Alzheimer´s, Parkinson’s, diabetes, and cataracts are among the most common diseases or conditions affecting today’s senior citizens. Learning to help the elderly is an essential aspect of extending their quality of life. Although each syndrome requires a different medical treatment, all of them demand a couple of basic premises: treatment and care from those at home.
Alzheimer’s disease is the progressive loss of cognitive functions, such as remembering, reasoning, and thinking. Patients with the disease often lose the ability to perform simple tasks like chewing food, turning a doorknob, or brushing their teeth. Alzheimer’s is considered one of the most grueling and cruelest forms of illness, robbing patients and their families of cherished memories. To effectively assist patients with Alzheimer´s, relatives or caregivers must endow themselves with lots of patience and understanding. There is no cure for the disease. Thus, besides the medication to slow down symptoms, patients are guided with routines to ease up their confusion and anxiety. Memantine, galantamine, rivastigmine, and donepezil are some of the drugs prescribed to treat symptoms. The final stage of Alzheimer’s frequently involves bed-ridden patients, absolutely unable to communicate with the world. Body dysfunction and eminent death usually lasts from one to two weeks, with most patients passing away in tranquility.
Parkinson’s is another disease associated with the elderly. Early symptoms include rigidity, unstable walk, and tremor. Its origins could be genetic, traumatic, or toxins exposure. Patients with advanced Parkinson’s can barely walk and they are gradually unable to stand up. They also acquire slurry speech and show signs of progressive invalidism. The disease is incurable and is usually treated to reduce symptoms with medication like levodopa, anticholinergics, and dopamine agonists. Although Parkinson’s does not cause death directly, the eventual immobility produces irreversible damage to the body. However, patients may live over 15 years with the disease, depending on heritage factors, and the late stages for family members are less demanding than those observed in Alzheimer´s.
Diabetes is the condition related to the lack of insulin in the body that triggers high blood sugar. Although diabetes may be diagnosed in young people, the risks associated with the disease dramatically increase in patients over 55. Diabetes 1 occurs when the body does not produce insulin. Diabetes 2 is diagnosed when cells grow resistant to insulin and a deficiency develops. The latter one is the type of diabetes most dangerous to senior patients, mainly because, after 55, illnesses associated with diabetes are more difficult to treat and subdue. The body is affected by the lack of insulin and symptoms like blurred vision, irregular breathing, stomachache, and nausea begin to appear. Patients with diabetes may experience excessive urination and instances of dehydration. In senior patients, the condition may get more complicated and lead to hypoglycaemia, an undersupply of glucose to the brain that can lead to seizures and permanent impairment of abilities. Oral antidiabetic agents are used to fight off hypoglycaemia, although the attention needed in older people to successfully fight off the disease is generally permanent and full of challenges for relatives or keepers.
A less dramatic affliction in seniors, popularly known as senile cataract, is an eye condition that blocks the passage of light, swells the lens behind the iris and the pupil, and may lead to the loss of vision. Indeed, 17 million people around the world are blind because of cataracts. Its early symptoms include blurred vision, overreaction to light, and lose of color brightness. Amid the causes of the disease, overexposure to ultraviolet light is one of the leading suggested factors, along with diabetes, steroid use, heavy intake of antioxidants, and frequent alcohol drinking. Although there are some treatments for cataracts, like carnosine eye-drops, it is widely believed that the most effective remedy is surgery. Each year, over one million patients in the U.S. undergo eye surgery in an attempt to fight the disease. Although the majority of operations are successful, some cases may regress or end up in opacification, rendering cataracts a permanent risk, especially in older people.
How can senior diseases be avoided? Defying body deterioration is an impossible task. Humans are born, they grow, and they die. It’s a fact of life. Nevertheless, science has demonstrated that healthy eating habits, physical and mental activity, vitamins, and a good heritage disposition may extend life to previously unknown lengths or at least improve the quality of an individual’s twilight years.