why does alzheimer’s increase the likelihood of aggression/anger in older people?
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From a science pov, Alzheimer’s tends to heavily affect the hippocampus which has a role in memory formation. As the disease progresses, patients also experience diffuse cortical atrophy of the brain, which will affect the prefrontal cortex. This part of the brain is heavily involved with the part of your mind that tells you when something is “bad” and that you “shouldn’t do it”. A simplistic explanation, but in other words, you can’t remember things and then the part of your brain that inhibits some of your “bad” thoughts/actions begins to not function correctly, so you’re confused and eventually start to act out in anger, frustration, and/or fear
Answering from a locked unit in long term care. A big issue is the fact that a lot of them don’t have any idea where they are and the fact that they need help. Imagine someone trying to undress you and get you wiped up, touching all your special parts, and you thinking it’s a random stranger. And to take it a step further imagine someone random handing you a med cup full of different medications and you’re heavily advised to take them, a lot of time with little explanation what it is. Generally this is mostly an issue with the later stages of dementia (of which Alzheimer’s is the most common form) since they have the most issues remembering who people are. Once their mental state has decreased to such a level a lot of them can think they are being punished, and I have residents ask if they are in jail at least once a week. To give a much more simplified answer, they are confused, and when people get confused their fight or flight kicks in, some of them give in to your requests out of fear, while some take matters into their own hands.
Edit to add, most people that have dementia have a much higher likelihood to have depression and anxiety, and when they are still able to perceive that they are actively going downhill that can make it mentally devastating to even go in with life, that can either manifest in anger or just completely giving up.
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Frustration and anger grow the farther expectations separate from reality. This is true for all of us. You expect a drive to take 30 min, but traffic makes it take an hour? Frustration or outright anger.
Someone with Alzheimer’s is mentally becoming more and more separated from reality. I can only imagine how terrifying it must be for them.
You hear about the angry and aggressive ones more. My mom had it and was as sweet and accepting as always, through to the end. 😭❤️Being aggressive just wasn’t part of her temperament.
Forgetting things constantly can be confusing and terrifying, and the disease affects people differently. It’s really hard to imagine their situation, but being constantly confused and maybe a bit frightened when you used to be so in control of your can build up frustration in anyone.
Fear and confusion and delusion. If you’re walking on black and white tile, and suddenly the black tile becomes a hole in the earth your delusions and confusion will manifest to fear and anger.
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