Alzheimer's disease: It's much more than memory loss

Alzheimer's disease affects nearly 6 million Americans, and that number will grow as Baby Boomers age. Novant Health neurologist Dr. Mark Pippenger discusses the impact Alzheimer’s has on a patient’s family members and friends. He'll dive into concerns he often hears: Are you likely to suffer from the disease? If so, what's treatment going to be like 10 or so years from now?

Transcript:
Cliff Mehrtens 0:08

Welcome to Novant Health Healthy Headlines. This is Cliff Mehrtens. Alzheimer's disease affects nearly 6 million Americans. And that number will increase over the next few years as the baby boomer generation ages. We don't know the exact causes of Alzheimer’s disease and there's no cure, but it's widespread. For some insight into Alzheimer's, we talked to Novant Health behavioral neurologist, Dr. Mark Pippenger, who discusses the impact Alzheimer's has on a patient's close family members, how Alzheimer's affects more than just your memory loss. Some misconceptions about the disease, and what does Alzheimer’s and its treatment look like 10 years from now, be sure to stick around till the end to learn how Alzheimer's got its name. You can find stories like this and hundreds of others by searching Novant Health and Healthy Headlines. Thank you for listening. What's the biggest a misconception or two that you hear about Alzheimer's?

Dr. Mark Pippenger 1:05

Well, I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that it's just part of normal aging. And I see patients all the time who have been to their primary doctor and their children are worried because they're forgetting things. They can't keep up with their medicine. And they're told it's just normal age. And that's probably one of the biggest misconceptions is it is somehow normal. It's not it's very, very common, but it's not normal. So Alzheimer disease, it's never normal. Another misconception I see concerns the medications we use to treat the disease. So many physicians think that the medications don't work. And so they won't give people medicine for Alzheimer disease, because they have the impression that drugs are not effective. And that often comes from not understanding how the drug is supposed to work. So the drugs that we use delay decline, they don't make people better in the short run, not often, sometimes a little. But people think that they're supposed to fix the problem. If they're effective, and they don't, they just delay things getting worse. So I'd say that that particular misconception stops many people from having the benefit of treatment, because other people think that it's not worth giving the medicine, we think actually that they do have a big effect.

Cliff Mehrtens 2:31

As our population ages more baby boomers are going to reach the ages of 7075 in the next few years. That's what does Alzheimer's and its treatment look like 10 years from now.

Dr. Mark Pippenger 2:44

in 10 years, we're extremely hopeful in the field, that in 10 years time will have drugs that will more effectively shut down the progression of disease. And it's a realistic goal, we believe because a lot of research is going on every year. In fact, just next week, I'm going to the big annual research meeting where we review all that's going on. And it's a full week of activity. Every day, all day, there'll be 4-5000 clinicians and researchers present reviewing all of this. So a lot is going on, we really believe that in 10 years time will have drugs that will significantly slow down or even totally stop disease progression. At that point will probably be using more sophisticated tools to try and diagnose the presence of Alzheimer disease before someone even becomes memory impaired. So before the earliest memory changes, we want to be able to diagnose the disease. And there's every expectation that in 10 year’s time, we'll be able to do that. And we'll be able to give drugs that are more effective in slowing down or even stopping disease progression.

On the plus side of 50 doc and sometimes offered thanks for not what I had for breakfast, but the name of the Tom Hanks movie I tried to recall that I saw 20 years ago or something like that. And people my age will sometimes joke about you might be - 'Oh, you have Alzheimer's,' - it's not a funny subject. But memory loss like that is not always an indication that something serious is wrong as part of the normal aging process. Isn't that right?

Cliff Mehrtens 4:20

That's correct. There are cognitive changes, which actually begin, you know, as early as your 30s or 40s, we start to see some changes in the normal individual. And the normal changes will consist of a slowing down of mental processes, difficulty retrieving memories quickly. And and that will take the form of not being able to think of the name of someone you run into, or not being able to think of a word you want to use in conversation. So you're talking to somebody and you want to tell them about your laptop, and for some reason that word just escaped to you. And you can't come up with the word laptop. And you may have to describe it, you know, that little portable computer, and then later the word laptop comes back to you. So it becomes more difficult to multitask to keep up with more than one thing at a time. Because the speed of your thinking slows down and you can't switch between things as easily. All of those things are commonly seen with normal aging. They don't indicate a disease being present. But, you know, diseases like Alzheimer's disease also often begin with losing memory for words and memory for names. So when is it a problem, you need to get checked out? Well, I tell people, anytime you're worried about it, it doesn't hurt to see a specialist who's experienced in the field, who can do a little extra testing and maybe reassure you that what you're experiencing is normal for your age. Or on the other hand, if there is a problem, may be able to take steps to do something to try and help.

Dr. Pippenger, Alzheimer's isn't only about memory loss, there's some other moods and things that happened that are affected tell us what sort of moods that can be created or altered for someone who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's?

Dr. Mark Pippenger 6:06

Sure, you're right, the disease affects more than just memory. You know, typically memory is the thing that's affected first. And that's one of the most important symptoms that we see. But along with the memory problem, we get changes in emotion. Depression and anxiety are more common in people who have Alzheimer disease and who develop dementia. And part of that may be prompted by the cognitive impairment itself, so that someone begins to lose the ability to do things. And they are on some level aware that they're not able to do it. And so they need to rely on someone else for safety and security. And they become anxious if that person isn't immediately available. So that's one way anxiety can be created by the disease. But the disease may affect the chemical structure of the brain and make it easier for that person to become anxious, easier for them to become depressed. So particularly when people with Alzheimer disease are bored, or when they don't have anything to do. Depression is more common. And we also have a range of behavioral symptoms, which will occur in most people with Alzheimer's disease at some point will have some behavioral symptoms. And those very often are also prompted by the cognitive deficits so that a person who has Al...