Dementia - Know The Symptoms Associated With It!

Alzheimer's disease accounts for 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases and therefore is regarded the most common type of dementia that mainly results from memory, thinking, and behavioral impairment. Memory loss is mild during the early stages of Alzheimer s but with as time progresses, individuals lose the ability to carry on a conversation and respond to their environment. Others include vascular dementia that occurs after a stroke, and other mild ones like thyroid problems and vitamin deficiencies, which are reversible. Alzheimer's treatments only help to slow down temporarily the progression of dementia symptoms improving the quality of life for both the patients and their caregivers.

Dementia patients exhibit the following symptoms; memory loss exhibited when the patient keeps asking the same question, narrating a given episode repeatedly and remembering events of a given period, for example, a patient may lose a year of their life in memories. Dementia patients may also have trouble carrying out routine familiar tasks such as, buttoning a shirt or cooking a meal. They also exhibit difficulty with language, forgetting simple words or using the wrong ones interchangeably. They become highly disoriented and have to be guided by an aid, for instance, they can get lost on a previously familiar street. They cannot handle stress thinking like when handling money and they keep forgetting the placement of everyday items such as keys, or wallets, clothes. They have frequent sudden and unexplained changes in disposition and outlook on issues, become easily irritable, suspicious, and fearful of people around them. Ensure the patient gets the emotional and psychological support that may ease their depression, helplessness and stigma.

Memory loss can be managed through using memory aids that will help the patient have control of their life such as the use of memory boards that you can write on notes and reminders to help them keep key appointments, and carry out routine activities. Employ the use of helpful signs such as labels on items to enable their easy finding such as labeling furniture, utensils, cooking ingredients, doors to different rooms in the house such as a bathroom. Also, use memory joggers to remind of regular routines such as cleaning up, as well as the placement of things frequently used such as keys, money, phone, and medication. A regular routine also helps to avoid stress and makes the patient feel secure.

Dementia occurs when there is damage to brain cells that interfere with the ability of brain cells to communicate with each other. When brain cells cannot this then impairs thinking, behavior and feelings. Different types of dementia occur when specific brain cell damage in a given part of the brain. For example, high levels of proteins inside and outside brain cells hinder brain cells to stay healthy and to communicate with each other hence causing Alzheimer s. Treating depression, medication side effects, avoiding excess use of alcohol, treating thyroid problems and vitamin deficiencies also helps manage/ slow down the progression of dementia-related ailments.