Dementia is a term that refers to a set of psychological conditions such as vascular dementia, Parkinson’s disease, Fronto-temporal dementia and dementia with Lewy Bodies. However, dementia is most commonly associated with aging and Alzheimer’s disease.
Dementia disintegrates the patient’s cognitive skills that are necessary for interpersonal relationships often altering their personality. This usually results in dementia patients becoming withdrawn and less sociable.
Dementia vs. Alzheimer’s Disease
It is important to know the difference between dementia and Alzheimer’s disease because the two are often incorrectly used synonymously.
Dementia affects an individual’s (recent) memory, language skills, judgment, decision-making abilities and focus, all of which cause the sufferer to have difficulty performing daily tasks or interacting with other individuals. Patients in the advanced stages of dementia exhibit complete loss of time, events and locations.
Alzheimer’s disease gradually destroys brain cells ultimately resulting in dementia; it accounts for approximately 70 percent of dementia patients. In Alzheimer’s disease, nerve cells are destroyed in the part of the brain that is essential for mental activities and memory. The brain contains chemicals that transport messages between nerve cells. This means that lower chemical levels interrupt nerve communications impeding upon an individual’s cognitive abilities.
Symptoms
Common dementia symptoms incude the following:
- Recent memory loss: Dementia sufferers forget things and are unable to remember them again in the future.
- Language difficulty: Most dementia patients exhibit an in ability to construct meaningful sentences because they may forgot words, terms, places and sometimes use the wrong words for different concepts.
- Inability to perform daily tasks: A dementia patient may have difficulty remembering how to cook a meal or how to use simple household appliances such as ironing.
- Focusing or paying attention:Someone with dementia may show signs of restlessness or difficulty focusing on a task or dialogue.
- Personality changes: Dementia alters individuals’ personality due to the challenges that sufferers face with language use, memory and ability to take initiatives.
- Disorientation:Due to recent memory loss, someone with dementia may easily forget familiar places and things, for example thier age, the time or difficulty finding the way home from work.
- Social withdrawal: Dementia patients tend to “loose” interest in social activities – this may be due to memory loss and language use difficulty.
Diagnosis
Blood tests, mental evaluation and vitamin deficiency are taken into consideration in assessing someone thought to have dementia.
Neurologists diagnose dementia by conducting a series of psychological tests used to measure a patient’s cognitive skills. A brain scan, also known as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is usually the first test performed to determine whether the patient suffered strokes, severe drug interactions or head trauma. Individuals with a history of high blood pressure are at a high risk of developing dementia.
Treatment
There is no cure for dementia but research for ways to slow its progression is on-going.
Ethel Matshiya - Ethel Matshiya was born and raised in Zimbabwe. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and sociology and a master’s ...
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