The decease of the popular musician was caused by a very unusual disease.
2. Etymology: although the origin of the concept of dementia goes as far back as the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers and physicians; it was in 1901 when Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915), a German neurologist, identified the first case of what became known as Alzheimer's disease which currently describes individuals of all ages with a characteristic common symptom pattern, disease course, and neuropathology.
Delusions and hallucinations may occur. The most common degenerative brain disorder, Alzheimer disease makes up 70% of all cases of dementia. Onset is usually in late middle life, and death typically takes place in five to ten years.
Synonyms: Alzheimer dementia, presenile dementia; dementia presenilis, primary senile dementia, primary neuronal degeneration.
Alzheimer disease ranks fourth as a cause of death in the U.S., and its annual cost to the nation is nearly $100 billion.
Onset is typically insidious, with a progressive deterioration in the ability to learn and retain information. In recalling and repeating new material, the patient makes intrusion errors (insertion of irrelevant words or ideas) and resorts to confabulation (fabrication of stories in response to questions about situations or events that are not recalled).
Orientation and judgment decline; 50% of patients experience depression, 20% delusions. Agitation occurs in 70%. Numerous drugs, including many not considered psychoactive, can aggravate the symptoms of Alzheimer disease; clinical depression can mask dementia, and vice versa.
Neurologic findings may be essentially normal, but myoclonus (condition of abnormal contraction of muscles or portions of muscles), bradykinesia (slow movements), rigidity, and seizures can occur late in the disease. Death is usually due to sepsis (blood stream infection or blood poisoning) associated with urinary or pulmonary infection.
2. A chronic lung disease characterized by the deposit of coal dust, smoke, and carbon in the lungs and by the formation of black nodules on the bronchioles.
When the arteries become narrowed, the condition is called carotid stenosis.
Carotid artery disease takes place when sticky, fatty substances called plaque build up in the inner lining of the arteries.
This accumulation of mucus can impair the pancreas and, secondarily, the intestine. Mucous build-up in lungs tends progressively to impair respiration.
Without treatment, CF results in death for 95% of affected children before the age of five.
The miasmatic theory of disease apparently started in the Middle Ages and continued on into the mid 1800's, when it was used to explain the spread of cholera in London and in Paris, partly explaining Haussmann's latter renovation of the French capital.
Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann (March 27, 1809–January 11, 1891) was a French civic planner whose name is associated with the rebuilding of Paris. He was born in that city of a Protestant family from Alsace. The Haussmann Renovations, or Haussmannization of Paris was a work led under the initiative of Napoléon III and the Seine préfet, Haussmann, from 1852 to 1870.
The project encompassed all aspects of urban planning, both in the center of Paris and in the outside districts: streets and boulevards, regulations imposed on façades of buildings, public parks, sewers and water works, city facilities and public monuments.
The disease was said to be preventable by cleansing and scouring of the body and items. Dr. William Farr, the assistant commissioner for the 1851 London census, was an important supporter of the miasma theory. He believed that cholera was transmitted by air, and that there was a deadly concentration of "miasmata" near the Thames River banks.
Another proponent of the "miasmatic" theory was the renowned Crimean War nurse, Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), who was known for her work in making hospitals sanitary and fresh-smelling.
"The inflammation of Crohn's disease usually affects the last part of the ileum (a section of the small intestine), and often also affects the large intestine (the colon)."
"Crohn's disease, is also known as Crohn syndrome and regional enteritis and it involves a type of inflammatory bowel disease that may affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract from the mouth to the anus."
Morbus Crohn primarily causes abdominal pain, diarrhea (which may be bloody if inflammation is severe), continuous vomiting, and weight loss."
"Crohn's disease may also cause complications outside the gastrointestinal tract; such as, skin rashes, arthritis, inflammation of the eyes, fatigue, and a diminishing ability to concentrate."
It is usually an ascending infection in which pathogenic micro-organisms spread from the vagina and cervix to the upper portions of the reproductive tract.
Cysts are closed cavities or sacs, normal or abnormal, lined by epithelium, and especially containing a liquid or semisolid material. The cysts eventually reduce kidney function, leading to kidney failure.
"These insects become infected after biting an animal or a human who already has Chagas disease."
Infection is spread to humans when an infected bug deposits feces on a person's skin, usually while he or she is sleeping at night. The person often accidently rubs the feces into the bite wound, an open cut, the eyes, or mouth."
"Infected mothers can pass the infection to their baby during pregnancy, at delivery, or while breastfeeding."
"Chagas disease causes swelling at the infection site and, if left untreated, develops into a chronic illness that can be asymptomatic or unfelt in most people and can cause digestive, heart, and nervous system failures in other people."