Death came as a friend.

That’s what Connie Dunham, an Ames resident who lost first her grandfather and recently her mother to Alzheimer’s, said her father told friends after his wife’s death.

He had struggled with the gradual loss of his wife to the disease for a long time.

Alzheimer’s is the most frequent dementing illness of late life, as shown by research. Half of everyone 85 years or older has Alzheimer’s.

Georgia Grant, of the Alzheimer’s Association in Ames, said the hardest element for families to deal with is “the person they love is disappearing before their eyes, but their body is still there. It’s been called the ‘living death.'”

Ten percent of Americans over the age of 65 have Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia.

Unlike common absentmindedness, ADRD victims suffer a much more serious and permanent memory loss.

Changes in emotions, thinking and personality are seen.

Alzheimer’s can develop as early as age 27 in rare cases, Grant said, and a small percentage of cases occur in people in their 30s or 40s.

Grant said she has witnessed the death of four people in their 50s due to ADRD during the past few years.

Alzheimer’s includes both psychiatric symptoms and behavioral disturbances.

Psychiatric symptoms include depression, suspiciousness, delusions and visual hallucinations, while behavioral disturbances include wandering and aggression.

Victims of ADRD have difficulty in decision making, expressing their thoughts and using good judgment, and frequently ask the same questions over and over again.

They may forget important family events and even names of close relatives.

They may also demonstrate shocking outbursts of inappropriate behavior or need someone to remind them to chew and swallow during meals.

Every case is different, Grant said.

“The stages of the disease are not determined by the disease itself, but by the type of care that is needed for the patient at this time,” Grant said. “Nurses divide the disease into seven stages, but I’ve seen it divided into as few as three stages before.”

In the beginning stages of the disease, deficits in attention, concentration, orientation, memory and abstract reasoning are seen.

Later, difficulties with language are common, Grant said.

The patient must search their memory to find every word they speak, and they struggle to make sentences.

Eventually, as the disease progresses and the body shuts down, the brain stops sending automatic signals to parts of the body.

Victims can no longer dress themselves, feed themselves or perform ordinary, everyday tasks. Some lose their ability to walk.

The average course of the disease occurs over an eight-year time span. Some may live with it as long as 20 years or more.

“Caregivers of loved ones tend to feel a combination of grief and anger,” Grant said, “because the disease can cause victims to be mean or act stupid to the one they love.”

“I remember my grandfather as a vague, pleasant man who hummed and whistled and would wander off from home to be returned by the friendly local police,” Dunham said.

Dunham quoted her father-in-law, who was the caregiver of his wife, Dunham’s mother, as saying, “‘The effect of Alzheimer’s on the caregiver is insidious. It chips away at your strength, your health, your self-esteem and your optimism.’

“I’ve heard two major problems expressed by many care givers — loss of leisure and frustration,” she said.

Alzheimer’s occurs when nerve cells that carry messages in the brain, particularly regions that store and retrieve memories, begin to waste away and die. Eventually the remaining cells become tangled and clumped, called “plaques” and “neurofibrillary tangles.”

Caring for a victim of Alzheimer’s is a 24-hour task. Patients tend to wander at night, and they frequently run into things.

Also, insurance companies may not help individuals with the disease.

“Because the care needed for these patients is more social and less health-related, insurance doesn’t help with the costs nearly as much as it should,” Grant said.

ADRD is currently incurable, but various treatments can slow memory loss or remedy psychological problems associated with the disease.

These drugs, however, can cause complications in the liver and have other negative side effects.

Genetic predispositions interact with other risk factors.

Risk factors include advancing age, Down’s syndrome, head injury, a low level of education or the presence of certain chemicals in the body.

The Heart of Iowa Chapter in Ames wants to help students who may have a friend or relative suffering from the disease and have provided a telephone Help line.

Anyone who needs information on the disease can call (515) 292-4109 or (800) 407-5840.