Stem cell therapies and Alzheimer’s disease
at an age under 65. As one gets older, above the age of 65, a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or vascular dementia doubles roughly every 5 years. There are many risk factors, such as gender and ethnicity, but some of these do not help doctors, for a couple of reasons. For some of these risk factors, there is not sufficient evidence to indicate the chance that people with these certain risk factors have of developing the disease. Thus, this is not useful to doctors when helping treat patients early, as it may mean that someone is female (females are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s due to average higher life expectancy than males) and has a high blood pressure (another risk factor), but may never develop Alzheimer’s, or is diagnosed with another condition as age is a major risk factor for many other diseases, such as cancer or cardiovascular disease. On the other hand, with scientific research improving regarding the issue of dementia, the knowledge that the risk of Alzheimer’s increases with age gives us a huge advantage when helping fight the disease, as it means that treatments can be implemented earlier. Overall, the knowledge of the risk factors for Alzheimer’s has helped us fight the disease, such as through early prevention like screening, and lifestyle changes.
2.4: Overall Effectiveness
The patient’s quality of life is the focus with all current treatments. Holistic care, whereby the full needs of the patients are met, socially, mentally, and physically, needs to be fulfilled if the treatment is to be deemed successful. The adaptability of the many forms of treatment for AD means numerous routes can be taken for the individual diagnosis of a patient. Responses to behavioural therapies have shown that mood and well-being are improved during the treatments, and there are modest improvements with medication in terms of memory and improving day-to-day function. Current medications for AD slow mental decline for a limited time, during the early stages of the disease, but do not stop the eventual downward spiral. The costs of a carer and continuous care can be expensive considering the long progression of the disease. Costs for medication, and 24/7 care at home on top of the cost of services such as adult day centres increase the heavy financial toll on individual families. The stage of the disease that the patient is in determines the cost of care, with those in the later stages of the disease requiring more assistance with daily activities. 36 A lack of dementia specialists exacerbates the issue, meaning primary care doctors must provide care to dementia patients, and can feel underprepared and inadequately trained. Patients do not improve significantly in quality of life, but current treatments manage symptoms and prolong the inevitable progression, meaning it is to some extent effective. Despite this, the need for an effective treatment to halt or reverse neurodegenerative decline is still needed, as current treatments are not entirely effective as they do not stop the cognitive decline, are very expensive, and do not stop the emotional distress the disease brings.
Section 3: The potential of stem cell therapies
The field of regenerative medicine is rapidly evolving, providing attractive alternative options for fighting diseases due to the ability of stem cells to regenerate vital organs. Currently, no stem cell treatments are approved for AD, but there is increasing research into the potential of stem cell therapies. Stem cells could theoretically be planted into areas of the brain suffering severe neuronal loss and the stem cells could regenerate the neurons destroyed by AD. In this section we will look at the
36 Stringfellow 2018.
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