What’s The Best Way For Treating Alzheimer’s Disease?
Alzheimer’s disease is a challenging brain disorder that affects the person’s ability to coordinate movements. It also impairs memory, and leads to serious changes in personality and behavior. Although health researchers and scientists have not yet found the cure for this brain disorder, as well as halt its spread, a number of medical researchers have made significant headway in devising approaches for improving the person’s symptoms, and for lessening the progression of this debilitating brain condition.
What Doctors Consider When They Devise A Treatment Plan
Doctors and medical researchers have developed a number of proposed treatment plans for treating Alzheimer’s. When developing the treatment plans, most doctors generally consider the disease’s cognitive and behavioral symptoms in a separate manner. The cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer’s include deficiencies with language, judgment and reasoning and memory loss. The diseases’ behavioral symptoms include agitation, aggression, suspicion and paranoia, among others.
Treatment Of Cognitive Symptoms
The US Food and Drug Administration or FDA has already approved two types of medications for alleviating or easing the cognitive symptoms of this dreadful brain disorder. Cholinesterase inhibitors are drugs that are known to enhance the levels of a chemical called acetylcholine, which researchers say plays a vital role in learning and memory. The medication slows down or postpones the progression of symptoms, usually from 6 to 12 months.
This type of inhibitor is more commonly prescribed for mild to moderate Alzheimer’s, and the popular brands include Razadyne ( galantamine), Exelon (rivastigmine) and Aricept (donezipil HCL). Since some individuals exhibit varying side effects and other interactions with some medications, other physicians will try using different cholinesterase inhibitors, until they determine the most suitable brand for the patient.
Namenda (memantine) is also a medication that helps regulate the levels of glutamate in the brain. This is used to treat moderate to severe Alzheimer’s, and also helps delay the progression of symptoms in some individuals. However, once a doctor determines that cholinesterase inhibitors are no longer potent, he or she will recommend tapering off the medication, and switch to using memantine. Sometimes, these two medications are used in tandem during the moderate stage of the disease.
Treatment of Behavioral Symptoms
Some of the most common behavioral symptoms of Alzheimer’s include agitation, aggression, suspicion and depression. The behavioral symptoms are often a result of severe damage to the brain cells, which are the same as the cognitive symptoms. In the treatment of the diseases’ behavioral symptoms, doctors utilize an array of anti-anxiety drugs to treat more violent symptoms such as agitation and aggression.
Anti-psychotic drugs are also used for alleviating symptoms such as paranoia, depression and suspicion. However, the use of anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic medications may bring a number of unwanted side effects; therefore caution should be exercised when using these medications.
Some doctors stress that a combination of drug and non-drug methods need to be used in tandem, to better tackle the disease. Non-drug treatment methods include crafting an approach that changes the person’s living environment, analyzing the person’s behavior, as well as changing the caregiver’s reaction to the patient’s behavior.