Understanding Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease Dealing with Dementia and the progression of Alzheimer's disease through its three stages is often a daunting and distressing task. Most often relatives feel isolated and without help as if they were to be left alone, having no help to deal with the "unknown". They are also afraid of having to watch their loved ones become more and more distant, potentially losing a horrible battle with this disease. In order to help with this fear of the "unknown" you need to first understand Dementia, Alzheimer's disease and the three stages that accompany Alzheimer's. Let us first talk about what dementia actually means. Dementia is the name for a group of diseases that affect normal, routine …show more content…
This loss of initiative can happen to anyone but normally with the elder dementia sufferers (Dementia.com). There are a number of favorable conditions that can ease these types of situations dealing with the patient and his/her relatives. The conditions of concern in particular are the actual care and organization of their surrounding environment. Improvements can be achieved through physical, emotional and also mental activation, the help of physiotherapists or ergo therapists are examples. There is even help for a number of physical problems such as incontinence, difficulties of food intake and problems of lying down. In the early stage, training of thinking and memory functions should only be carried out carefully, otherwise there is the danger that the patient is always reminded of his/her diminishing mental abilities. Dementia is a progressive condition that can not be cured but there are some medications that improve the disease symptoms and slow down the progression helping to improve brain function; this is considered to be a positive response to medication. Treatments, along with level of care and certain physical, mental and emotional and mental stimuli can result in some temporary improvements in some patients. Today's drugs of choice for dementia are anti-dementia (acetylcholinesterase inhibitors) or psychotropic drugs. Acetylcholinesterase
Dementia is a progressive disorder that will affect how you’re brain functions and particularly your ability to remember, think and reason. Dementia usually affects older people and are approximately 820,000 people in the UK with the disorder, and around 15,000 are under the age of 65. If the dementia is recognised early enough that are a lot of things that you can be done to make the quality of life better. In a lot of dementia cases the symptoms and quality of life will progress and get worse over a number of years. The most common symptoms of a dementia patient are:
Literature Review: The Effectiveness of the use of Sensory Therapy for Elderly Adults Diagnosed with Dementia.
There are many types of dementia, causing many different symptoms and treatments, it may take time to find the appropriate treatment/medication to suit the individual.
dementia is not a disease or illness its an overall term which describes a wide range of symptoms associated with a decline in memories or a persons other mental abilities which in turn can reduce a persons ability to perform everyday tasks.
1.1 Dementia is a progressive disease where an individual’s brain functions deteriorate and affects their mental capabilities. This disease is incurable which is similar to another terminal illness such as cancer. Symptoms of dementia will affect an individual’s memory leading to loss and confusing, language/ communication, understanding and judgement. Medication can be prescribed to help slow down the progression of symptoms.
Dementia is a term used to describe symptoms associated with decline in memory or other
Dementia is a type of disorder that affects the central nervous system. It’s not a disease itself but a group of symptoms that characterize disease and conditions. It’s commonly defined as a decline in intellectual functioning that is severe enough to interfere with the ability to perform routine activities. It causes significant loss of intellectual abilities, such as memory capacity, severe enough to interfere with social or occupational functioning. Dementia‘s a general term that also includes specific disorders like vascular dementia as well as others.
Dementia is a condition resulting from obtained brain disease and distinguished by progressive decay in memory and other cognitive fields such as judgment, abstract thinking, language, and executive functioning. This disease is usually caused by degeneration in the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain responsible for thoughts, memories, actions, and personality. Death of brain cells in this area leads to the impairments that distinguish dementia. Though the cognitive outline of single diagnosed with dementia vary somewhat by etiology, the degree of deterioration stands for a decrease from previous levels of cognitive functioning and is enough to impede with social and occupational functioning. This downfall is beyond what might be expected from normal aging in a person. It can cause impairment with everyday activities such as dressing, feeding, and bathing.
What is dementia? Dementia is a broad category of brain diseases. Dementia can be treated, but can not be cured. Medication and other treatments may be used to help get better, but there are often little to no benefits. Dementia affects your brain’s ability to think, remember, solve problems, and also has a severe effect on your daily activities. Dementia can be caused by many different things. You can develop dementia from a previous brain injury, excessive drinking, or you could have dementia in your genes.
An expert caregiver in dementia care is trained to be able to identify the progressive deterioration symptoms of the patient to take the next best course of action without springing sudden surprises that may be discouraging to the family members. These professional dementia caregivers are able to inform the family members of the progressive health of the patient gently to help members accept the condition of the patient.
Dementia is a chronic illness that effects millions of Americans annually with increasing numbers. The general understanding of dementia is that it affects the mind, and while it does affect the mind, entangles much more than just that. Dementia engulfs a patient 's mind, family, a level of caregiving, and an involvement in research of the disease.
Alzheimer’s disease is categorized in three different stages based on the severity of the illness. When a person is experiencing the first stage of Alzheimer’s, the individual tends to lose interest in the activities that were once highly valuable to him or her, and tends to disengage in social interactions. Most of time, the immediate family are the ones that tend to pick up on the behavioral changes, since they are constantly in contact with the individual, who is experiencing these dramatic changes.
Dementia is a chronic syndrome, characterized by a progressive deterioration in intellect, including memory, learning, comprehension and judgment (World Alzheimer’s report, 2009). 46.8 million people worldwide were estimated to have dementia in 2015 and this is set to rise to 131.5 million people by 2050 (World Alzheimer report 2015). There are
The data was collected from the CASCADE (the Choices, Attitudes, and Strategies for Care of Advanced Dementia at the End-of-Life) database and National Institutes of Health to locate dementia patients this was the fastest way to reach and contact a cohort of patients. The health history of the cohort was gathered from patients’ medical charts and from health care providers in nursing homes to save time from reassessing the patients. The regular physical examination of the patients was scheduled every 3 months for up to 18 months to evaluate health status, clinical complications, distressing symptoms, and burdensome interventions. These visits helped the researchers to record the progression of the disease. Also, a cognitive examination with the Test for Severe Impairment had been done for each patient.
In the brain, neurons connect and communicate at synapses, where tiny bursts of chemicals called neurotransmitters carry information from one cell to another. Alzheimer's interrupts this process, eventually destroys synapses, and kills neurons damaging the brain's communication network. As the illness progresses, different stages build up. Through the early stage plaques and tangles, abnormal clusters of protein fragments, build up between cells and twisted strands of another protein, form in the planning and learning brain areas causing patients to suffer light memory loss about simple things they learn like new names or data. After this, during the mid stage, care and help will be needed in some of the everyday tasks because planning and learning will be badly compromised. At the same moment, during this stage, plaques and tangles are created in the speaking and speech part of the cerebrum. Finally, during the late stage, individuals lose the ability to respond or interact with their