Dementia Essay

The topic I chose for my research paper was dementia. I was interested in this topic because it came to my attention that my grandmother, who is in her early 70’s, was showing signs of dementia. I wanted to research it so I could find out for about it. Before I researched dementia I only knew a handful of things about treatments, symptoms, and causes. However, after I researched, I found out things that I would never would have imagined to be true. Before I started my research I was hoping to learn more about why there was no cure or if there was an organization that was trying to find the cure. In order to find out information I looked for reliable scientists’ and their research on dementia.
The symptoms of dementia are in different categories such as: Cognitive, behavioral changes, mood changes, psychological
disorders, and muscular reduction. Cognitive deals with the process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. It causes memory loss, mental decline, inability to speak or understand, making things up, or not being able to recognize common things, and reduced navigational skills. Behavioral changes cause personality changes, restlessness, and tendency of getting lost or wandering. Mood changes can cause anxiety, loneliness, mood swings, or nervousness. Psychological disorders are depression, hallucination,or paranoia. Muscular reduction is the incapability to move muscles or having unsteady with your walking. Also common symptoms are falling or slurring/jumbled speech. These symptoms can interfere with daily functioning.
When you show symptoms of dementia your doctor will prescribe you with medications, and they will tell you about specialists and therapies that can help with those symptoms. Medications you would take are called cognition-enhancing medications, which improve mental functions, lowers blood pressure, and may balance moods. Some common drugs that you can take,if prescribed, are Memantine, Galantamine, and Rivastigmine. Some specialists that your doctor would suggest you to visit if you are diagnosed with dementia are geriatricians, clinical psychologists, neurologists, psychiatrist, or a Primary care provider(PCP). A geriatrician focuses on the health care of elderly people. A clinical psychologist treats mental disorders primarily with talk therapy. A Neurologist treats nervous system disorders. A psychiatrist treats mental disorders primarily with medications. A primary car provider, or a PCP for short, prevents, diagnoses, and treats diseases. Therapies that you can visit are rehabs or occupational therapy. Rehab retrains the brain’s pathways to improve mental and physical functions after an illness or an injury. Occupational therapy improves daily living and work skills of patients.
Dementia essentially damages the nerve cells in the brain and can occur in several areas of the brain.
Dementia has different affects on people, depending where in the brain it has affected. Progressive dementias are types of dementia that so far along it can’t be reversed. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia and it is found in people around 65 and older. According to the Cleveland Clinic, Alzheimer’s disease is responsible for 50 to 70 percent of all cases of dementia. Vascular dementia is the second most common type of dementia. It occurs as a result of damage to the vessels that supply blood to your brain. Lewy body dementia is another common type of progressive dementia. Lewy bodies are abnormal clumps of protein found in the brains of people with dementia causing diseases. Frontotemporal dementia is a group that is a less common type of dementia. The group is characterized by the failure of nerve cells in the areas of the brain associated with personality, behavior, and language. Mixed dementia is a combination of Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, and Lewy body dementia found in the brains of people around the age 80 and
up.
Scientists from University College London the the University of East Anglia created a game in collaboration with Alzheimer’s Research U.K and Deutsche Telekom that hemps collect dad for dementia research. The game is called Sea Hero Quest and it’s about a father and a son who discover sea creatures together. When the father’s memories are lost the son, or the person playing the game, has to go through all of their journeys to help his father remember. The game asks basic questions to determine how they differ across ages, genders, and locations. It has challenges for navigating a ship to areas to help scientists understand people’s navigational skills. Diminished navigational skills are an early symptom of dementia and because of the lack of data, it’s difficult to tell whether someone’s reduced navigational abilities are due to regular aging, or if they’re in early stages of dementia. At the Dementia Research Center the Clinical Trials team, led by Dr. Cath Mummery, they are running a number of clinical trials. These trials allow scientists’ to develop and test medicines that may alter the progression of diseases causing dementia, or relieve, possibly prevent, the onset of symptoms.
Before I researched dementia I only knew a handful of things about treatments, symptoms, and causes. However, after I researched, I found out things that I never would have imagined to be true. Before I started my research I was hoping to learn more about why there was no cure or if there was an organization that was trying to find the cure. In order to find out information I looked for reliable scientists’ and their research on dementia. I completed my goal and found organizations that were trying to find a cure for dementia.