World Alzheimer Month is an annual international event in September to raise awareness and challenge the stigma surrounding the disease.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia.
Dementia is a collective name for conditions in which progressive degeneration of the brain affects memory, thinking, behaviour and emotion.
While the risk of developing dementia increases dramatically with age, most older people do not develop the condition. It is not an inevitable consequence of getting older.
Just one in five people in their 80s, for example, are affected by it.
Dementia is not a normal part of ageing and it knows no social, economic, ethnic or geographical boundaries.
Although individuals experience dementia in their own way, eventually those affected are unable to care for themselves and need help with all aspects of daily life. There is currently no cure.
Some of the misconceptions on Alzheimer’s disease are:
- Memory loss is a natural part of aging: Experts now recognise severe memory loss as a symptom of a disease.
- Alzheimer’s disease is not fatal: The disease slowly destroys the brain cells resulting in the loss of bodily functions and death. It slowly takes away a person’s ability to connect with others, think, eat, talk, walk and find his or her own way around.
- Only older people can get Alzheimer’s: It can affect people in their 30s, 40s and even 50s.
- Drinking out of alumunium cans or cooking in aluminium pots and pans can lead to the disease: Studies have failed to confirm any role aluminium has in causing the disease.
- Aspartame causes memory loss: No scientific evidende has been presented to prove this.
- Silver in dental fillings increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease: According to scientific evidence, there is no relationship between silver in dental fillings and the disease.
- There are treatments available to stop the progression of the disease: At this time, there is no treatment to cure or stop the disease. There are drugs that can slow the worsening of symptoms.
- The person is bewitched: Although this is a common belief, there is no truth in it.
Call the national helpline on 0860-102-681, or visit alzheimers.org.za.
