Essay On Dementia

Dementia is a broad description that consist of numerous different types and involves several symptoms, therefore, making this disease the greatest misunderstood conditions in medicine today. The cause of dementia are factors such as age, family history, hardening of the arteries, heavy alcohol consumption, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes which leads to damaged neurons. When the brain cells become injured, they lose the ability to communicate with other cells, leading to memory loss, and difficulty completing simple tasks.
The symptoms of dementia involve memory loss, problems with speaking or being unable to complete their sentence. The patients may have a difficult time focusing, poor judgment, and trouble comprehending
Frontotemporal dementia, a pronounced shrinking of the frontal lobes of the brain. With this type, people will have noticeable personality changes, they become impulsive, and can develop stiffness in muscles. Vascular Dementia happens when a person suffers from multiple strokes. With Lewy body dementia, abnormal clumps of proteins inside the neurons. People who have this dementia suffer with hallucinations and develop symptoms that has the appearance of Parkinson’s disease. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a rare condition and cases occur without and underlying cause. Normal pressure hydrocephalus happens when fluid fills the spaces in the brain causing pressure to build up. This condition can be treated with the placement of a shunt to drain the extra fluid. Huntington’s disease is caused by abnormal movements and in some cases problems with memory can precede the disease by several years. Alcoholic dementia exists with heaving drinking and develops a deficiency in B vitamins. Other conditions that cause dementia include traumatic brain injury, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Wilson’s disease, meningitis, and heart