Dementia is a general term that represents a group of diseases and illnesses that affect your thinking, memory, reasoning, personality, mood, and behavior. The decline in mental function interferes with your daily life and activities.
Dementia is considered a late-life disease because it tends to develop mostly in older people, with about 50% of people aged 85 and older affected by the disease.
Symptoms:
Initially, the symptoms may be mild and increase in intensity with age…
- Forgetting recent events
- Difficulty remembering the right words.
- Repeating comments or questions over a very short period.
- Misplacing commonly used items or placing them in unusual spots.
- Not knowing the season, year, or month.
- Experiencing a change in mood, behavior, or interests.
- Inability to perform daily tasks, such as brushing the teeth, making a cup of coffee, cooking, and paying bills.
- Change in sleeping pattern
- Increase or worsening of anxiety, frustration, confusion, agitation, suspiciousness, sadness, and/or depression.
- Experiencing hallucinations.
These symptoms are general symptoms of dementia. Each person diagnosed with dementia has different symptoms, depending on what area of their brain is damaged. Additional symptoms and/or unique symptoms occur with specific types of dementia.
Types of Dementia:
- Primary dementia is the disease and conditions in which dementia is the main illness.
- Secondary dementia is due to another disease condition.
- Dementias-like symptoms due to reversible causes that may be due to other illnesses.
Primary Dementia includes…
- Alzheimer’s Disease – the most common type of dementia.
- Vascular dementia – the second most common type of dementia. It’s caused by conditions such as strokes or atherosclerosis, which block and damage blood vessels in the brain.
- Frontotemporal dementia -This type results from damage to the frontal and temporal lobes of your brain.
- Mixed dementia – This is a combination of two or more types of dementia. The most common combination is Alzheimer’s disease with vascular dementia, common in people 80 years of age and over.
Secondary causes of Dementia include…
The most common are Parkinson’s disease Huntington’s disease and Traumatic brain injury.
Dementias-like symptoms due to reversible causes…
Some conditions can cause dementia-like symptoms that can be reversed with treatment, including:
- Vitamin deficiency- Not getting enough vitamin B1, B6, B12 copper, and vitamin E in the diet can cause dementia-like symptoms.
- Infections – Infections that can cause dementia-like symptoms include HIV infection, syphilis, and Lyme disease.
- Metabolic and endocrine conditions – Conditions that can mimic dementia include low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) exposure to heavy metals like arsenic or mercury, high calcium levels (hypercalcemia, often due to hyperparathyroidism), liver cirrhosis, and thyroid problems.
Side effects of certain medications can be another cause of Dementia.
Risks of the disease:
The risk factors of dementia include
Age – the strongest risk factor. The chance of dementia increases with age. Most cases affect people over the age of 65.
Family history: If you have biological parents or siblings with dementia, you’re more likely to develop dementia.
Down syndrome: If one has Down syndrome, they are at risk of developing early-onset Alzheimer’s disease by middle age.
Poor heart health: If you have high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, or smoke, you increase your risk of dementia. These health problems, as well as diabetes, affect your blood vessels. Damaged blood vessels can lead to reduced blood flow and strokes.
Race and ethnicity: Black people have twice the risk of developing dementia. If you’re a Hispanic person, you’re 1.5 times more likely than a white person to develop dementia.
Brain injury: People with Brain injury are at a higher risk for dementia.
Treatment Plans for Dementia:
Treatment of dementia depends on its cause. In the case of most progressive dementias, including Alzheimer’s disease, there is no cure, however, there are approaches one can take that can help manage symptoms and maintain the quality of life.
Treatments demonstrate that removing beta-amyloid, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease, from the brain reduces cognitive and functional decline in people living with early Alzheimer’s.
It can temporarily slow the worsening of dementia symptoms and improve the quality of life for those living with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers. The medications used to treat Alzheimer’s are among the drugs prescribed for dementia too.
Keep in touch with the doctor to discuss any side effects. The healthcare planner or provider can help you ensure you’re receiving the most effective treatment as the disease progresses. That way, you can live as healthily and comfortably as possible.
