Stem cell therapies and Alzheimer’s disease
even greater memory loss, forgetting their personal history, the school that they went to, their address and phone number for example. There are major changes in personality and behaviour and one can experience delusions.
Severe dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease is when symptoms are at their worst. The people in this stage may experience weight loss, urinary incontinence, loss of speech, and significant problems with short-and long-term memory. Physical activities decline, and the person cannot walk without support. Patients may develop behavioural and psychological symptoms such as anxiety, aggression, depression, delusions, hallucinations. The rate of progression for Alzheimer’s disease varies widely. On average the life expectancy after diagnosis can be between 3 and 11 years after diagnosis, but some can be even 20 years or more. The stage of the disease in which diagnosis occurs also affects this number. After having gained an understanding about how the disease causes symptoms in patients, we can look at the treatments currently implemented today. Targeting neurosynaptic loss is a potentially effective strategy in finding a cure, which is why stem cells hold a huge potential with their ability to regenerate any cell type.
Section 2: The effectiveness of current treatments
There is no cure for Alzheimer’s. The treatments today involve managing symptoms and improving quality of life. This will be explored in this section by understanding the medication that the patient can be prescribed, the behavioural therapies available to the patient, as well as current advice on how an individual can potentially prevent the disease before symptoms are displayed. By looking at all these aspects of treatment, we can evaluate their success by the impact on the patient’s quality of life.
2.1: Medication
Currently, there are no drugs that reverse the neuronal loss and cognitive decline of AD pathology. These drugs discussed aim to relieve symptoms and can prolong this neurodegeneration.
There are 4 internationally approved drugs that are clinically prescribed for the treatment of Alzheimer’ s. 24 Three of them, Donepezil, Rivastigmine, and Galantamine, are known as acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors (AChEs). They work by binding to and paralysing a protein called acetylcholinesterase, which is responsible for the degrading of acetylcholine. 25 As mentioned previously, acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter which allows neurons to send chemical messages to one another so that we can carry out day-to-day function. 26 Hence, when these drugs paralyse acetylcholinesterase, they increase the levels of acetylcholine, which helps the neurons communicate better even with the added stress of plaques and tangles (figure 4). Patients who have reported taking AChEs find that it helps with anxiety, memory, and concentration, increasing their ability to carry out daily activities.
24 Treatment – Alzheimer’s disease 2018. 25 Jebelli 2017a: 33. 26 Ibid.: 28.
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