Neurodevelopmental and Neurocognitive Disorders

Neurodevelopmental and Neurocognitive Disorders

Neurodevelopmental disorders are referred to as disabilities connected mainly to the operation of the neurological brain and system(Epa.gov, 2020). By affecting the nervous system development, the disorder leads to abnormal functioning of the brain, thus affecting self-control, emotion, memory, and learning ability. Notably, these disorders continue for the entire lives of the people. Accordingly, one of the neurodevelopmental disorder affecting children is autism. Autism disorder is a development disorder comprised of difficulties in communication, interaction as well as controlled and repetitive behavior. Parents can notice this behavior from their children within the first three years. As such, these children find difficulties in behavior, language, and speech, memory as well as other neurological functions. While autism behavior consistently changes as the children evolve, some children may continue exhibiting the behaviour entirely in their lives.

Neurocognitive disorder refers to reduced mental function resulted by medical disease with the exception of psychiatric illness. The disorder was previously known as the dementia given that its identical to cognitive decline and impairment and the people who are affected mostly by this disorder comprises of the old aged. The evidence associated with this disorder includes considerable decline from the past performance levels exceeding more than two cognitive domains. These include language, learning memory, social cognition, and complex attention. In effect, the cognitive defects disrupt the independence of daily activities. One of the neurocognitive disorder affecting many people especially the old above 60 years of age is Alzheimer’s disease and its associated with several conditions including thinking, reasoning and memory, judgement, learning and lastly the ability of functioning. it’s a leading dementia cause and creates huge burden to families and victims given that it affects their thinking, behaviour, mood, disposition and overall personality. Accordingly, the initial signs of Alzheimer’s disease comprise of finding it hard for the old couples to complete tasks on time, misplacing things earlier, forgetting important dates as well as being confused about place and time. The victims also loose problem solving abilities, personality changes and moody changes. Given that these symptoms occur naturally due to human development; they are not easy to diagnosis.

Behavioral Criteria for Each Disorder

The behaviour criteria of autism disorder includes continuous defects in communication as well as social interaction across different environments. As such, people with this disorder happen to have abnormal approach resulting reduced emotions, sharing stories, and frequently fail to initiate or respond to various conversations. Additionally, they have abnormal non communicative behaviour for social interaction and this ranges from poor executed verbal to non-verbal communication comprising of abnormalities in body language and eye contact. The victims also have defects in developing, preserving and understanding their relationship. As such, they find difficulties in adjusting to various behaviour to fit in the social contexts. Secondly, they have patterns of controlled and repetitive behaviour especially on interest and activities and all these is manifested by history or currently. They develop stereotypes on speech as well as when using objects. They further remain inflexible in following routes, insist on monotony and have sequential patterns for verbal and non-verbal behaviour. For instance, like showing difficulties with transitions, have specified greeting rituals, maintain same route everyday while at the same time maintaining rigid thinking patterns. They further have abnormal fixated interests and always have sensory of hyper- or hypo reactivity. Thirdly, the symptoms should be present in the early stages of development period but exceed the normal rates when social demands surpass the limited capabilities.

The behaviour criteria for Alzheimer’s disease include memory impairment which comprises of difficulties in memorizing events and also have difficulties in planning, concentrating and problem solving. As such, decisions are made by other people on behalf of them where if they may be affected significantly if the choices made doesn’t fit them. whether at home or working, they hardly finish their tasks given that their rate and level of concentration is quite low. Accordingly, even while doing these duties they make mistakes which later costs the organizations and also from the families. The old people also have issues with where they passed through and also location thus becoming difficult for their families to look for them. those who happen to be driving also face challenge of visual space difficulties including failing to understand indications while driving where they become susceptible to causing accidents. Still, they have a behaviour of misplacing items and frequently isolate themselves from social engagements and work events. Furthermore, the adult also develop language problems and have reduced abilities of writing and speaking and because of this, they make poor judgement in decisions they make. Significantly, people with Alzheimer’s disease develop changes in their moods and often change their personalities and part of the behaviour they develop include depression and anxiety. Additionally, these people become agitated and always want to stay alone without the disturbances of the other people.

Incidence Rates and Causes for Each Disorder

According to CDC, in 2018, in every 59 children one has autism or approximately 16.8% per 1000 people are identified with autism disorder (CDC, 2019). Specifically, 1 boy in every 37 develop autism while 1 in every 151 girls develops the autism spectrum disorder (ASD). When boys are compared with girls, the probability of developing this disorder is four times less than that of girls. Again, this disorder is identified in children from the age of two years but most children get diagnosed with the disease in the age of four years and it affects all the socioeconomic and ethnic groups and minority communities get diagnosed with the disorder less often and later. Notably, CDC study shows that 31% of the children who have developed ASD consequently develop intellectual disability. The causes of autism disorder have largely been involved with family and biological genetics for huge number of reported cases. Older parents who sire children at late age exposes the children to high risks of developing autism. Accordingly, parents who have born children with this disorder have similar chance of between 2% to 18% to sire a second child who will be born with the same disorder. Research further indicates that if one among two identical twins has autism, the other child will be affected entirely in their lives for about 36% to 95%. In the same way, between non identical twins, if it happens that one teen has autism disorder, statistics show that the other child usually gets affected entirely in their lives by 31%. Within the past two decades, intense research has been done to show highlight the connection among autism and children vaccinations but the results from the study indicated that autism isn’t caused by vaccines.

