How your brain changes due to Alzheimer’s

by Pavitra Sampath for The Health Site:

Alzheimer's is quite a debilitating condition. Not only does it affect the person afflicted, it also takes a toll on his/her loved ones. But the gradual deterioration seen in patients with Alzheimer’s starts with mild cognitive impairment which then progresses to Alzheimer’s.

While this is a well known fact, there are a few areas that scientists have not been able to understand about the disease. For one – how does it progress and affect the brain.

Now we might have the answer. According to the team of scientists, including Sylvie Belleville at the Research Centre at the Institut universitaire de geriatrie de Montreal  –

When the changes that occurred in people with stable MCI was compared to those whose MCi progressed to Alzheimer’s they found the following pattern;

• The study found that different cognitive areas were affected differently and do not change in the same uniform way.
• The decline (cognitive decline) did not occur in a linear fashion. In fact they also found that the path to dementia is complex and sometimes has periods of stability; which is then followed by rapid decline – specifically one or two years before the diagnosis.
• While this might sound like bad news to some, but Belleville believes it to be a blessing – touting it to be a great way to catch the symptoms of the ailment early and slow down its progression. This discovery comes at a time when the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s may come up to 15 years after the first symptoms of its onset appear.

The study is published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Source: http://bit.ly/1LqCd5p