Description and Symptoms of Dementia
Dementia is described as mental function loss such as reasoning, memory and thinking. This loss is severe enough as to affect the daily functioning of the individual. Dementia, in and of itself, is not classified as a disease, but rather as symptom groups that are brought about by various conditions or diseases. Symptoms can include behavior, mood and personality changes. Instances of this are substance abuse induced dementia, dementia brought on by vitamin or hormone imbalance. At times, severe depression may appear as dementia, which is included in false or pseudo dementia categories. Dementia develops as brain sections that are linked to language, making decisions, memory and learning are affected through a single or several diseases or infections. By far, the most common dementia cause is Alzheimer’s disease, although many other causes exist.
Degenerative Diseases
The causes of dementia could take several forms. Degenerative diseases that cause nerve cell loss within the brain like Huntington’s, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, blood vessel diseases such as strokes that cause multi infarct dementia disorders and toxic reactions such as excessive drug use or alcohol. Other dementia causes include nutritional deficiencies such as folate and vitamin B12 deficiency, spinal cord and brain infections such as Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease and the dementia complex brought on by AIDS and certain hydrocephalus types, which is a fluid accumulation within the brain cavity that could result from brain tumors, injury, infections, or developmental abnormalities. Head injuries, resulting from smaller injuries over a longer period or one head injury that is very severe and other illnesses on the rest of the body such as lung, liver, and kidney diseases can all cause dementia.
Alzheimer’s disease
Alzheimer’s disease causes Fifty to sixty percent of all dementia cases. Additionally, two diseases that affect the nervous system that were initially incorrectly diagnosed as Alzheimer’s cause dementia. These diseases are Pick’s disease and Lewy body disease. Vascular dementia is second most common cause of dementia list. The most common group of people affected by dementia is the elderly. The condition used to be referred to as senility. Since aging people generally require larger amounts of medications, some of these medications cause side effects that could be related to dementia symptoms. Some of the common medications that carry these side effects are tricyclic antidepressants, sleeping pills, lithium, flu and cold medication, antihistamines, anti epileptic and anti diarrhea medications. Infectious diseases such as meningitis, encephalitis and AIDS can also cause dementia.
