So about this alzheimers thing?? please help me.?

im currently writing a book and in it this guy is supposed to die. i need to know if alzheimer's can kill people. i tried to look it up on line but couldnt find anything. i know this is probably a stupid question but i dont know anyone with it so i dont know anything about it. so someone please help me out.

Ultimately, it leads to death, but it generally is not considered the "Cause" of death. There are usually secondary issues that would be listed as the cause. If you want your character to die a very very slow very long, drawn out death, Alzheimer's could be a viable option. Surely you can think of something else.My grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's 10 years ago, and she is still around and doing fairly well.

Yes, you can die from it because the disease slowly kills cells in the brain, thus why you lose memories and general routines, because the brain cannot function properly.

Proof:
http://www.ohiohealth.com/bodymayo.cfm?i...

Also, Ronald Reagan died from Alzheimer's after 10 years.

No, alzheimers don't kill. But may cause you to get yourself in danger. Eg: getting lost, car accidents etc. It just means the person has lost their memory.

Alzheimers patients rarely die of Alzheimers.

They die of things like aspiration pneumonia because they have forgotten how to swalow etc.

They often become severely emaciated, because they forget how to eat, and any oportunistic infection will kill them.

In many advanced cases, where a feeding tube has been refused either by the family or at the patients request when they were still lucid, they just starve to death.

Scroll through the attached link, I think you will find what you are looking for about 1/3 of the way down.

yes my friend s mom has it and she has basically almost stoped eating

Alzheimer's is a debilitating mental condition. I suppose you could die because of it, like if you became lost and something bad happened that resulted in death. To my knowledge, it is not a disease that makes people die directly. Because Alzheimer's is a dementing disease state, it can cause personality changes, erratic behavior, and other changes in the person's personality that can cause them to engage in risky behavior without taking safety precautions.

My grandmother who had Alzheimer's basically died of old age. She was 85 and had been living in a nursing home for about three years for her own safety. She had a tendency to wander around town and not to eat. Nursing home care was necessary to keep her from losing more weight from walking around too much and so that she was in a structured environment where she could be supervised 24/7 for her own safety and wellness. I would say that her quality of life wasn't very good. She was confused most of the time and it was very trying from the perspective of the family caring for her.

I volunteered in a nursing home for about a year and spent a lot of time in the locked unit where people with dementing mental diseases lived. They were an interesting group of people. Sometimes they would seem as though they were re-living events from their past, most of them not pleasant. Almost all of them identified themselves and behaved as they were while working. A pastor's wife or insurance salesman was still who they were. It was kind of funny sometimes. One person thought they were in a church, another in a bus station, and another in his office. The conversations they had were unique and sometimes they would conflict with each other. One person I visited with regularly was just a forgetful old lady who really liked cats. It was different for everyone, but they were all confused in some way. The longer they were afflicted by dementia, the easier they handled it.

One time, I was volunteering in the nursing home when a new dementia patient arrived. His dementia was reasonably new to him and he was a handful. Some become violent because of frustration or confusion. Others relax and laugh at the situations around them, probably not the same situations that you or I would see if we were looking at the same thing.

Dementia is something that could cause death. They might forget to eat, drink, take medication, bathe, etc... Any of these could result in death for anyone, but we usually don't stop our activities of daily living unless we are ill. They just forget to do it.