Bibliography
This report describes the public health impact of Alzheimer’s disease, including incidence and prevalence, mortality rates, costs of care, and the overall impact on caregivers and society. It also examines in detail the financial impact of Alzheimer’s on families, including annual costs to families and the difficult decisions families must often make to pay those costs.
This source provides good information about Alzheimer’s disease, to include symptoms, prevalence, mortality rates, and costs of care. Alzheimer’s disease is becoming a more global issue due to the aging populations across the world. A potential downside of this source is that it is solely geared towards the American population, so it would be not as informative to someone who is not living in the United States.
Alzheimer’s disease represents a major public health concern and has been identified as a research priority. Although there are licensed treatments that can alleviate symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, there is a pressing need to improve our understanding of pathogenesis to enable development of disease-modifying treatments. The researchers provided an overview of recent evidence regarding the epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, and list potential ways to reduce the risk of developing the disease.
This paper provides substantial evidence for genetic causes of Alzheimer’s disease and the amyloid cascade hypothesis. Although Alzheimer’s disease can only be definitively diagnosed port mortem, the source gives good recommendations on where to go to get the most accurate clinical diagnosis. Overall, much of this source contains a lot of technical jargon that may not be suitable for my use, but it does contain good information.
Two specific markers characterize Alzheimer’s disease: sticky, abnormal clumps (amyloid plaques) that form within the empty space between brain cells with tangled bundles of fibers (tau neurofibrillary tangles) that erupt from within the clumps. Another characteristic of the disease is the loss of nerve cells in the areas responsible for memory and other higher mental abilities. The production of nitric oxide (NO) inflammatory molecules causes the presence of the tangles associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
This source provides a brief overview of what Alzheimer’s disease is, statistics, and other possible causes or contributing factors to Alzheimer’s disease. It is a very short article and just skims the surface on each potential cause or contributing factor to Alzheimer’s disease. This source is not very technical and is easy to read, making it beneficial for my presentation.
The enormous effort in Alzheimer’s disease research has translated into the discovery of genetic linkages for disease. Although effective therapies do not currently exist for Alzheimer’s disease, many are being developed. The researchers proposed that the neuropathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease revolves around the immunological activation of glial cells, which in turn leads to alterations in inflammatory neurotoxin production, and ultimately to neuronal injury and death.
This source provides very technical information about the neurodegenerative process of Alzheimer’s disease and how it is similar to other neurodegenerative disorders. The researchers examined pathology of Alzheimer’s at a very complex level, making it hard to incorporate in to my presentation. The source includes good information but due to the rather confusing nature of the work, I will only be able to include a little amount of it.
Physicians now regularly advise older adults to engage in mentally stimulating activities as a way of reducing their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Despite this common advice from the physicians, the evidence to back up their recommendation is still lacking. There are two ways that encouraging mental activities may do more harm than good. First, they offer false hope. Second, individuals that develop Alzheimer’s disease may be blamed.
This source does a great job combating the typical advice given to older adults about engaging in mental stimulating activities in order to reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. There is little evidence to back up that advice and this source points out that it is a mixture of genetics and the development of our brain in our early life that determines the individual susceptibility to Alzheimer’s disease. This source does not go into much detail, but the simplicity of it makes it very beneficial to my presentation.
The neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease may be caused by the deposition of amyloid β-peptide (Aβ) in plaques in brain tissue. Developments in Alzheimer’s disease research lead to the framework of the amyloid hypothesis. According to the amyloid hypothesis, accumulation of Aβ in the brain is the primary influence driving Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis.
This source provides information about the amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer’s disease but also includes concerns with it. Despite the rather technical nature of the work, the researchers did a good job making it readable. This information is approximately 15 years old so the hypothesis may have been changed a little since this source was fist published.
New insights into fundamental aspects of protein biology have resulted from research on Alzheimer’s disease. All four genes definitively linked to inherited forms of Alzheimer’s disease have shown to increase the production of amyloid β-protein in the brain. Evidence that the presenilin proteins, mutations that cause the most aggressive form of inherited Alzheimer’s disease, lead to altered intramembranous cleavage of the β-amyloid precursor protein by the protease called γ-secretase has driven progress towards innovative therapeutics.
This source provides a substantial amount of information about the history of Alzheimer’s disease as well as the four genes linked to it. It is a highly technical and most of it is hard to comprehend without looking up what some of the material means. Though there is a lot of good information provided, not much of it will be used in my presentation.
The benefits of exercise for maximizing cognitive function and supporting brain health have great potential for combating Alzheimer’s disease. Aerobic exercise offers a low-cost, low-risk intervention that is widely available and may have disease-modifying effects. Demonstrating aerobic exercise alters the Alzheimer’s disease process would have enormous public health implications.
This source did a good job providing background knowledge as to why physical health is important and how it affects the brain. The researchers assembled a community-based pilot study of aerobic exercise for Alzheimer’s disease and hope that it will be used to guide future investigation. Since the source’s study was too small to draw definitive conclusions, it may encourage further research into the effects of aerobic exercise on Alzheimer’s disease.
Worldwide costs of dementia are immense and distributed disproportionately. The total estimated worldwide costs of dementia were $604 billion in 2010. About 70% of the costs occurred in Western Europe and North America. Only by investing now in research and development of cost effective approaches to early diagnosis and care can future societal costs be anticipated and managed.
This source did an in-depth analysis of the total economic impact of dementia in 2010. Even though the data is 7 years old now, it is still highly relevant today seeing as the total number of people with dementia doubles about every 20 years. A potential downside of the source is that it doesn’t include any means to help remedy the issue; it just provides the facts and the implications of them.
Structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a very popular and effective technique used to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease. To overcome the limitations of the structural MRI, the researchers proposed a landmark-based feature extraction method. This proposed method is approximately 50 times faster than other methods being used right now.
This source provided a significant amount of information about the landmark-based feature extraction method. There were also several pictures included that clearly showed what the researchers were trying to address. This source contained a lot of useful information that will be included in my presentation.