Dementia

Symptoms | Treatments

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What is

Symptoms

How to prevent

Causes and Risk Factors

Diagnosis

Treatment

What is - Dementia

Dementia is a general term for a group of brain disorders involving cognitive impairment. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia, followed by vascular dementia. It affects mainly elderly people. In Singapore, the prevalence rate of dementia in people above 65 years is 6.2%. It is an illness that causes significant distress to both the patient and his caregivers.

Symptoms of Dementia

All types of dementia involve decline in mental abilities involving thinking and memory, but the specific symptoms vary depending on the type of dementia. Patients may have difficulties with:

Memory, particularly for recent events
Executive function, like concentrating, planning or problem solving
Language, like difficulties following a conversation or finding the right word
Visuospatial ability, like getting lost
Orientation, like losing track of the date or time
Changes in mood or personality
Psychotic symptoms like hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that are not there) or delusions (believing things that are not true)

Dementia - How to prevent

Factors like high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes and lack of physical exercise increase the risk of developing the most common types of dementia. Thus, there is evidence that maintaining a healthy lifestyle and keeping vascular risk factors under control can reduce the risk of dementia. Keeping mentally and socially active can also lower the risk of developing dementia.

Dementia - Causes and Risk Factors

Dementia is a condition whereby the brain cells die faster than normal. In Alzheimer’s disease, this is caused by abnormal proteins that damage brain cells. In vascular dementia, brain cells die as a result of a series of strokes due to blockages of blood vessels in the brain.

Diagnosis of Dementia

There is no single test for dementia. A diagnosis is usually made by taking a history from the patient and his family, doing some tests (blood tests and/or brain imaging) to exclude other causes of the symptoms and assessing his mental abilities.

Treatment for Dementia

Dementia is a progressive disease. Treatments can slow the progression, but unfortunately they are unable to reverse or cure the illness. Medications can help stabilize the levels of chemicals in the brain, which may improve some of the symptoms of dementia. Psychotherapy can help with feelings of loss, depression or anxiety. Education and support of caregivers is also a crucial aspect of holistic dementia care.