Finished Pathology

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) can occur with or without mild behavioral impairment (MBI). MBI can cause short-term memory problems, difficulty finding words, and struggling with familiar tasks. MBI also increases the risk of Alzheimer's dementia and causes neuropsychiatric symptoms. As MCI progresses to stage 1 Alzheimer's, symptoms become more pronounced, including difficulty remembering new information and communicating. Alzheimer's diagnosis is challenging, and ruling out other causes is necessary. As Alzheimer's worsens, brain atrophy affects memory and judgment. Late-stage Alzheimer's leads to severe memory loss, personality changes, and physical decline. Complications can be life-threatening. A definitive diagnosis is only possible through a brain examination after death. Mild cognitive impairment can occur with mild behavioral impairment, MBI, or without. Individuals with MBI may exhibit mild short-term memory impairment, including difficulty keeping track of appointments, recent events, and recent conversations. These patients may struggle to find words, they may forget recent conversations, struggle completing familiar tasks, these include time tasks take, or the order and number of steps in a task, these patients may get lost in familiar places, and those with MBI may have mild neuropsychiatric symptoms, including higher risk of Alzheimer's dementia, decreased motivation, emotional dysregulation, poor impulse control, social inappropriateness, abnormal perception, and abnormal thoughts. When MCI, with or without MBI, advances to stage 1 of Alzheimer's disease, signs and symptoms are more pronounced, but still subtle enough that they can often be misunderstood by patients experiencing them and their loved ones. A patient might find it hard to fully remember new information, like a friend's new home address, or they may ask the same question over and over, as seen in asking a spouse if they are still going out to eat later that day. In these mild stages, communicating becomes slightly more difficult, as words are often lost on the tip of the patient's tongue, and communicating their thoughts to others becomes more convoluted. Daily items, including those that are of high importance, like car keys or a wedding ring, may become misplaced more often. Familiar tasks, like paying bills or planning a birthday party, become burdensome and difficult for the patient to complete. Overall, the patient may notice these subtle changes or the frustration that others have towards their struggles and become more withdrawn, irritable, lose motivation for daily tasks, and suffer depression. One of the toughest things about the early stages of Alzheimer's is that it can be hard to get a definitive diagnosis from a physician. The first step of diagnosis will be based on the experiences of the patient and those closest to them, recounting observed changes in behavior. The second step will be to rule out other possible causes of the behavioral changes, like depression or malnutrition. Finally, the physician will attempt to provide lab values in a scan as proof of Alzheimer's. As Alzheimer's worsens, brain atrophy progresses by region, beginning with the entohinal cortex, which allows access to the hymphocampus, both impacting short-term memory and early-stage Alzheimer's disease. As the disease spreads to the medial temporal lobe, we see symptoms of moderate Alzheimer's disease, including very poor judgment or confusion. This includes losing track of a day of the week or a season, forgetting where they are, confusing family members or friends for one another, wandering in search of a familiar surrounding. Memory loss worsens. These patients can forget their own history, including their address, phone number, schools they attended, and they may repeat favorite stories quite often. These patients will need help with daily needs. This includes choosing clothing for weather that's appropriate, assistance with bathing, grooming, and using the bathroom, and bowel incontinence. These patients will undergo significant changes in personality. They may become suspicious. An example of this is thinking family are stealing or a spouse is having an affair. They may see or hear hallucinations, and they are likely to be restless, agitated, and even have aggressive outbursts. Patients tend to be worse in all of these symptoms later in the day. Late-stage Alzheimer's disease sees plaques and tau tangles spreading to the posterior parietal lobe, the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and eventually every region of the brain. Patients at this stage will lose ability to communicate, only occasional words or phrases. They require daily assistance with personal care in all dimensions, and a decline in physical ability is inevitable. Often unable to walk without assistance, some are unable to sit up or hold their head up. Rigid muscles and abnormal reflexes occur in late in Alzheimer's. Patients tend to lose swallowing ability and have major incontinence. Alzheimer's disease itself does not cause death, but leaves patients vulnerable to complications that can lead to death because of symptoms or symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Symptoms of poor swallowing that often causes aspiration pneumonia, dehydration, malnutrition, falls, and infections. Unfortunately for patients and their families, a positive diagnosis of Alzheimer's cannot be fully made until a brain is examined upon death of the patient. This has led to a heavy focus on developing drugs that target these plaques. However, a growing