Brain disorder: characteristics, causes, and clinical manifestations

Disorders of the Brain

Alzheimer disease

This is a progressive disease that damages nerve cells (neurons ) in parts of the brain that are involved in learning, memory, reasoning and language.as the disease progresses, there is a communication breakdown among the neurons.in the early stages of the disorder short-term memory starts failing .with time functions like language, long-term memory and judgment gradually decline. This disorder is a very common cause of dementia (loss of mental functions such as memory, thinking, and reasoning in older adults. Dementia is severe such that it interferes with the daily functioning of an individual.

Alzheimer disease ultimately affects all parts of the brain but every individual is affected differently as the disease progresses. This is partially because of the nature and extent of damage that is caused by different regions of the brain. This condition predominantly affects the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus that goes through atrophy (loose mass and shrink).the cerebral cortex is extremely convoluted and quite complicated in structure which is associated with higher functions of the mind such as sensation, reasoning and motion. Each hemisphere of the cortex contains areas that control particular types of activity. These are the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe and occipital lobe. The frontal lobe is involved in the control of responses that are input from the rest of the central nervous system. This is responsible for voluntary movement, planning, emotion and execution of behavior, memory, intellect, speech and writing. Parietal lobe receives and interprets sensations of pain, temperature, touch and body parts awareness. The temporal lobe is involved in understanding sounds and words that are spoken as well as memory and emotions. Occipital lobe is involved in the understanding of visual images and meaning of words that are written. These parts affected by the disease have an influence on development and behavior of an individual. This leads to an individual loosing their cognitive functions, their primary memory, judgment and reasoning, coordination and movement and the patterns of recognition. This is because the areas that are affected by the disorder are the ones that are responsible for these functions in an individual. Therefore the damage in these regions due to the disorder greatly affects the development and behavior of an individual (Remedy Health Media, LLC .2014).

Doctors recommend magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) when carrying out investigations of whether a person has Alzheimer's disease or not. This is intended to rule out any other possible cause for the cognitive impairment like brain tumor or even blood clots. This involves a painless outpatient procedure that involves the use of a tube-like machine; MRI gives a detailed picture of internal organs parts of the brain included. A physician may request for an MRI if a patient has symptoms that are commonly associated with Alzheimer disease such as memory loss, problems with executing functioning and confusion problems. It is important to not that MRI can not be used to determine who is likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. It is however used to assist in the diagnosis of Alzheimer disease through the evaluation of particular patterns of brain atrophy which occurs in patients that have the disorder (Remedy Health Media LLC., 2014).