2023-05-14 11:09:00
Memory abnormalities can arise unexpectedly and often long before memory-related conditions actually manifest.
Nowadays, anticipation plays a key role in the approach to these conditions. Although no curative solution has yet been discovered, scientific progress has made it possible to offer alternatives to patients and their families.
Memory failure: when to worry?
In the presence of symptoms associated with memory, the usual practitioner generally directs the patient to a memory assessment, frequently multidisciplinary, with the participation of doctors and neuropsychologists.
During this assessment, the testimony of the patient and his family is evaluated and a complete neuropsychological analysis is carried out using standardized tests. The intention is to detect a possible memory anomaly.
This occurs, for example, when the individual regularly has difficulty recalling recent events, even aided by reminders. It can also result in the inability to identify familiar places and faces.
What are the warning indicators?
When the patient and his family seek advice, it often turns out that the first indicators had appeared several years earlier… These signs had gone unnoticed or caused no real concern. Consequently, the stage of evolution of the affection is sometimes already well advanced while the diagnosis has not yet been established.
Memory: are there effective drugs?
Significant advances were made in the 1990s, notably with “tacrine” which acts on acetylcholine, an insufficient neurotransmitter in Alzheimer’s disease. This type of medication acts only on the symptoms and has a moderate effect, but they have the merit of existing. Studies have shown that if patients stop taking them, their condition deteriorates further.
We have long hoped for a prodigious treatment… but today we are returning to a more measured posture: it is a search that promises to be very long, complex and extremely expensive. However, there is a term that no one would have dared to utter a decade ago: it is the word “prevention”. On this specific point, things are progressing with epidemiological studies which clearly demonstrate that certain factors can influence the course of the disease.
Interventions to strengthen memory?
With regard to non-pharmacological strategies, we now know that quality psychological and social support helps to slow down the deterioration of autonomy. And although we do not yet have the means to cure the disease, we can contribute to its prevention.
All epidemiological surveys throughout the world show that the number of new annual cases of Alzheimer’s disease is falling, a phenomenon that experts refer to as incidence. In other words, at the same age, the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease is lower than twenty years ago.
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