How Does Alzheimer's Disease Erase Your Mind?

Alzheimer's Disease affects an estimated 6.5 million people of all ages. What exactly is it? What happens if you develop it?

Learn more about the relationship between music and memory, as seen in Stranger Things, in this video from Science to Save the World: https://youtu.be/Pn_J-f1-8dg

Support the great work being done by Lifespan, the team powering Life Noggin: https://www.lifespan.io/life-noggin/

What is Alzheimer's Disease?

Imagine waking up and not knowing what day of the week it is. Or the month, or even year. The room you wake in is unfamiliar and you can’t remember what you were supposed to do today. You go to the kitchen to make coffee, but can’t remember where it is. You go to feed the cat, but can’t remember if you already have. Then someone comes in and says “Good morning”, but you have no idea who they are.

This is what it's like to have Alzheimer’s disease.

This brain disorder slowly destroys memory, thinking, and eventually the ability to complete simple tasks, have conversations, or respond to stimuli.

In the United States, it's the 7th leading cause of death, affecting about 5.6 million Americans 65 years and older and 200,000 under 65 with younger-onset Alzheimer’s. Scientists are still working to determine the cause, but believe it’s due to a combination of genetics; health, environment, and lifestyle factors; and age-related changes in the brain.

Two key features of Alzheimer’s disease are plaques and tangles that develop in the brain. Plaques are deposits of the protein beta-amyloid that build up between nerve cells, or neurons, and tangles are twisted fibers of the protein tau that build up inside cells. Most experts believe that they block connections, and therefore communication, between neurons causing cell damage and death.

Currently, there is no cure, though there are several treatments to manage symptoms. But newer medications are being developed to prevent or delay the progression of the disease, including the recently approved drug aducanumab.This medication is a monoclonal antibody, which are believed to be able to prevent beta-amyloid from clumping into plaques or remove these plaques after they’ve formed.

Other therapies under investigation include drugs that could help restore synapses and reverse memory loss, keep tau from tangling, and reduce inflammation. Scientists believe that future Alzheimer's treatment will involve a combination of these and other types of medications. Research has also found that music can benefit Alzheimer’s patients both in terms of behavior and cognition, particularly with music that the patient is familiar with - such as Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush.

This could be because listening to music reactivates areas of the brain linked to memory, reasoning, speech, and emotion, and areas associated with musical memory are relatively undamaged by Alzheimer’s disease. If you’re not understanding the reference in the background, go watch stranger things Season 4. This episode was amazing.

Our team members here at Lifespan, which is Life Noggin’s larger team, are also working on a treatment using a combination of light and sound to reverse the effects of dementia like Alzheimer's. If you’re interested, be sure to like this video and we’ll make more videos on this topic.

If you’re comfortable with sharing, let us know your /and or their experience with this disease.

Meet the Life Noggin Team!
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Director/Voice - Pat Graziosi: http://twitter.com/PatGraziosi
Executive Producer - Keith Comito: https://twitter.com/KeithComito
Animation by Robert Grisham
Written by Ashleen Knutsen

Sources:
https://www.alzsd.org/words-like-alzheimers/
https://www.agingcare.com/articles/what-it-feels-like-to-have-alzheimers-177089.htm
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-alzheimers-disease
https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/what-is-alzheimers
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/aging/publications/features/Alz-Greater-Risk.html
https://www.alzheimers.gov/alzheimers-dementias/alzheimers-disease
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/how-alzheimers-disease-treated
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alzheimers-disease/in-depth/alzheimers-treatments/art-20047780
https://www.alz.org/help-support/i-have-alz/treatments-research
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alzheimers-disease/expert-answers/music-and-alzheimers/faq-20058173
https://www.alz.org/help-support/caregiving/daily-care/art-music
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2019.00132/full#h6news https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6022981
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2019.00132/full#h6news
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/music-can-boost-memory-and-mood
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alzheimers-disease/expert-answers/music-and-alzheimers/faq-20058173

Did everyone catch the stranger things reference in the video!?

#education #lifenoggin #strangerthings

Видео How Does Alzheimer's Disease Erase Your Mind? канала Life Noggin