Alzheimer's Disease
Massage Therapy to Compliment Treatment

Alzheimer's disease is a neurological disorder that affects the elderly. This form of dementia is progressive and will eventually kill the sufferer. It's the most common form of dementia and the 7th most common cause of death in the US. Let's look at the disease and what causes it. Let's also find of the about the benefits of massage therapy in a normal treatment program.

This illness is named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer, a German doctor who discovered the disease in the early 1900s. Alzheimer had a patient named Frau Auguste D who had problems remembering things and difficulty with speech. She also got quite agitated often. She declined rapidly eventually becoming bedridden. She died in 1906. Upon autopsy, Alzheimer found that there was significant shrinkage in the area of the brain that controls speech, memory and judgment. Later that year, he presented his finding at a scientific meeting.

This is a progressive disease with no cure. In the early stage of the disease, the sufferer will experience difficulty with thinking, concentration and memory, but won't need help performing daily tasks. As the disease progresses memory, thought and concentration problems will increase until these Alzheimer's symptoms make it impossible for them to preform any ordinary daily tasks on their own. Over time the sufferer will suffer from mood swings and more and more agitation. Eventually, it will lead to the slow loss of bodily functions leading to death.

Doctors are still unsure about what causes Alzheimer's exactly. Several factors play a role. One is the build-up of proteins in the brain that block nerve cells. Family history plays a role and so does age. If you're over 65 years old you're more likely to get the disease. Lifestyle also plays a factor. If you've suffered a head injury, you're more likely to get the disease. If you eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly, don't smoke and keep your mind active, you decrease your risk of getting it.

Massage Therapy to Compliment Alzheimers Treatment

This disease has no cure. Medication and counseling can be used to help manage Alzheimer's disease, but the steady progression of it is still very apparent.

Massage therapy benefits Alzheimer's patients by helping them keep a connection to the real world. Touch is one of the first senses to develop and when degenerative illness occurs, it's the last sense to go. If the patient is living in a care facility, they are not usually touched very often. Massage can help prevent symptoms of touch depravation.

The Touch Institute of Miami has done a study on Therapeutic Touch and Alzheimer's disease. They studied sufferers between the ages of 71 and 84. They found that therapeutic touch helped decrease the agitation in the patients.

The University Texas did a similar study and got the same results.

The earlier a person with this disease starts getting massage the better. As the disease progresses the patient will feel more and more agitation when presented with an unfamiliar situation.

Gentle types of geriatric massage and CranioSacral Therapy are the most appropriate in this case.