Lindsey's third reflection

4/26/16

Dear viewers, 

       After completing more then half of my service hours, I began to realize how complex Alzheimer's disease could be. The last visit I had at Best friends left me thinking about how terrible this disease is. Also how easy it is to devlop this disease even when you are healthy. Anyone could get it. People affected by the disease seem healthy, until they keep repeating the same questions. This had me fascinated on the topic of Alzheimer's. Later that day I dove right into my computer; researching how this disease is caused and how it could affect your entire memory process. 

      This disease Causes you to forget memories and events that you wish to cherish. The downfall is that people affected by Alzheimer's will never be all there for special events in their closing lives. This was a disease worth researching about to find the answers I wanted. It can just come out of no where. There had to be a definite cause. After multiple websites I came up with one picture that truly caught my attention, and helped me 

understand the process better. It displayed facts on how you develop this disease followed by pictures to back up the research. 

      What causes this disease?Well if you look closely at the picture it is all caused by damaged brain cells. It starts off by excessive protein building up in the brain, and then clogging up the passage hole for the neurons. Causing the protein strands to wist to create more room, and they end up damaging the brain cells.While the brain cells die, different areas of the brain shrink. Causing a low capacity of memory storage affecting you to no remember short term memory. The long term memories will always be there, but since the brain shrunk the short term fade away and keep fading away because the brain is at its capacity. Not being all to take any information in that is heard from then on. This causes the patients to forget your name for instance if you just told them it 10 minutes ago. Or maybe forget something that happened the last day you volunteered. 

      Now that i was able to retrieve this information I can understand a little more about each "Best Friend" I talk to at that service organization. Not only will i know more information about the disease so i can be aware of what is going on in the participants thinking process, but it will help me understand the true meaning of the disease. Making me credible toward the research i did and information on alzheimer's. It might not helo me with communicating,= with the patient. That i am going to have to practice with my own strategies. But it will for sure keep me informed for nayone that wants to know about this disease. With greater knowledge of how this disease is developed I can even see the different stages through different patients. Some with more severe Alzheimer's, and some with mild cases. Either way they are all in the same process, but some are indeed harsher and more like taking then others. 

      

Until next time Readers, xoxo