On the other hand, Alzheimer’s disease incidence rates stand at 5.8 million reported cases in the U.S. in 2019(dshs.texas.gov, 2020). Out of these people, the cases for old people represented over 5.6 million and further 200,000 below the 65 years of age have or are developing the disease. 10% of people over 65 years of age currently have the disorder and 32% of people over 85 years of age have the disease. From the 5.8 million people, 75 years of age and above forms the greatest percentage of 81%. Importantly, Alzheimer’s disease upsurges with age where people in different ages acquire the disease. For instance, between 65-74 years of age forms 3%, those between 75-84 years of age forms 17% and finally those over 82 years of age forms 32%. Surprisingly, the disease happens to people when they are in their thirties, forties and fifty’s but shows itself when people attain the age of 65 years of age. Alzheimer’s disease is caused by different factors including environment, genetics and lifestyles and the risk factors for this disorder include family history, heredity and age. ideally, the disease is caused by abnormal protein build up near the brain cells and amyloid protein deposits create plates in the brain. In the same way, tau protein creates deposits which tangles the brain. When the brain has been affected, neurotransmitters decreases yet its work is to signal the brain and as such, the level of chemical messengers are low on people with the disorder(nhs.uk, 2020). Other factors such as down syndrome, cardiovascular disease and head injuries also contribute towards acquiring the disorder. Alzheimer’s disease happens in two dimensions which is familial Alzheimer’s disease (FAD) and sporadic Alzheimer’s disease and they form 5% and 95% of the disorder respectively. Alzheimer’s disease (FAD) appear in early stages for the disease manifestation and it can be inherited where various family members within the same generation frequently acquire the disease while the sporadic Alzheimer’s disease it’s not inherited but researchers are making efforts to unravel the variety of factors affecting this type of disorder. Although the disease affects both sexes, men die less when compared with women.

Different Theoretical Models of Treatment

Autism Disorder

Because this is a disorder which doesn’t have treatment, the social model of disability is one of the approaches that can be used to encourage and accept people with autism to the community (Chown & Beardon, 2017). the reason for saying so is that this is the right place for these people can stay as full-fledged citizens thus doing the same activities with other people. However, this treatment model still faces community’s judgement such as the discrimination and exclusion but in the same way, people have been changing their thoughts and views on disability thus helping them develop just like the other children. Secondly, the second model of treatment is the medical model for disability. Herein, the people are exposed to various to different medical diagnosis including therapies which helps through the treatment process. Additionally, people have as well changed their attitude towards people with disability and as such, they ensure that they help them with their character.

Alzheimer’s Disease

The most used model for treatment include cognitive therapy and it exposes the victims to training and intervention programs which persuades their cognitive abilities thus improving their impairment. According to (Carrion, Folkvord, Anastasiadou & Aymerich, 2018) the memory is increased within the first one year thus making them do their daily duties without problems. Secondly lifestyle interventions and nonpharmacological therapies can also be used to treat this disorder (Burke, Goldfarb, Bollam & Khokher, 2019). As such, under this model antidepressant can be used to treat people with Alzheimer’s disease especially the mental problem. nonpharmacological therapies are used for treating people with depression and also emotion related therapies and stimulation therapies. During the treatment, lifestyle intervention is done and helps again to change the feelings and health of the people.

References

Burke, A., Goldfarb, D., Bollam, P., & Khokher, S. (2019). Diagnosing and Treating Depression in Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease. Neurology and Therapy, 8(2), 325-350. doi: 10.1007/s40120-019-00148-5

Carrion, C., Folkvord, F., Anastasiadou, D., & Aymerich, M. (2018). Cognitive Therapy for Dementia Patients: A Systematic Review. Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders, 46(1-2), 1-26. doi: 10.1159/000490851

CDC. (2019). Diagnostic Criteria | Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) | NCBDDD | CDC. Retrieved 6 March 2020, from https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html

Chown, N., & Beardon, L. (2017). Theoretical Models and Autism. Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders, 1-7. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4614-6435-8_102171-1

dshs.texas.gov. (2020). Alzheimer’ s Disease Questions and Answers. Retrieved 6 March 2020, from https://dshs.texas.gov/alzheimers/qanda.shtm

Epa.gov. (2020). Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Retrieved 6 March 2020, from https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-10/documents/ace3_neurodevelopmental.pdf

nhs.uk. (2020). Alzheimer’s disease – Causes. Retrieved 6 March 2020, from https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/alzheimers-disease/causes/