Pathophysiology and management of alzheimer’s disease: an overview

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the sixth-leading reason of fatality and is 70% present in all cases of dementia. The global burden of AD is expected to accelerate from 26.6 million cases in 2006 to 106.8 million by 2050. The total assumed worldwide costs of dementia were US$ 604 billion in 2010, equivalent to 1% of the world's Gross domestic product (GDP). This review is focused on the overview of pathophysiology and management of AD. The sources for the literature search were PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scopus and Google Scholar. AD is generally considered as disorders related to intensify loss of neurons and synapses proceeds in distinct anatomical loci, resulting in different phenotypes. The pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease is credited to a number of factors such as the cholinergic dysfunction, amyloid/tau toxicity and oxidative stress/ mitochondrial dysfunction. Apart from various therapeutic targets, biomarkers and pharmaco-therapies available; Herbal drugs, secondary metabolites and to the some extent non-pharmacological therapies are impending and potential candidates for the management of AD. Further studies are required to elaborate the detailed mechanism of Herbal drugs, secondary metabolites and non-pharmacological therapies for the management of AD.