Brain Diseases

Your brain is the control center of your body. It controls your thoughts, memory, speech, and movement. It regulates the function of many organs. It's part of your nervous system, which also includes your spinal cord and peripheral nerves. The nervous system sends signals between your brain and the rest of the body. Your nerves take in information from your senses and send it to the brain to be processed. Your brain and nerves also communicate to help you move and to control your body's functions.

When the brain is healthy, it works quickly and automatically. But when you have a brain disease, it may affect how well you can function and do your daily activities. Some common brain diseases include:

• Brain tumors, which can press on nerves and affect brain function.
• Degenerative nerve diseases, which can affect many of your body's activities, such as balance, movement, talking, breathing, and heart function. Types include Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.
• Encephalitis (inflammation in the brain), which can lead to problems such as vision loss, weakness, and paralysis.
• Genetic brain disorders, which are caused by changes in genes (also called variants or mutations). These disorders can affect the development and function of the brain.
• Strokes, which can cause a loss of brain cells and can affect your ability to think clearly.
• Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), which can affect brain function. They may range from mild to severe. The effects of a TBI may be temporary or permanent.

The symptoms of brain diseases vary widely, depending on the specific problem. In some cases, damage is permanent. In other cases, treatments such as surgery, medicines, or therapies such as physical, occupational, and speech therapies, may cure the disease or improve the symptoms.

Caregivers

A caregiver gives care to someone who needs help taking care of themselves. The person who needs help may be a child, an adult, or an older adult. They may need help because of an injury or disability. Or they may have a chronic illness such as Alzheimer's disease or cancer.

Some caregivers are informal caregivers. They are usually family members or friends. Other caregivers are paid professionals. Caregivers may give care at home or in a hospital or other health care setting. Sometimes they are caregiving from a distance. The types of tasks that caregivers do may include:

• Helping with daily tasks like bathing, eating, or taking medicine
• Doing housework and cooking
• Running errands such as shopping for food and clothes
• Driving the person to appointments
• Providing company and emotional support
• Arranging activities and medical care
• Making health and financial decisions

Caregiving can be rewarding. It may help to strengthen connections to a loved one. You may feel fulfillment from helping someone else. But caregiving may also be stressful and sometimes even overwhelming. You may be "on call" for 24 hours a day. You may also be working outside the home and taking care of children. So you need to make sure that you are not ignoring your own needs. You have to take care of your own physical and mental health as well. Because when you feel better, you can take better care of your loved one. It will also be easier to focus on the rewards of caregiving.

Dept. of Health and Human Services Office on Women's Health

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a rare, degenerative brain disorder. Symptoms usually start around age 60. Memory problems, behavior changes, vision problems, and poor muscle coordination progress quickly to dementia, coma, and death. Most patients die within a year.

The three main categories of CJD are :

• Sporadic CJD, which occurs for no known reason
• Hereditary CJD, which runs in families
• Acquired CJD, which occurs from contact with infected tissue, usually during a medical procedure

Cattle can get a disease related to CJD called bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or "mad cow disease." There is concern that people can get a variant of CJD from eating beef from an infected animal, but there is no direct proof to support this.

NIH: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Degenerative Nerve Diseases

Degenerative nerve diseases affect many of your body's activities, such as balance, movement, talking, breathing, and heart function. Many of these diseases are genetic. Sometimes the cause is a medical condition such as alcoholism, a tumor, or a stroke. Other causes may include toxins, chemicals, and viruses. Sometimes the cause is unknown.

Degenerative nerve diseases include:

• Alzheimer's disease
• Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
• Friedreich ataxia
• Huntington's disease
• Lewy body disease
• Parkinson's disease
• Spinal muscular atrophy

Degenerative nerve diseases can be serious or life-threatening. It depends on the type. Most of them have no cure. Treatments may help improve symptoms, relieve pain, and increase mobility.

Down Syndrome

What is Down syndrome?

Down syndrome is a condition in which a person has an extra chromosome or an extra piece of a chromosome. This extra copy changes how a baby's body and brain develop. It can cause both mental and physical challenges during their lifetime. Even though people with Down syndrome might act and look similar, each person has different abilities.

What causes Down syndrome?

Chromosomes are tiny "packages" in your cells that contain your genes. Genes carry information, called DNA, that controls what you look like and how your body works. People with Down syndrome have an extra copy of chromosome 21. In some cases, they may have an extra copy of part of the chromosome. Having an extra copy of a chromosome is called trisomy. So sometimes Down syndrome is also called trisomy 21.

Down syndrome is usually not inherited. It happens by chance, as an error when cells are dividing during early development of the fetus. It is not known for sure why Down syndrome occurs or how many different factors play a role.

One factor that increases the risk of having a baby with Down syndrome is the age of the mother. Women ages 35 and older are more likely to have a baby with Down syndrome.

What are the symptoms of Down syndrome?

The symptoms of Down syndrome are different in each person. And people with Down syndrome may have different problems at different times of their lives. They usually have mild to moderate intellectual disabilities. Their development is often delayed. For example, they may start talking later than other children.

Some of the common physical signs of Down syndrome include:

• A flat face
• Eyes that slant up
• A short neck
• Small hands and feet
• Poor muscle tone
• Loose joints

What other problems does Down syndrome cause?

Many people with Down syndrome have the common physical signs and have healthy lives. But some people with Down syndrome might have one or more birth defects or other health problems. Some of the more common ones include:

• Hearing loss
• Sleep apnea (a disorder that causes you to repeatedly stop breathing during sleep)
• Ear infections
• Eye diseases
• Congenital heart defects (heart defects that are present at birth)
• Digestive problems
• Problems with the upper part of the spine
• Obesity

How is Down syndrome diagnosed?

Health care providers can check for Down syndrome during pregnancy or after a child is born.

There are two basic types of tests that help find Down syndrome during pregnancy:

• Prenatal screening tests can show whether your unborn baby has a higher or lower chance of having Down syndrome. If a screening test shows that your baby could have Down syndrome, you'll need another test to find out for sure.
• Prenatal diagnostic tests can diagnose or rule out Down syndrome by checking the chromosomes in a sample of cells. These tests have a small risk of causing a miscarriage, so they're often done after a screening test shows that an unborn baby could have Down syndrome.

After a baby is born, the provider may make an initial diagnosis of Down syndrome based on the physical signs of the syndrome. The provider can use a karyotype genetic test to confirm the diagnosis. The test can check for extra chromosomes in a sample of the baby's blood.

What are the treatments for Down syndrome?

There is no single, standard treatment for Down syndrome. Treatments are based on each person's physical and intellectual needs, strengths, and limitations.

Services early in life focus on helping children with Down syndrome develop to their full potential. These services include speech, occupational, and physical therapies. They are typically offered through early intervention programs in each state. Children with Down syndrome may also need extra help or attention in school, although many children are included in regular classes.

Since people with Down syndrome can have birth defects and other health problems, they will need regular medical care. They may need to have certain extra health screenings to check for problems that happen more often in people with Down syndrome.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention