The onset is slow or hidden, and patients and their families often don't know when to start. It is more common in the elderly over 70 years old (male 73 years old, female 75 years old), and a few patients have rapid and clear symptoms after physical illness, fracture or mental stimulation. There are more women than men (female: male is 3: 1).

The main manifestations are cognitive decline, mental symptoms and behavioral disorders, and the ability of daily living is gradually declining. According to the deterioration of cognitive ability and physical function, it can be divided into three periods.

The first stage (1 ~ 3 years)

It's a mild dementia stage. It is characterized by memory loss and prominent forgetfulness of recent events; The ability to judge is reduced, so patients can't analyze, think and judge events, and it is difficult to deal with complex problems; Careless work or housework, unable to complete shopping and economic affairs independently, and social difficulties.

Although I can still do some familiar daily work, I am confused, indifferent, occasionally agitated and often suspicious of new things; Have time orientation disorder, can orient places and people, have difficulty in geographical orientation, and have poor visual space ability of complex structures; There are so few words in speech that it is difficult to name them.

The second stage (2 ~ 10 year)

This is a stage of moderate dementia. It shows that the memory of far and near is seriously damaged, the visual space ability of simple structures is reduced, and the orientation of time and place is blocked; There is serious damage in dealing with problems and distinguishing similarities and differences between things; Can't do outdoor activities independently, and need help in dressing, personal hygiene and keeping personal appearance.

Calculation is not possible; There are various neurological symptoms, including aphasia, apraxia and agnosia; Emotion changes from apathy to impatience, often walking around, manifested as urinary incontinence.

The third stage (8 ~ 12)

This is a stage of severe dementia. The patient has completely relied on the caregiver, and his memory is seriously lacking, with only a fragment of memory; Unable to take care of themselves in daily life, incontinence, silence, stiff limbs, positive cone beam sign on physical examination, strong grip, groping and sucking and other primitive reflexes. Eventually coma, usually died of complications such as infection.

Extended data:

As early as ancient Greece and Rome, philosophers and doctors at that time had discovered the correlation between old age and dementia. 190 1 year, the German psychiatrist Elos Alzheimer Harmo described the first case of Alzheimer's disease. The patient is a 50-year-old woman named August Dieter. Artz Harmo Hamo continued to follow Dieter's progress until the patient died on 1906, after which the case was published.

In the following five years, 1 1 similar cases were reported one after another, and some papers have called this disease "Alzheimer's disease". In July 19 10, 15, Emile Kraepelin described these symptoms as a single disease for the first time in the eighth edition of Psychiatry, and delineated some of Auguste's symptoms (such as hallucinations and delusions) and the pathological features of the disease (arteriosclerosis).

Emile adopted the name "Alzheimer's disease" and called it "early onset dementia" as a subtype of Alzheimer's Harmo's disease.

Until1970s, the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease was still limited to patients aged between 45 and 65 with specific dementia symptoms in the early stage. Until 1977, a seminar on Alzheimer's disease realized that the clinical and pathological manifestations of Alzheimer's Harmo's disease and Alzheimer's Harmo's disease were almost the same.

Although it is emphasized that the etiology of Alzheimer's disease and Alzheimer's disease may be different, this knowledge has prompted the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease to be no longer limited to patients of a certain age. Later, patients over the age of 65 who had symptoms of Alzheimer's disease were also described as "Alzheimer's disease of Harmo type (SDAT)".

Nowadays, Alzheimer's disease has been accepted as a formal medical term, which describes some symptoms of patients of all ages.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia-Alzheimer's disease