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The other day I was sitting with friends, and I heard a story about the grandmother of a friend who immigrated to Toronto. At the airport she was asked her name and date of birth. She just could not answer these simple questions. The immigration officer asked her if she knew in which country and city she was. She should have answered Toronto, Canada. Instead she said Lahore, Islamabad.
She was detained at the airport for five hours. Finally, it was determined she had dementia. The Canadians were good enough to let her in the country.
What is dementia?
What Are the Common Signs?
Dementia is a problem in the brain that makes it hard for a person to remember, learn and communicate. After a while, this makes it hard for the person to take care of himself or herself.
Dementia may also change a person’s mood and personality. At first, memory loss and trouble thinking clearly may bother the person who has dementia. Later, disruptive behaviour and other problems may start. The person who has dementia may not be aware of these problems.
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What causes dementia?
Dementia is caused by the destruction of brain cells. A head injury, a stroke, a brain tumour or a problem like Alzheimer’s disease can damage brain cells. Some people have a family history of dementia.
What are the common signs of dementia?
Dementia causes many problems for the person who has it and for the person’s family. Many of the problems are caused by memory loss. Some common signs of dementia are listed below. Not everyone who has dementia will have all of these signs.
* Recent memory loss. All of us forget things for a while and then remember them later. People with dementia often forget things, but they never remember them. They might ask you the same question over and over, each time forgetting that you’ve already given them the answer. They won’t even remember that they have already asked the question.
* Difficulty performing familiar tasks. People who have dementia might cook a meal but forget to serve it. They might even forget that they cooked it.
* Problems with language. They may forget simple words or use the wrong words. This makes it hard to understand what they want.
* Time and place disorientation. They may get lost on their own street. They may forget how they got to a certain place and how to get back home.
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Alzheimer’s Disease: Other Forms of Dementia
Dementia is the loss of mental functions — such as thinking, memory, and reasoning — that is severe enough to interfere with a person’s daily functioning. Dementia is not a disease itself, but rather a group of symptoms that are caused by various diseases or conditions. Symptoms can also include changes in personality, mood, and behaviour. In some cases, dementia can be treated and cured because the cause is treatable. Examples of this include dementia caused by substance abuse (illicit drugs and alcohol), combinations of prescription medications, and hormone or vitamin imbalances. In some cases, although the person may appear to have dementia, a severe depression can be causing the symptoms. This is known as pseudo-dementia (false dementia) and is highly treatable. In most cases, however, true dementia cannot be cured.
Because some causes of dementia can be cured or partially treated, it is very important that your doctor is thorough when making the diagnosis, so as not to miss potentially treatable conditions. The frequency of ‘treatable’ causes of dementia is believed to be about 10%.
Alzheimer’s disease At A Glance
* Alzheimer’s disease is a brain disease of unknown cause that leads to dementia.
* Most patients with Alzheimer’s disease are over 65 years of age.
* There are 10 classic warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease: memory loss, difficulty performing familiar tasks, problems with language, disorientation of time and place, poor or decreased judgment, problems with abstract thinking, misplacing things, changes in mood or behaviour, changes in personality, and loss of initiative.
* Patients with symptoms of dementia should be thoroughly evaluated before they become inappropriately or negligently labelled as sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease.
* Although there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, treatments are available to alleviate many of the symptoms that cause suffering.
* The management of Alzheimer’s disease consists of medication based and non-medication based treatments, organized to care for the patient and family. Treatments aimed at changing the underlying course of the disease (delaying or reversing the progression) has so far been largely unsuccessful. Medicines that restore the defect, or malfunctioning, in the chemical messengers of the nerve cells have been shown to improve symptoms. Finally, medications are available that deal with the psychiatric manifestations of Alzheimer’s disease.
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