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Genetic Testing for Alzheimers

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Genetic Testing for Alzheimer’s Disease
Breanna Selzler
Rasmussen College

Author Note This paper is being submitted on June 20, 2014, for Greg Barnett’s G215 Intro to Human Biology course.

Genetic Testing for Alzheimer’s Disease Alzheimer’s disease is a type of dementia that causes problems with memory, thinking, and behavior. Symptoms usually develop slowly and progress over time, becoming severe enough to interfere with daily tasks. People with Alzheimer’s lose the ability to be able to keep up a conversation because their memory will fail. They also will become angry because they don’t understand why they cannot remember what just happened 10 minutes ago. On average after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s people live 4-20 years, but a large amount end up passing a way around 8 years later. Nobody knows what causes Alzheimer’s or what can cure it as we are still trying to figure out a cure. We do know that Alzheimer’s kills and damages the nerve cells of the brain and causes it not to function properly. Alzheimer’s cannot be fully diagnosed until after death as you have to physically look at the brain itself. This being said I would not take part in being tested to see if I would develop Alzheimer’s because I would not want to know that I was going to end up living the end of my life not being able to remember what I had for breakfast that day or not being able to remember my own children and family members. I feel for all my tenants that have Alzheimer’s, it’s a sad disease to have to live with many don’t even remember how to get back to their apartment after coming out for a meal or activity. If I did go through with the test and found out I was going to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s I would definitely change the way I live now and would make LOTS of home videos that I could watch over and over again to try and keep those memories alive. I also

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