What to Expect When it Comes to Cognitive Decline in Alzheimer's Patients (and How We Can Help)

Since World Alzheimer’s Day is around the corner — on Saturday, Sept.  21 — the team here at Braincare Performance Center - Cardiff wanted to take some time to review some basics about this challenging condition.

If you or a loved one is joining the nearly 7 million Americans who are living with Alzheimer's disease, you want to know what the future might look like. While there’s no set guidelines when it comes to the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, there are some general guidelines, which Dr. Julie Kim and nurse practitioner Kayleigh Prowse review here.

Perhaps more importantly, we take a brief dive into how early treatment of Alzheimer’s disease through brain neuromodulation and Magnetic e-Resonance Therapy (MeRT) can help slow the progression of this disease.

The stages of Alzheimer’s disease

Many providers categorize Alzheimer’s disease into three stages: early, middle, and late. Some take a different approach and label them mild, moderate, and severe. These are just semantics, though, and the point here is to categorize the progression of Alzheimer’s and dementia. With these conditions, degenerative changes take place in the brain and symptoms worsen over time.

Early Alzheimer’s disease

In the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease, you might encounter some of the following:

• Trouble finding the right word
• Increasing forgetfulness
• Trouble remembering names
• Misplacing and losing everyday items, such as keys 

Of course, this happens to most of us as we get older, so these symptoms aren’t confined to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Middle Alzheimer’s disease

As the Alzheimer’s disease progresses and affects more of the brain, people can run into issues with:

• Inability to remember things from the past
• Moodiness and angry outbursts
• Not remembering where they live or what day it is
• Forgetting people from the past
• Wandering off
• Becoming increasingly suspicious

This last item is especially challenging as people with Alzheimer’s disease can become almost paranoid.

Late Alzheimer’s disease

With late-stage Alzheimer’s disease, the person needs round-the-clock care as they’ve lost the ability to function. People with severe dementia may not remember who they are, where they are, who family members are, or anything else about their lives. Making matters more complex,  they might cease to communicate.

Getting help for early Alzheimer’s disease

While the picture we just painted may not seem all that rosy, people can, and do, live happily for years with Alzheimer’s disease, especially if they find ways to slow the progression.

At our brain wellness practice, we’ve had great success with MeRT, a technique in which we target and modulate certain areas of the brain. We start with a Brainwave Recording, also known as an EEG, which helps us identify areas of the brain that have been affected by Alzheimer’s disease. 

From there, we target these areas with transcranial magnetic stimulation to encourage better communications between brain cells and healthier neural pathways.

To give you an idea about how successful this brain care process can be, one study concluded that using MeRT, “Has a positive effect on cognitive function and behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia.”

We’ve had the same success with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia patients using this type of noninvasive brain stimulation, which can go a long way toward slowing the progression of these brain disorders.

If you’d like to find out whether MeRT might work for your or your loved one’s Alzheimer's disease or dementia, we invite you to call our office in Cardiff, California, at 858-306-1070 or request an appointment online today.