失智症的誤解：早點診斷或就醫可控制 Living Well, Even With Alzheimer’s

Many people think that Alzheimer’s is a one-way street to inexorable decline. A neurologist disagrees
http://on.wsj.com/2AiFRMW

Living Well, Even With Alzheimer’s

Many people have the idea that Alzheimer’s disease is a one-way street to inexorable decline. But the disease exists on a spectrum, writes neurologist Gayatri Devi, and patients can remain active and engaged.

WSJ.COM

...But the reality of the disease is very different. Having worked as a neurologist for over 20 years, I see Alzheimer’s not as a single disease but as a spectrum disorder—with a wide range of symptoms, responses to treatment and prognoses. Early diagnosis and treatment has kept many of my patients stable.

Alzheimer’s is still poorly understood, and in thinking about it, most of us tend to focus on severe cases—people in the advanced stages of the illness who may be mute and confined to a bed or wheelchair. But that is just a fraction of patients on the Alzheimer’s spectrum. Most are still living in their communities, engaged in normal, everyday activities. We have not yet learned to associate the disease with functioning, independent individuals, but they are, in fact, the majority.

Patients and families who are worried about the potential ravages of Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia often make decisions based on fear rather than on facts. Physicians and other health caregivers are sometimes subject to such emotions too. I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone else.

Confused and unsure about what to expect, patients often lose confidence and begin to doubt their abilities, withdrawing into themselves. In permitting this to happen, we are doing our loved ones and society a disservice, depriving those who suffer from the disease of years of pleasure, purpose and fulfillment....