What Are The Symptoms Of Dementia?

By Thomas Acer

Dementia is noted for the losing of function to certain areas of the brain. Abilities we take for granted are often adversely affected. These include language, cognitive function, attention, and memory. The blockage of the small vessels that enable the brain to get the oxygen and nutrients it needs causes the damage. Some of the Symptoms of Dementia are the loss memory capacity, abrupt changes in mood, disorientation, and a loss in the ability to communicate.

Absentmindedness and forgetfulness are signs of the early stages of the condition. The dementia sufferer has problems remembering the route home, names of people or places, or the events that happened just that morning. In latter stages memory problems persist and become increasingly worse. The dementia patient cannot recognize their own family or gets them confused with another family member, daily tasks are more of a challenge, and the familiar places and objects are not familiar anymore.

Mood swings manifest as the areas of the brain that govern emotional control are damaged. Anxiety and fear may also affect the ability to control emotions as the dementia patient becomes terrified by the things that are happening to them. Changes in personality, apathy, or irritability are also probable as the disease progresses.

Dementia also causes disorientation. A sufferer tends to wander and get lost in familiar surroundings. Nighttime excursions can also occur because the illness causes a person to become confused about the time of day. Judgment eventually is impaired as evidenced be the fact that a person is unable to perceive dangers to himself, or herself, or others. Sometimes the impairment is also evident when an ill one is unable to choose appropriate clothing to don.

Communication with others becomes challenging because speech can be slurred, and inappropriate words are often substituted into sentences without the speaker realising it. Thus the patient becomes increasingly harder to understand. Talking, reading and writing also become more difficult. The simplest words are forgotten, coherent speech becomes a thing of the past, and finding the right words for what they need to say is nearly impossible.

Other signs or Symptoms of Dementia include troubles in problem solving, dizziness, lack of concentration, and difficulty handling money. Unfortunately as the disease progresses the afflicted one will have increasing difficulty in caring for himself, or herself. Eventually the patient will need full time care and support. - 31520

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