimer's every day.
–Melina Kanakaredes
If you want to avoid Alzheimer's disease, sleep 8 hours a night.
–Deepak Chopra
Alzheimer's it is a barren disease, as empty and lifeless as a desert. It is a thief of hearts and souls and memories.
–Nicholas Sparks
There is a version of Alzheimer's which is early onset Alzheimer's. And it's - it's horrible, because people do get it in their 50s and 60s. And it's terrible.
–Patti Davis
"I often hear people say that a person suffering from Alzheimer's is not the person they knew. I wonder to myself - Who are they then?
–Bob DeMarco
World Alzheimer's Day Poster
