Health & Science - Senility: the second childhood

Senility is a mental disorder that disables thepatient from performing
a number of mental and rational functions properly, like thinking,
learning and memorizing. It is a progressive condition in that it
increases in time.
At first, it does not appear as seriously prohibitive of daily
activities, but later it incapacitates the patient to the point that
one becomes dependent upon another person for basic needs like a
child.
While so far senility has been linked with old age,and considered
inevitable with aging, some contemporary experts find that senility is
not inevitable, but rather like any other illness that afflicts aged
people and one that could be avoided.
Symptoms of Senility
The level of senility and intensity of its symptoms differs from
person to person, but essentially it appears as dulling of mental
functions like thinking, reasoning, understanding, memory and
language. In later stages it compounds and appears as prohibitive
disorder in behavior.
Alzheimer And Senility
In fact, senility is not one disease but of several kinds and each one
of them has its own causes. Alzheimer, for instance, isresponsible for
50% of cases of senility, thus being the most common source of it.
Alzheimer's disease is only one type of dementia, dementia being a
general disorder that means a loss of mental functioning.
When German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer first described the disorder
involving progressive loss of memory and other mental capacities,
there was little urgency to find a cure. The life expectancy at that
time)1906( was 47 years, and few-people lived long enough to reach the
peak period of risk. Today 10 percent of Americans over age 65 and
about half of those over 85 have Alzheimer's disease )AD(-a total of
roughly four million. With an aging population, experts say, that
figure could reach six million by the end of this decade and 14
million by mid-century.
Alois Alzheimer had studied in 1906 a strangeillness that one of his
patients, Augustine, was suffering from. The illness caused her death
after a short while. After performing autopsies of patients with
dementia, Alois Alzheimer found that their brains contained abnormal
deposits of protein clumped around nerve cells and tangles of protein
inside the cells. Now known as beta-amyloid plaques and tau tangles,
these are the unique features of AD, but no one knows for sure whether
they area cause, an effect or a co-existing condition.
For the present, unfortunately, those diagnosed with Alzheimer's have
little to show from the explosion of knowledge. Doctors donot know how
to preventAlzheimer's disease or how to cure it. The drugs approved
for treatment slow the progress or lessen the severity of symptoms,
but only in some patients and only for two years at the most.The
causes of the disease are unknown, and even diagnosis is difficult.
Disorder of Brain Arteries
The brain arteries that provide nutrition to the brain may suffer from
narrowing down or evenblockage, affecting neurons by diminishing the
oxygen supply and possibly causing the cells to die. Depending on the
part of the brain that is affected, the patient may be paralyzed in
different functions of the body, like speech or movement.
The malady of brain arteries appears all of a sudden and may either
improve in time or stay the same. Senility that results from this
malady is accompanied often by other disabilities like weak movements,
paralysis of half of the body or difficulty in speech.
Parkinson Disease
Parkinson's disease results from gradual atrophy of the nervous
system. It may appear at any age, but it is uncommon in people younger
than 30, and therisk of developing it increases with age. It occurs in
all parts of the world, and men are affected slightly more often than
women. To diagnose Parkinson disease, patients must have at least two
of Parkinson's 4 main symptoms: resting tremor, slowness of movement,
stiffness, and trouble walking.
Occasionally, the disease also causes depression, personality changes,
dementia, sleep disturbances, speech impairments, or sexual
difficulties. The severity of Parkinson's symptoms tends to worsen
over time. Parkinson's disease was first formally described in "An
Essay on the Shaking Palsy," published in 1817 by a London physician
named James Parkinson, but it has probably existed for many thousands
of years.Although there are many theories about the cause of
Parkinson's disease, none has ever been proved. There is no cure for
Parkinson's disease. Many patients are only mildly affected and need
no treatment for several years after the initial diagnosis. When
symptoms grow severe, doctors usually prescribe levodopa )L-dopa(,
whichhelps replace the brain's dopamine.
There are other disordersthat may resemble senility but are not it.
What distinguishes them is the fact that they are temporary and the
patient may get better in time and return to his/ her normal life.
These conditions may be caused by dehydration, dietary disorders or
side effects of other medicines, etc.
Senility, like all other conditions and states of human beings, is a
sign of Allaah. Allaah eloquently depicts the weaknesses that
accompany increasing age in the Quran, and reminds us that we are born
weak and dependent, then Allaah gives us strength in youth, and then
He takes it back and we return to the weakness and dependence of
childhood. Old age, besides bringing wisdomand mitigating desires, is
a reminder to us humans of the fact that we are mortals, weak and
dependant, and just as we return to the weak state of life that we
began with, we will eventually return to Allaah, where we came from.
Allaah says )what means(:"And We settle in the wombs whom We will for
a specified term, then We bring you out as a child, and then you reach
your maturity. And among you is he who is taken in )early( death,
andamong you is he who is returned to the most decrepit ]old[ age so
that he knows nothing after oncehaving knowledge"]Quran, 22:5[
Allaah says )what means(:"And he whom we grant long age, we reverse in
creation; so will they not understand?"]Quran, 36:68[