Dementia is a group of progressive symptoms that slowly but steadily robs people of their ability to think, reason, remember, learn, and function. It’s a painful way for a life full of love and productivity to end; painful both for the person afflicted and for the friends and family members who must watch their loved one’s personality and capabilities change so dramatically.
What is Dementia?
Dementia is not really the name of a specific disease; it’s the name of a group of symptoms that occur due to a variety of different medical conditions that affect the brain.
What Causes Dementia?
A lot of different medical conditions can lead to dementia. Perhaps the most well known is Alzheimer’s disease, in which abnormal and destructive changes occur within the brain’s structure. Other conditions that may also cause dementia include:
- Stroke
- AIDS
- Alcoholism
- Huntington’s disease
- Parkinson’s disease
- Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (or slow-virus infections) and other brain infections
- Multiple sclerosis
- Severe brain injury
- Thyroid dysfunction
- Vitamin B12 or folate deficiency
- Syphilis
What are the Symptoms of Dementia?
People with dementia have a variety of symptoms, such as:
- Gradually worsening memory loss (to previously known people, places, tasks)
- Difficulty concentrating
- Increasingly poor judgment
- Confusion
- Disorientation
- Sleep problems
- Loss of motor skills and coordination, including problems washing and dressing oneself, difficulty walking or inability to walk, problems swallowing, loss of bladder and bowel control
- Loss of language skills, eventually leading to the complete inability to speak
- Personality changes, including mood swings, depression, irritability, combativeness, agitation, or hallucinations
- Loss of executive functioning abilities, including calculations, bill paying, spelling, check book balancing
How is Dementia Diagnosed?
Dementia is diagnosed by testing various mental functions, including memory, thinking, concentration, orientation and judgment. When these tests are repeated over time, the results will be progressively more abnormal.
