Dementia: Causes, types, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention

Dementia explains a group of symptoms affecting memory, thinking, social abilities to perform everyday activities. Approximately 50 million and 10 million people have dementia and new cases of dementia, respectively. Even though dementia generally related to memory loss, yet having memory loss alone does not mean you have dementia since there are many causes of memory loss.

What are the causes of dementia?

Dementia is damaged the cells in the brain. This damage interferes with the ability in the brain cells to communicate with other cells. While cells in the brain unable to communicate, thinking, behavior, and feeling can be affected. Dementia can affect individuals differently and causes different symptoms.

How many types of dementia?

Below are the types of dementias that progress and are not reversible.

Alzheimer’s disease
Vascular dementia
Lewy body dementia
Frontotemporal dementia
Mixed dementia

Besides that, other illness linked to dementia

Huntington’s disease
Traumatic brain injury
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
Parkinson’s disease

However, there are some causes of dementia or dementia-link conditions that be reversed.

Infections and immune disorders
Metabolic problems and endocrine abnormality
Nutritional deficiencies
Medication side effects
Subdural hematomas
Poisoning
Brain tumors
Anoxia
Normal-pressure hydrocephalus

What are the symptoms of dementia?

Cognitive changes

Memory loss which is usually noticed by the closest person can be a spouse or someone else
Having difficultly to communication or finding words
Having difficulty with visual and spatial ability including getting lost while driving
Having difficultly to solve the problems or reasoning
Having difficultly to handle complete tasks
Having difficultly to plan or organize
Having difficultly to coordination and motor functions
Confusion and disorientation

Psychological changes

Changing personalities
Depression
Anxiety
Inappropriate behavior
Paranoia
Agitation
Hallucination

Dementia affects each individual in various ways and depending upon the impact of the disease and the personality of the person before becoming ill. Dementia can be understood in three stages as below.

Early stage

Forgetfulness
Losing track of the time
Lost in familiar in a place

Middle stage

Forgetful of a recent event and people’s name
Lost at home
The increasing difficulty of communication
Needing to help with personal care
Experiencing behavior changes including wandering and repeated questioning

Last stage

Unaware of the time and place
Difficulty recognizing relative and friends
Increasing the need for helping self-care
Difficulty walking
Experiencing behavior changes that may escalate and aggression

How to diagnose dementia?

There is no one test to clarify whether someone has dementia. Physicians diagnosed with other types of dementia and Alzheimer’s by analyzing your condition based on a careful of medical history, a physical examination, laboratory tests, and characteristic change in thinking, and function and behaviors associated with each type.

How to treat dementia?

There is no treatment available to cure dementia currently or to alter its progressive course. Many new treatments are being investigated in different stages of clinical trials.

Even though, people who diagnosed with dementia need support from carers and families. The main goals for dementia care are:

Early diagnosis in order to improve early and optimal management
Optimizing physical health, cognition, activities, and well-being
Identify and treating accompanying physical illness
Detecting and treating challenging behavioral and psychological symptoms
Providing information and long-term support to carers

How to prevent dementia?

Though age is the strongest known risk factor for dementia, there is not an inevitable consequence of aging. Additionally, dementia does not exclusively affect older people, young-onset dementia (onset symptoms before 65 years old). There is no certain way to avoid dementia, yet there are many steps you can take that might help.

Keep your mind active
Be physical and socially active
Quit smoking
Prevention from harmful use of alcohol
Maintain body weight
Get enough vitamins
Manage blood pressure (high blood pressure), cholesterol, blood sugar (diabetes)
Treat health conditions
Maintain a healthy diet
Get quality sleep

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