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Alzheimer's Awareness Month
November 17, 2009 |
It’s a new and startling statistic: every 70 seconds, someone will develop Alzheimer’s
disease in this country.
“It has a lot of other impacts besides just forgetting what day it is,” explains Dr. Michael Raab, a geriatrician with Lee Memory Care. It’s predicted that Alzheimer’s-related
cases will increase rapidly in the coming years and with it, some common misconceptions
about the disease.
We posed several of these to Dr. Raab. The first: Alzheimer’s just affects the memory.
“When the effect becomes noticeable depends on age, education level, general health
and other disease. So if you have hardening of the arteries from diabetes, high
cholesterol, high alcohol use, high blood pressure, the effects of Alzheimer’s disease
is going to be noticed more early,” says Dr. Raab. The second: Alzheimer’s just
affects the memory. “It affects your memory and your ability to function. Having
an effect on your memory is serious enough especially if you have other diseases
because now you may forget to take your insulin if you are a diabetic, or forget
to take your blood pressure medicine and then the consequences of you not taking
your medicine for heart failure could end you up in the hospital.” The third: Alzheimer’s
is not treatable.
“It’s not reversible. But
we do have treatments that slow the
progression. Early treatment keeps people at home with their families doing more
things for a much longer period of time.”
Those treatments can come in the form of mental and physical exercises designed
specifically by the staff at Lee Memory Care. To learn more, you can call 239-334-5634.
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