Dementia itself is not a specific disease, but it a syndrome. It describes a wide range of
symptoms associated with memory loss, ability to reason, and the capacity to think, judgment,
language, complex motor skills, and other intellectual function-caused by the permanent damage
or death of the brain's nerve cells, or neurons. It's a general term for a decline in mental ability
that interferes with a person's daily life. It is often the most misunderstood condition in medicine
today. Many people believe that senility and/or senile dementia is a result of aging, and they
never seek evaluation for family members who show signs of memory loss. People with
dementia may not be able to think well enough to do normal daily activities, like getting dressed
or eating. Dementia can cause them to lose their ability to solve problems or control emotions.
Although dementia mainly affects older people, it is not a normal part of ageing. There are
different types of dementia and different causes for dementia.
Due to dementia being a group of disorders the symptoms can vary wildly. Depending on
the cause and the brain that is affected can also cause the symptoms to vary. Symptoms include
memory loss, which is the earliest and most noticeable symptom, having difficulties
remembering recent events or recognizing people and places, some may have a difficult time
finding the right words to say, they may have problems planning a task and remembering to do it.
The patient can have trouble exercising judgment, like knowing what to do in an emergency, they
will begin to have trouble controlling moods or behaviors. Over time patients may and can forget
how to walk, eat, take care of themselves, and they can even forget how to sit up. Dementia
patients' lives are not easy, their vision is blurred by darkness, shadows, and they have out-of-
focus images. Their hearing becomes obscured by static, sirens, and slamming doors. The sense
of touch is reduced, the inside of your shoes are small plastic spikes making it painful every time
you walk, they walk in circles a lot, they swing at unfamiliar objects and knock things over. They
often talk to themselves, cry out for help, or panic. They don't finish all tasks, if any of their
tasks. They eventually can't even take care of themselves, they will forget how to do a lot of
things.
With dementia physical changes to brain cells that are caused by disease or accident
interrupts the flow of electrical charges to and from the affected neurons. This results in
interrupting the cells ability to connect or communicate with the other brain cells. Short dementia
is caused by changes in the physical structure of the brain due to accident or a disease, the
damage brain cells then will no longer produce neurotransmitters that carry the right sorts of
electrical impulses or messages to other brain cells. Dementia is usually caused by degeneration
in the cerebral cortex. This is the part of the brain that is responsible for your thoughts, actions,
memories, and personality. Some other causes of dementia are head injury, brain tumors,
infections like HIV/AIDS, syphilis, or meningitis, metabolic disorders, hypoxia, drug abuse,
chromic alcoholism, and many more. The two major degenerative causes of dementia are
Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. Frontotemporal dementia is a disease that causes
dementia in young adults. With Vascular dementia its caused by lack of blood flow to the brain,
Lewy body dementia is caused by protein deposits in nerve cells.
There is no one specific test done to determine if someone has dementia or not. The
doctor will ask about the person's medical history, review the prescription and over-the-counter
medications, remedies, and anything else the person is taking. Anything they are taking can
cause changes in mental ability, behavior, and mood. The doctor then will check for signs of
depression and other mental and physical health problems that can be causing the dementia like
symptoms. They will ask about possible delusions or hallucinations the older person may have
had. They will do tests to check for mental abilities, do a complete physical exam that includes
blood and other lab tests to check for unrevealed problems and reversible causes. With this,
doctors can determine that a person has dementia with a high level of certainty. Even though it is
easy for a doctor to determine is a patient has dementia and can time they have it with a high
certainty, it is very hard to determine what type of dementia it is. This is because the different
dementias brain changes and symptoms can over-lap. Routine tests include Thyroid hormone
which checks for an underactive thyroid, Vitamin B12 blood test to look for deficiency, CT scans
and MRI scans to look for brain tumors, strokes, normal-pressure hydrocephalus or other
conditions that could cause dementia symptoms. CT and MRI scans can show evidence of
strokes from vascular dementia. The doctor can also do Single Photon Emission CT (SPECT)
and PET scan to help identify several forms of dementia. Some doctors may use
electroencephalogram (EEG) to diagnose dementia.
Some cases of dementia are caused by a medical condition and it can be treated, with the
treatment it can restore some or all mental function. Even though this is possible, most of the
time, dementia cannot be reversed, depending on whether the brain has suffered too much
damage. Treating the dementia can help, some people might take vitamins for a deficiency of
vitamin B12, take thyroid hormones for hypothyroidism, have surgery to remove a brain tumor,
stop a certain medicine or medicines that are causing memory loss or confusion, take medicine to
treat depression. Some forms of dementia may be curable in terms of keeping the symptoms
under control, but there is no definite cure yet for most types of dementia. There are certain types
of medical drugs, also known as cholinesterase inhibitors. This can help stabilize memory and
thinking capacities for a short time on a temporary basis. However, this is not a long-term cure,
even though it helps with memory and thinking capacities it cannot help someone who suffers
from memory loss due to dementia. If the doctor doesn't know what type of dementia the patient
has it makes it harder to prescribe medications for the patients.
There are many different types of dementia, one of the most common form of dementia is
Alzheimer's disease it's a progressive degenerative illness that attacks the brain and causes
gradual increase in memory and thinking problems. Alzheimer's mostly occurs in people over the
age of 65. All most all people with Down syndrome will get Alzheimer's and it will occur at a
young age. The second most common form of dementia is Vascular dementia, it is the broad term
for dementia associated with disease in the blood vessels of the brain. The vessels affect the
circulation of blood to the brain and causes damage, there are many types of vascular dementia
as well. Some people with Parkinson's disease may develop Parkinson's disease dementia which
is when they not only have symptoms of Parkinson's, but also have symptoms of dementia. There
is also Frontotemporal dementia, is the name given to a group of dementias that involve
degenerative in one or both the frontal or temporal lobes of the brain. FTD usually affects people
at a younger age than Alzheimer's disease, the symptoms usually begin between ages of 60 and
70 and maybe sometimes younger. There are many more types of dementia. There are 850,000
people with dementia in the UK. 225,000 people will develop dementia this year, which means
every three minutes someone develops dementia, and there is no cure at all for dementia.
Risk factors for dementia like age and genetics cannot be changed. Researchers explore
the impact of other risk factors on the brain health and prevention of dementia. The most active
areas in risk reduction and prevention include cardiovascular factors, physical fitness, and diet.
Blood vessel changes in the brain are linked to vascular dementia. You can help protect your
brain with some strategies that help protect your heart such as don't smoke, take cholesterol and
blood sugar within recommended limits and maintain a healthy weight. Regular physical
exercise may help lower the risk of dementia. Exercise directly benefits brain cells by increasing
blood and oxygen to the brain. What you eat can impact your brain health through its effects on
your heart health. Evidence suggests that when you have a heart healthy pattern such as the
Mediterranean diet. This diet includes relatively little red meat and whole grains, fruits and
vegetables, fish, nuts, olive oil, and other healthy facts. There is no certain way to prevent
dementia, but these are some ways to reduce the risk of dementia.