welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Friday, December 18, 2020

alzheimers news-what happens in the brain in alzheimers

ALZHEIMERS NEWS-HOW ALZHEIMERS CHANGES THE BRAIN
 

this video below from the nih shows what happens as one develops alzheimers in the brain

the first thing that happens is the amyloid starts to accumulate in the brain
it forms plaques between the brain cells which damages the brain cells
this starts in the typical late onset alzheimers disease patient around their late 40s to early 50s
this amyloid can be detected as some point by doing the amyloid pet scan which will show the amyloid plagues
soon blood tests will be available to detect this amyloid accumulation
my drug biogens aducanumab removes that accumulated amyloid
hopefully it will slow down the disease some

then around 5 years or so later the tau proteins inside the brain cells start to be damaged and unwind and form tangles
these tangles eventually lead to the death of the brain cells
there are tau pet scans used in research that shows the tau tangle accumulation
there soon will be blood tests that will measure this tau tangle accumulation

then the garbage truck cells called microglia start to try to clean up the damage
the astrocytes come in to help the microglia cleans things up 
chronic inflammation occurs which causes even more damage

there may be vascular defects that occur and glucose metabolism may be affected

all of this spreads eventually all over the brain
the brain shrinks starting first in the hippocampal area of the brain where short term memory is processed

somewhere around the late 60s or early 70s in this typical late onset alzheimers patient memory issues will develop
early on this is called mild cognitive impairment 
this is when the memory tests like the mmse or moca or neuropsychological exams become abnormal

soon the disease will take off and go through the mild to the moderate then to the severe stages of the disease
these late onset alzheimers patients die in their 70s and 80s

this short easy to understand video below puts all of this in a visual media for you to see what happens


be safe
take care of your health
we need a treatment and cure for this awful disease alzheimers 

the organicgreen doctor

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