Alzheimer is a mental complication that results from progressive impairment of the memory (Small, Rabins & Barry, 1997). This complication results into difficulties in communication, ability to recall as well as personality and behavioral related disorders. In most cases, these difficulties are used for diagnosing the disease.
There are several factors such as aging, heredity, blood pressure and head trauma that may make an individual to be susceptible to the illness. Research evidences illustrate that Alzheimer has no specific cure. Nevertheless, there are measures that can be taken to control and manage the symptoms.
These include cognitive, pharmacological and other alternative control measures. This paper seeks to compare and contrast the three therapeutic interventions on the basis of their effectiveness, validity, efficacy, symptom, behavior management and recidivism.
It is apparent that pharmacological treatment is widely used to treat Alzheimer. Nonetheless, researchers recommend that non-pharmacological therapies should be tried first. Natural therapy entails numerous treatments such as aroma therapy, dieting and taking mineral supplements such as vitamins (Cummings, Frank & Cherry, 2002).
This implies that cognitive and natural therapies are highly perceived to be effective as opposed to pharmacological treatments. It is on this ground that these non pharmacological therapies are considered to be more varied since they are both ancient and traditional. Research has shown that the level of efficacy obtained in both cognitive and natural therapy is very promising.
Multiple studies have thus shown that these therapeutic measures are highly beneficial and reliable to treat Alzheimer than the pharmacological measures. Moreover, random surveys have shown that their efficacy level is widely recognized by both patients and healthcare providers. Therefore one cannot deny the fact that cognitive and natural therapies have high level of recidivism as opposed to pharmacological treatment.
One cannot ignore the fact that both cognitive and natural therapies have become widely accepted in treating identified signs and symptoms of Alzheimer as opposed to pharmacological therapy. It is also imperative to note that symptoms such as personality problems, delusions, agitation, mood disorder and aggression may not be treated by medications.
Instead, it is cost effective to apply cognitive and natural therapy to manipulate abnormal signs that are associated with behavior and personality. Health providers highly recommend that cognitive and natural therapies are very essential in managing behavior as opposed to pharmacological therapy. This is based on the fact that behavior can not be treated. Instead, it can be manipulated to the desired manner.
However, despite the fact that cognitive and natural methods are highly effective, to some extent, they are unable to control common non-cognitive/natural symptoms such as constipation, irritation and other physical illnesses. For this case, non-behavioral symptoms prompt individuals to use pharmacological interventions in order to treat the disease (Small, Rabins & Barry, 1997).
It is evident that despite the huge contrasts that exist between pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapies, they have slight differences. For instance, research has shown that the efficacy rate is almost the same. Clinical trials have shown that all the measures have equal placebo in terms of response frequency. This implies that patients respond to the measures relatively the same manner.
For instance, study has shown that miss-application of such therapeutic measures can be problematic to patients. Moreover, evidence has shown that there is no specific treatment that is appropriate on its own. In this case, prescription of a single method only might trigger substantial effects that might be harmful to the patients’ health (Cummings, Frank & Cherry, 2002).
Besides, all the treatment measures have common side effects such as falls and sedation. Nevertheless, it is imperative to note that the side effects for pharmacological therapy have more adverse effects on patients’ health as opposed to the other treatment measures. Finally applications of such methods require adequate clinical knowledge in order for one to be able to manage behavior and the indentified symptoms.
References
Cummings, L., Frank, C. & Cherry, D. (2002). Guidelines for managing Alzheimer’s disease: part II treatment. Am Fam Physician. 65, 2525-2534.
Small, W., Rabins, V. & Barry, P. (1997). Diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer disease and related disorders. Consensus statement of the
American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, the Alzheimer’s Association, and the American Geriatrics Society. JAMA, 278, 1363-1371.