BeeHealthy Timely Hints for a Healthy Lifestyle
November is Alzheimer's Awareness Month

The Alzheimer's Association has announced that November is Alzheimer's Awareness Month.

Because of the complications associated with Alzheimer's, the association has released some facts on the disease.

Many people don't know that Alzheimer's disease is currently the seventh leading cause of death in the nation.

More than 55,000 Western New Yorkers are currently diagnosed with Alzheimer's or another form of dementia.

As it stands now, five million Americans have Alzheimer's, and by mid-century those numbers are expected to grow by 300 percent.

Alzheimer's disease and dementia are not the same thing. Dementia is a general term describing the loss of the ability to think, reason and remember.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia, accounting for 50-70 percent of cases.

Other forms or causes of dementia include mild cognitive impairment, vascular dementia, mixed dementia, Lewy body dementia, Parkinson's disease and Pick's disease.

Dementia can be caused by a number of factors other than Alzheimer's disease, such as side effects of medication, untreated depression, thyroid problems or B12 deficiencies.

Because of these varying factors, scheduling an appointment with your physician for a thorough physical and discussion of any problems with memory loss would be the first steps in finding out what may be the nature of the problem.

For more information on Alzheimer's, call 626-0600 or visit www. alz. org/ wny.