Stay mentally and socially active. Engaging in mental or social activities may help to build up your brain's ability to cope with disease, relieve stress and improve your mood. This means doing these activities may help to delay, or even prevent, dementia from developing.
There is currently no cure for most types of dementia – including the dementia caused by Alzheimer's disease. These types of dementia are what we call “neurodegenerative.” The progression of these dementias cannot be reversed right now; symptoms gradually get worse.
Early-onset Alzheimer disease currently has no cure. But healthcare providers have been successful in helping people maintain their mental function, control behavior, and slow the progress of the disease.
Keeping an active social life, regular exercise, and continuing activities the person enjoys, or finding new ones, can help to reduce behaviours that are out of character. Read more about activities for dementia. Other things that can help include: providing reassurance.
other long-term health problems – dementia tends to progress more quickly if the person is living with other conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes or high blood pressure, particularly if these are not well-managed.
Administration: The examiner reads a list of 5 words at a rate of one per second, giving the following instructions: “This is a memory test. I am going to read a list of words that you will have to remember now and later on. Listen carefully. When I am through, tell me as many words as you can remember.
The average life expectancy figures for the most common types of dementia are as follows: Alzheimer's disease – around eight to 10 years. Life expectancy is less if the person is diagnosed in their 80s or 90s. A few people with Alzheimer's live for longer, sometimes for 15 or even 20 years.
The middle stages of dementia are when anger and aggression are most likely to start. This can occur as other symptoms like wandering, hoarding, and compulsive behaviors can be seen by your loved one.
The Mini-Cog test.
A third test, known as the Mini-Cog, takes 2 to 4 minutes to administer and involves asking patients to recall three words after drawing a picture of a clock. If a patient shows no difficulties recalling the words, it is inferred that he or she does not have dementia.
Alzheimer's disease progressively destroys brain cells over time, so during the early stages of dementia, many do recognize something is wrong, but not everyone is aware. They may know they are supposed to recognize you, but they can't.
1. Physical activity. Doing regular physical activity is one of the best ways to reduce your risk of dementia. It's good for your heart, circulation, weight and mental wellbeing.
A diagnosis is B12 deficiency may be a reversible cause of confusion and behavior changes. In other words, it's possible that increasing your B12 level can improve or restore your memory and ability to think clearly. It can also resolve the other symptoms you may be experiencing such as fatigue and weakness.
Eating sugar and refined carbs can cause pre-dementia and dementia. But cutting out the sugar and refined carbs and adding lots of fat can prevent, and even reverse, pre-dementia and early dementia. More recent studies show people with diabetes have a four-fold risk for developing Alzheimer's.
Some of the more common triggers for dementia like a change in environment, having personal space invaded, or being emotionally overwhelmed may be easier to handle if you mentally practice your response before you react.
For most people with Alzheimer's — those who have the late-onset variety — symptoms first appear in their mid-60s or later. When the disease develops before age 65, it's considered early-onset Alzheimer's, which can begin as early as a person's 30s, although this is rare.
The five-minute cognitive test (FCT) was designed to capture deficits in five domains of cognitive abilities, including episodic memory, language fluency, time orientation, visuospatial function, and executive function.
Ice cream brings people with dementia to happier, warmer times when the treat was shared with friends and loved ones at special, joyous occa- sions. Ice cream has the power to immediately elicit soothing feelings at the very first taste of a single spoon-full.
In stage 6 of dementia, a person may start forgetting the names of close loved ones and have little memory of recent events.
Often when a person with dementia asks to go home it refers to the sense of 'home' rather than home itself. 'Home' may represent memories of a time or place that was comfortable and secure and where they felt relaxed and happier. It could also be an indefinable place that may not physically exist.
People often live for years with dementia. While it can be difficult to think of these diseases as terminal, they do eventually lead to death. Caregivers often experience special challenges surrounding the end of life of someone with dementia in part because the disease progression is so unpredictable.
Most dementias are not passed down through the family. This page will help you understand the genetic links for different types of dementia.