Parkinson’s Disease

Symptoms

1. Weakness.

2. Slight tremor of the head or hands.

3. Depression.

4. Mask like appearance of the face and infrequent blinking.

5.  Muscle stiffness.

6. Slowed movement.

7. Loss of balance.

8. Tremors in the head and or hands when at rest.

9. Confusion and memory loss.

What to  Do Now

Check with your doctor to find out whether the symptoms could be drug-induced. If so, changing the drug might eliminate they symptoms.

After diagnosis:

1. Do not tire yourself out. Find ways to relax, since stress and fatigue can make symptoms worse. Eat well and take good care of yourself.

2. Physical therapy, deep muscle massage, and yoga may help you move more easily, but consult your doctor before beginning any new program.

3. Comradeship eases the depression that can accompany the disease.

When to call a doctor

1. If the symptoms are seen.

2. If you have any new symptoms during treatment. They may be side effects of the medication you’re taking or may indicate a worsening of the condition.

How to prevent it

There is no known way to prevent this disease.

Meningitis and Encephalitis

Symptoms

Meningitis in children:

1. Fever of 100 degrees or higher, combined with headache or stiff neck.

2. The head cannot be bent toward the chest when lying (except in infants less than one month old) because of the shooting pain in the neck and back.

3. Irritability or lethargy.

4. Loss of appetite.

5. Turning away from bright lights.

6. Possibly nausea and vomiting.

7. In infants, a bulging soft spot of the skull.

8. Possibly seizures.

9. Rarely, a bumpy red or purple rash anywhere on the body.

Meningitis or encephalitis in adults:

1. Fever, other flulike symptoms, and headache.

2. Eyes sensitive to light.

3. Mental confusion, drowsiness, lethargy, or irritability.

4. Delirium, seizures, or coma.

5. Possibly, in encephalitis case only, paralysis.

6. Stiff neck, shoulders, or back.

7. Rarely, in meningitis cases only, a bumpy red or purplish rash anywhere on the body.

Encephalitis in children

1. Same as in adults.

2. In infants, a bulging soft spot of the skull.

When to call a doctor

If a child or an adult shows the symptoms listed, call a doctor for emergency advice.

How to prevent it

1. Get early treatment for any serious infection or high fever.

2. Ask a doctor about immunizing your child against meningitis.

3. If you or your child have had close contact with a person who has bacterial meningitis, call a doctor for advice. Antibiotics may be advised to take toward off possible infection.

4. Avoid ticks by wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts in grassy or wooded areas.

5. Prevent insect bites.

Alzheimer’s Disease

Symptoms

1. Often forgetting what happened in the last half hour or asking the same question over an over again. Memory problems become progressively worse, eventually disturbing normal activities.

2. Confusion, faulty decision, reasoning, and lack of ability to complete simple tasks such as shopping.

3. An increasing tendency to lose things and to wander and get lost.

4. Neglect of personal hygiene and appearance.

5. Depression, agitation, paranoia and anxiety – either as direct symptoms or as reflections of the distress people feel over thinking of their inability.

6. In later stages, failure to recognize familiar places and people.

7. In advance stages, a near-total loss of memory, speech, and physical ability, and require full-time care and supervision.

What to do now

1. Get examined by a doctor to check for disorders with similar symptoms. These include depression, hypoglycemia, brain tumor, drug interactions or side effects, vitamin shortages, stroke, and other conditions in which memory problems my be reversible.

2. If memory problems get worse over a period of months, see a neurologist or geriatrician for further tests.

3. Keep the home environment as soothing and organized as possibly. In the early stages, routines and visual aids such as checklists for daily tasks can help.

4. Patiently deal with forgetfulness, cause it’s a disease, not a ill will.

5. Help the diseased one, so that he can remain active and maintain his/her family and social ties as long as possible.

6. Have the diseased one wear a medical ID bracelet that says “Memory Impaired” and shows your phone number.

7. Restrict driving.

8. Contact your doctor about ways to control symptoms like insomnia, agitated behavior, and depression.

How to prevent it

There is currently no known way to prevent this disease

When to call a doctor

1. If consistent symptoms are shown. Because the individual my not be aware of the condition, it is often up to others to help.

2. The disease can undermine resistance. At the first sign of an infection or other illness the doctor should be called.

3. If the diseased one endangers him- or herself or others.

4. If you take care of the diseased one and feel that you are approaching a breaking point.