Identify the Impact of Pathophysiology, Psychology and Sociology in Essay

Identify the Impact of Pathophysiology, Psychology and Sociology in Determining the Physical and Mental Health Status of the Ind - Essay Example 47). As a common knowledge, Alzheimer’s disease is hereditary. The fact that Lucinda’s grandfather had dementia increases her risks of developing the same illness. With this in mind, Lucinda’s changes in her behaviour such as depression including her difficulty in following conversations, and the feeling of excessive tiredness can be explained by the psychosocial impact of having an Alzheimer’s disease. The role of psychotherapists is to allow newly diagnosed individuals to effectively deal with their negative feelings whereas the social workers are trained to help patients with Alzheimer’s disease deal with their social problems with their family members, at work, or within the community (Thompson and Bass, 2009). In most cases, psychotherapy can be used to initially diagnose the level of Lucinda’s depression. By referring her to a psychotherapist as one of the clinical interventions for her case, Lucinda and her partner may find it easier t o accept and deal with the agitation, anxiety, and depression this couple is going through after knowing that Lucinda is at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Lucinda is having difficulty trying to remember the names of people she worked with every day. For this reason, there is an increased risk wherein Lucinda might end up isolating herself from other people. To avoid making herself or other people feel bad, she made it a habit to cover up some of these occasions from her friends and family members in order to save face. However, the patient should be informed that there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease (Lu and Bludau, 2011, p. 60). To make it easier for the patient to deal with cognitive, behavioural, social and emotional changes, Lucinda should receive psychological and social intervention to make her understand and be emotionally prepared for other serious physical and mental health changes as the Alzheimer’s diseases progresses to a more advance sta ge. To identify the presence of brain damage, either MRI or PET scan can be used. In general, the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by the presence of plaques and tangles in the brain. Common among the aging individuals, the presence of ?-amyloid plagues, neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), and the neuronal cell death are among the main factors that can cause the patients to undergo a neurodegenerative process (Kumer et al., 2010, pp. 1313 – 1317; Jackson-Siegal, 2005). Although these substances can also be found among elderly patients without Alzheimer’s disease, Jackson-Siegal (2005) explained that one of the most unique feature of Alzheimer’s disease is that these plagues and tangles are localized in the brain in parallel to the clinical symptoms. With regards to familial Alzheimer’s disease, mutations on chromosomes 21, 19, 14, 12, and 1 is responsible for these changes (Barlow and Durand, 2012, p. 546; Cummings et al., 1998). Even though Lucinda is experiencing episodes of worsening and frequent forgetfulness, confusion, and difficulty to remember names of people she worked each day; the fact that she can still recognize her partner strongly suggest that she is having a mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease (Jackson-Siegal, 2005). In general, the entorhinal cortex is connected to the hippocampus – responsible for our memory formation, and the cerebral cortex. In the case of Lucinda, her memory loss or the short-term recall can be explained by the presence