Preview

Paper on Dementia

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
673 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Paper on Dementia
Dementia is a type of disorder that affects the central nervous system. It’s not a disease itself but a group of symptoms that characterize disease and conditions. It’s commonly defined as a decline in intellectual functioning that is severe enough to interfere with the ability to perform routine activities. It causes significant loss of intellectual abilities, such as memory capacity, severe enough to interfere with social or occupational functioning. Dementia‘s a general term that also includes specific disorders like vascular dementia as well as others. Doctors typically would find out about the patients medical history before diagnosing them with Dementia, finding any possible risks that would increase a patient’s chance of having it. Like family members that may have had the disorder, or any other neurological disease, history of stroke and alcohol or drug abuse. A doctor may also perform a physical examination including Neurological Examination and appropriate laboratory tests. The American Psychiatric Association has established two generally accepted criteria for diagnosis; erosion of recent and remote memory and impairment of one of more the following functions, language, motor activity, recognition and executive function. Dementia causes serious memory, personality, and behavior problems that the person cannot recognize, for example being able to drive, then forgetting and losing the ability, and not knowing they should not drive. Other issues with memory loss may be difficulty recalling recent events, recognizing familiar people and places. The person suffering from Dementia may also experience Depression, and uncontrollable mood swings. Personal care may also become an issue when dealing with types of Dementia. Some types of Dementia may cause key symptoms such as Lewy Bodies. People with that specific type of Dementia may have highly detailed visual hallucinations and they may often fall. Most of these symptoms occur over time and do not come on

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The early signs of dementia are subtle and vague and may not be obvious. These may include progressive and frequent memory loss, confusion, personality change, apathy and withdrawal, loss of ability to perform ADL’s, not being able to learn new information or follow direction and irrational behaviours (Dementia - diagnosis and early signs). Sometimes people do not recognise symptoms of dementia. They often assume that these indicators or behaviours are a normal part of the ageing process.…

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Unit 4222 237 dem201

    • 1537 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Depression can cause a person to be unable to retain any new information, they can become aggressive or withdrawn, as does a person with Alzheimer's, but with antidepressants and time they may be able to use their recall in time. Delirium can look like dementia as it can affect the way a person thinks and rationalises things. They can lose their ability to function and communicate properly. Age related impairment can usually be noticed between the ages of 50 and 70…

    • 1537 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dementia is a term used to describe a collection of signs and symptoms that happen to the brain when it is affected by the progression of certain diseases such as vascular dementia (when brain cells die due to lack of oxygen) and Alzheimer’s disease (a specific brain disease). Some of the affects these diseases have are on a person’s memory, language and communication abilities, behaviour and ability to make rational judgements.…

    • 4378 Words
    • 18 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Unit 21 Dementia

    • 1793 Words
    • 6 Pages

    A person with dementia will have cognitive symptoms (problems with thinking or memory). They will often have problems with some of the following:…

    • 1793 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    NVQ 5 dementia

    • 1460 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Dementia is a collection of different symptoms these could include, memory loss (this being the most common association), difficulties with thinking and problem solving or language, dementia is caused by damaging of the brain tissue from diseases, such as strokes, Alzhiemers, picks and lewy bodies.…

    • 1460 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dementia as a clinical syndrome is characterised by global cognitive impairment,which represents a decline from previous level of functioning, and is associated with impairment in functional abilities and, in many cases, behavioural and psychiatric disturbances.…

    • 425 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Every type of dementia has different types of memory impairments aswell as oher impairments effecting commuication and bodily functions. Plaques and tangles tend to form in the areas of the brain that are responsible for memory, but as the dementia progresses the formations start to spread to other parts of the brain leading to additional problems such as thinking and language. The most common first sign of most dementia diseases is a memory disfunction for example: individuals may find it difficult to remember a converstation they just had by having a pause for a few minutes to process the…

