Today you will find the principal medicines accessible for Alzheimer’s illness, the most widely recognized kind of dementia. Dementia is the name given to a set of symptoms, including memory loss, difficulties in reasoning and problem solving, behavioral, language and even motor problems, the latter being more common in more serious stages of the disease.
Alzheimer’s sickness harms the cerebrum and makes it shrivel emphatically as it creates, influencing the most changed mental processes. It is a degenerative condition with no known therapy.
Regardless of this, there are various treatments accessible that attempt to defer the course of the sickness to offer a superior personal satisfaction for the patient and their caretakers. Throughout this paper, we will examine the upsides of coming up next Alzheimer’s therapies:
- Medicines;
- Music therapy;
- Psychotherapy;
- Occupational therapy;
- Physiotherapy.
Want to know more? So continue reading!
Alzheimer’s: drug treatments
The administration of specific medications is in fact one of the essential treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. Drug therapy aims to slow the progression of the disease, reduce the cognitive symptoms caused by this type of dementia, such as memory loss and mental confusion, and improve behavioral and psychological symptoms, such as sleep disturbances, agitation, hallucinations and delusions, for example.
It is worth remembering that these medications can only be administered under the guidance of a neurologist or geriatrician. These are the experts top to assess side effects and guide the most proper treatment for each case. It is also important to keep in mind that a person with Alzheimer’s may not be able to remember to take their medications on their own.
Therefore, it is important that this person has a support network that helps and ensures that medications are taken correctly, thinking about strategies that help the person to have control over the doses and frequency in which they are taken, even avoiding that she administers the same dose more than once because she has forgotten that she has already done so.
Therapies for Alzheimer’s disease
As we said at the beginning of the article, it is not just medicines that are capable of helping people with Alzheimer’s live a better quality of life. Of course, they are indispensable, and no therapy replaces the need for them. In any case, actually there are a few treatments that can be partners for patients and their families, extraordinarily working on the patient’s psychological and actual wellbeing.
Want to know more? So check out what these therapies are and how they can help:
Music therapy
Music treatment positively stands apart among medicines for Alzheimer’s because of further developing the patient’s personal satisfaction inconceivable potential.
Studies show that music therapy improves the patient’s focus, their ability to communicate with those close to them and symptoms linked to depression and anxiety, which leads to a decrease in the person’s dependence on medications related to these conditions. Furthermore, in some cases, music therapy even helps to recall “lost” memories and improve nutrition.
Understand how this happens in practice:
- Music therapy can be individual, in a group, or applied both ways. Professionals trained for this type of treatment are those with academic training in music therapy or health professionals such as psychologists, doctors and nurses who have completed postgraduate studies in the area.
- The music therapist can use different approaches during treatment. The choice of these approaches depends largely on the patient’s degree of cognitive and motor impairment. In some therapeutic practices, the patient actively participates in the musical activity, interacting through singing or playing instruments. But make no mistake: even patients who are at more advanced stages of the disease and who are often indifferent to the environment around them can respond positively to music therapy practices.
- Playing songs that were important in a person’s life are techniques especially used in the treatment of Alzheimer’s. This type of stimulus is, without a doubt, capable of awakening memories, which helps the patient to reconnect with loved ones and even with their own identity. In terminally ill patients, returning to lullabies and those generally learned in childhood can provide comforting moments and feelings.
- Group music therapy is especially interesting for stimulating social interaction between patients. Musical practice can involve activities such as dance steps, whenever this is within the patient’s physical possibilities. Physical activity combined with interaction and other physiological and cognitive benefits provided by music therapy can then promote well-being and, consequently, reduce stress, anxiety and depression in patients.
Psychotherapy
After the initial diagnosis, it is highly recommended to consult a specialized psychologist. This is certainly one of the most significant treatments for Alzheimer’s patients, as the therapy helps them deal with symptoms of depression, agitation and anxiety — problems that are often caused by the disease.
Depression occurs in up to 40% of Alzheimer’s patients, and is in fact one of the most common psychological problems that accompany the disease. With this in mind, it becomes easier to understand the psychologist’s role in the patient’s quality of life. As Alzheimer’s progresses, however, psychotherapy becomes less useful. This is because, with cognitive decline, the ability to express feelings may be lost.
However, guardians can keep on profiting from crafted by a clinician. Albeit the focal point of the article is on ways of aiding the patient, it merits recollecting that to deal with others, the guardian additionally needs care. The job of the parental figure is significant, and frequently debilitating. Along these lines, going through psychotherapy is additionally vital for guardians of individuals with Alzheimer’s.
Occupational therapy
Occupational therapy professionals also help people with Alzheimer’s disease and their caregivers in a variety of ways. They can help adapt the environment and find ways to include the patient in daily activities in a safe and efficient way.
Ideally, there should be active participation from caregivers, who can be part of the process by sharing information about everyday life so that the therapist can instruct, encourage and recommend exercises and changes that make it easier to perform tasks more independently. This can be done by creating and modifying routines and implementing adaptive equipment when necessary.
Additionally, the occupational therapist can also determine whether the person responds better to certain types of activities and implement other communication strategies to work with the patient and caregivers. In fact, both the patient and family members and caregivers benefit from the work of the occupational therapist.
This is because, as the patient progresses and regains part of their independence, they tend to experience significant improvements in several areas, such as personal satisfaction and mental health, and all this possibility of improvement certainly reduces the caregiver’s burden, resulting in more quality of life for everyone .
Physiotherapy
Physiotherapy is another treatment for Alzheimer’s that has the surprising role of improving the symptoms of the disease, as well as slowing its progression. A physiotherapist is a specialist who can help minimize motor limitations and establish an exercise program that keeps the person with Alzheimer’s moving.
Physical activity is one of the most effective ways to improve brain health, which is why disease progression slows. Additionally, regular physical activity guided by a qualified professional throughout the stages of Alzheimer’s disease improves areas such as:
- Balance;
- Blood flow to the brain;
- Resistance;
- Flexibility;
- Muscle strength.
Physiotherapy also helps to minimize behavioral problems such as aggression. The therapist applies movements and stretches that release neurotransmitters that calm the brain, and these exercises can be taught to the caregiver so that they can apply the practices at home.