People with dementia often rely on their routines as a source of comfort. A daily routine helps a person know what to expect. This means that a sudden disruption in routine may cause dementia symptoms to get worse. This is especially true if a person experiences stress.
Anxiety and depression can make symptoms of dementia worse — particularly symptoms that affect a person's attention, short-term memory, planning, problem-solving, and decision-making. Depression may also change behaviors, with patients becoming agitated and aggressive or experiencing problems sleeping and eating.
Age. The biggest risk factor for dementia is ageing. This means as a person gets older, their risk of developing dementia increases a lot. For people aged between 65 and 69, around 2 in every 100 people have dementia.
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.
Dementia is a general term for loss of memory, language, problem-solving and other thinking abilities that are severe enough to interfere with daily life. Alzheimer's is the most common cause of dementia.
The greatest known risk factor for Alzheimer's and other dementias is increasing age, but these disorders are not a normal part of aging.
Introduction: The five-word test (5WT) is a serial verbal memory test with semantic cuing. It is proposed to rapidly evaluate memory of aging people and has previously shown its sensitivity and its specificity in identifying patients with AD.
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.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease causes a type of dementia that gets worse unusually fast. More common causes of dementia, such as Alzheimer's, dementia with Lewy bodies and frontotemporal dementia, typically progress more slowly. Through a process scientists don't yet understand, misfolded prion protein destroys brain cells.
Don't correct, contradict, blame or insist. Reminders are rarely kind. They tell a person how disabled they are – over and over again. People living with dementia say and do normal things for someone with memory impairment.
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.
While sugar consumption does not directly cause dementia, it can affect it. As mentioned earlier, consuming too much sugar can lead to health issues that increase the risk of developing dementia. Diets high in sugar have been linked to reduced cognitive functioning and memory problems in older adults.
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.
Many people affected by dementia are concerned that they may inherit or pass on dementia. The majority of dementia is not inherited by children and grandchildren. In rarer types of dementia there may be a strong genetic link, but these are only a tiny proportion of overall cases of dementia.
The SAGE test is a 12-question exam that measures cognitive functioning and may help a physician determine whether Alzheimer's is present.
Patient assessment tools:
The GPCOG is a screening tool for cognitive impairment designed for use in primary care and is available in multiple languages. Mini-Cog - The Mini-Cog is a 3-minute test consisting of a recall test for memory and a scored clock-drawing test.
The main sign of mild cognitive impairment is a slight decline in mental abilities. Examples include: Memory loss: You may forget recent events or repeat the same questions and stories. You may occasionally forget the names of friends and family members or forget appointments or planned events.
Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is characterized by accumulation of amyloid-beta (Aβ) plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs). With increasing age these neuropathological hallmarks are also present in the brains of non-demented individuals.
Dementia results from a variety of diseases and injuries that affect the brain. Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia and may contribute to 60–70% of cases.
Alzheimer's disease.
This is the most common cause of dementia, accounting for 60 to 80 percent of cases. It is caused by specific changes in the brain.
The neurologist will perform tests as part of an evaluation (vision, speech, strength, gait, coordination) and can also order tests or imagining (CT or MRI).