    • 2170 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia. According to George Krucik, M.D., Alzheimer's accounts for 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases. Alzheimer's is one of many forms of dementia. Other types of dementia include: Vascular Dementia, Mixed Dementia, Parkinson's Disease, Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus, Lewy Body Disease, and Huntington's Disease. Vascular Dementia is the second most common form of dementia. Some symptoms include impaired judgement or ability to plan steps needed to complete a task. Mixed Dementia is a condition in which characteristics of more than one type of dementia occurs simultaneously (Alzheimer's Association). Parkinson's Disease may cause tremors and stiffness. This is a disorder of the central nervous system that affect movement. Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus affects walking, memory, and the ability to control urination. Lewy Body Disease is also known as "The Nightmare Dementia". This disease causes intense hallucinations that replicate many fears. For example, one with Lewy Body Disease may imagine spiders or snakes crawling all over the room. Next is Huntington's Disease, this is a progressive brain disorder caused by a single defective gene on Chromosome Four. Last is Vascular Dementia. Vascular Dementia is a form of brain damage caused by multiple strokes. This disease may last for years or it may be…

    • 875 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Diagnosis of this disease is very difficult. Doctors are only 100% certain of the presence of the disease from autopsies after death. Diagnosis is based on the judgment of physicians and their experience with Alzheimer 's Disease. Current accuracy of correct diagnosis is 90%. Recently they have discovered a way to test the level of Tau protein; this has helped with correct diagnosis. Sometimes mental tests are run to test the memory, learning skills, language skills, and the ability to follow instructions.…

    • 1515 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dementia Research Paper

    • 5750 Words
    • 23 Pages

    Let us first talk about what dementia actually means. Dementia is the name for a group of diseases that affect normal, routine activity of the brain. It's a progressive brain dysfunction which starts by first affecting them by losing their ability to carry out normal, everyday activities and in most cases leads to long term care. These changes in the brain are slow and typically lead to memory loss and confusion, often affecting elderly people's personalities and behaviors. Being able to identify the early indicators of dementia is very important when wanting fast and adequate treatment. The following are some of the indicators of dementia: 1.) A majority of people are forgetful, forgetting names, appointments, meetings, where they were going, etc. When forgetfulness starts effecting more then just oneself, (i.e., at work) it seems to happen more frequent and inexplicable states of confusion are clear; this would be a flag for a decline in memory function. 2.) Throughout the day and week people are busy and can become absent-minded, forgetting about feeding the cat/dog, forget about the pot on the stove. When individuals start to have difficulties with familiar activities, (i.e., feeding pets, feeding self, family), not only could they forget about the pot on the stove or feeding the cat/dog, they don't even know that they're the ones cooking or that…

    • 5750 Words
    • 23 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The definition of dementia is fairly simple. Dementia is a group of diseases that cause a permanent decline of person…

    • 3128 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dementia is a disease that is often overlooked. Primary care physicians lack awareness of signs and symptoms.…

    • 390 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the most common symptom is memory loss3. Forgetting some events and memory loss is normal at older, but frequent memory loss that disrupts person's practical, social and family life like forget recent events, names family members maybe will be one of Alzheimer's symptom. Also, Alzheimer's patient put things in their wrong place and strange places, for example, put his shoes in the refrigerator3. In addition, difficulty in thinking is one of the symptom of Alzheimer's3. An Alzheimer's patient will find more difficult to perform mental functions, as the numbers may be forgotten and the reason for their use4.…

    • 521 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Dementia Thesis

    • 4740 Words
    • 19 Pages

    Dementia is characterized by evidence of short term and long term memory impairment with impaired abstract thinking, impaired judgment, disturbances of higher cortical thinking, and personality changes. It is basically a progressive decline of cerebral utility such as logic, remembrance, language, problem solving, or concentration. This disease greatly harms the day by day performance of a person and is seen more in older people, however, is not a normal part of aging.…

    • 4740 Words
    • 19 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    [ 2 ]. Dementia is the name for a group of symptoms caused by disorders that affect the brain. People with dementia may not be able to think well enough to do normal activities, such as getting dressed or eating.…

    • 945 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays