Understanding What Causes Dementia

by autowitch When your senior parent is diagnosed with dementia, you might wonder and ask yourself this crucial question, "What is dementia?" To be

Understanding Dementia Causes Symptoms Test Treatments

by autowitch

When your senior parent is diagnosed with dementia, you might wonder and ask yourself this crucial question, "What is dementia?" To be able to provide proper help to your parents, it is important that you understand the concept behind this syndrome. In fact, dementia is not a disease. To be more precise, it refers to various symptoms that define the condition. Consequently, this condition speaks of an individual's ability to carry out certain functions in comparison to how they performed them in the past.

Common symptoms of dementia are memory loss, language difficulty, poor judgment, disorientation, and difficulty performing daily living routines such as eating, dressing, or hygiene tasks. Dementia is caused by different factors, such as trauma to the brain due to a disease, inadequate supply of oxygen, head injury, stroke, and many more.

Dementia is most commonly caused by Alzheimer's disease, origins of which are not known even until today. All we know is that this disease hurts and kills brain cells. Alzheimer's is not usually associated with aging, but the risk of acquiring this disease increases with age.

Next to Alzheimer's is vascular dementia, which is caused by a series of strokes in the brain. The strokes can be very tiny that the sufferer may not even be conscious of them. In the long run, however, as they accumulate they can damage the brain tissue to a great extent. Other causes of dementia are Lewy Body disease, Huntington's disease, head trauma, Pick's disease and Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome.

Those caring for a senior loved one should know what dementia is and should keep in mind the following:

The brain's emotional memories show more resistance to dementia than factual memories. As a consequence, you might realize that your loved one seems to be always angry with you for no apparent reason. This is because individuals with dementia usually forget the situations that instigated their strong feelings, but those feelings remain in them even after the incident. So if your Dad was furious last week in response to your suggestion to help him do something, that bitterness can linger even if he has already forgotten why he was unhappy with you. Remember, he is not in any way trying to mistreat you.

The major areas of the brain have one or more specific functions.

Medical & Health Questions : What Is Dementia?

... It can causes seizures, dementia, agony, aneurysms, madness and death

Level A - Teacher Christin

Source : http://imentalhealth.net/mental-health-disorders/cognitive-disorders/understanding-what-causes-dementia

Related video about Understanding What Causes Dementia

Favourite Songs Can Reduce Anxiety in Dementia

Favourite Songs Can Reduce Anxiety in Dementia Favourite Songs Can Reduce Anxiety in Dementia ncbi nlm nih gov Understanding What Causes Dementia

Commonly question about Understanding What Causes Dementia

Question :

Has anyone done research on why geriatric patients have dementia when suffering a UTI?

I m looking for journal entries, ect on what causes the dementia like symptoms in elderly patients when suffering from a urinary tract infection. I am on the understanding that the true reasons are unknown at this time, but I would like to read more on what research has already been done on this phenomenon.

Answer :
Its called delerium and is caused by infection and other reversible medical causes

Question :

Can you tell me if I am on the right path in understanding what dementia is?

My understanding is:
Dementia is a progressive illness caused by a physiological change of cell & chemical damage in the brain.

It can affect memory, language, thinking, perception & orientation.

It is an umbrella term that covers the different types, which include:
Alzheimer s
Korsakoff
Vascular
Lewy body
Frontal lobe
Creutzfeldt-jakob disease

All these different types have different affects on a person as they affect different parts of the brain.

Is this right in what I have written? I was just getting confussed with trying to get a clear understanding of the condition.

Many thanks :)

Answer :
You have it down pretty well. The common cause being that all these conditions listed are caused by something physical with the brain and not psychological. But what you ve said covers the key parts of it.

Question :

Child-like behavior, vascular dementia: what s the prognosis?

was wondering of the latest prognosis the scientific (or even alternative medicine) community has for people with child-like behavior caused by vascular dementia. I understand the sickness in general cannot be cured, but would at least be the child-like behavior be reversible? let s say, through some sort of long-term, aggressive therapy ? may someone enlighten me:-) thank you.

Answer :
Sorry to hear it. Dementia is a terrible thing to have to go through, for both the person and the family. Occasionally the patient will have some lucid days, but not very often. The only thing I ve heard is a little bit of slow down with anti-inflammatory medications.