Dementia is defined as a clinical syndrome caused by a wide range of diseases that affect the brain. It is not a natural part of aging, but rather a symptom of a disease process. The majority of individuals with dementia experience emotional distress or behavioral problems as a result of a decline in cognition; the behavior is best described by the term agitation [3].…
The term dementia is commonly used to describe a broad spectrum of neurodegenerative disorders associate with progressive cognitive decline (12). The common symptoms of dementia are “memory loss, mood change, impaired reasoning”, which eventually lead to impairment in regular daily activities (12).…
What is dementia? Dementia is an illness or disease of the brain that includes memory loss and leads an individual to experience difficulties with thinking, problem solving and language. In the beginning the changes will be small and gradually become severe enough to affect an individual’s daily life.…
Dementia is an umbrella term. By this I mean that it covers many different conditions. Each condition affects the brain and can lead to dementia due to brain de deterioration and loss of function. Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome- this is a brain disorder in which not getting enough B1 vitamin will affect your brain function. B1 vitamin is used in the brain to change sugar into energy.…
Dementia has been an issue well-known all around the world. It affects many parts of the world in aspects of economy, families, and the victim themselves. The official definition of dementia is, a chronic or persistent disorder of the mental processes caused by brain disease or injury and marked by memory disorders, personality changes, and impaired reasoning. Dementia can be caused by many things, head injuries, strokes, and brain infections. Anyone can get dementia, for example, a motorcyclist can get dementia from a motor accident.…
Dementia is defined as the acquired decline in the memory and thinking ability due to the brain disease that results in significant impairment of personal, social and occupational function(Understanding Alzheimer’s and Other Dementias, 2011). Alzheimer’s is one of the most common type of dementia which include 50 to 75 percentage of all cases. The disease was first discovered by Dr Alois Alzheimer in 1907 with the patient in her middle aged. He found two major abnormalities in her brain which defines the disease – Senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the cortex of brain. In Australia, there are more than 342,800 people suffering from dementia and around 1.2 million people are involved in care of dementia.…
Traditional assessment tools for the diagnosis of dementia are usually not suitable when evaluating individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). In addition, the majority of healthcare providers is not armed with the training and experience needed to care for that population holistically. This paper centers on: the progressive changes that occur with dementia especially for individuals with Down Syndrome (DS); the various types of dementia and a focus on Alzheimer’s disease (AD); assessments specifically for the IDD population; and the importance of creating a support system for the individual their advocates; most importantly the need for an interdisciplinary team to have the necessary tools to provide the right care for this population. Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) formally referred to as Mental Retardation is a condition,…
Dementia. A beautiful mind that memories and events are too quickly fading away and forgotten. You start noticing friends and family around start to distance themselves because they don’t have the patience and tolerance to hear the same story or questions several times over, but that’s all they know and remember. The alienation is not only felt by that person ,but the person next to them.…
I currently work full time at a nursing home as a state-tested nurse aide. My job is to assist people who cannot care for themselves to perform basic care that is required on a daily basis. A few of my job duties include helping residents of this facility with bathing, getting dressed each morning, brushing their teeth, assisting them in eating their meals, and taking them to the restroom,. That is just a small amount of tasks I complete in during an exhausting 12-hour shift. In the medical field, this care is called activities of daily living, or ADL’s for short.…
Providing the Perfect Balance Between Independence and Support with Dementia Care By Charlie Ricker Aug 15, 2012 Dementia is one of the cruelest blows dealt by nature, something that anyone who has ever seen a loved one suffer though it can surely testify to. Dementia is a crushingly progressive disease that can be brought on by a multitude of factors including injury or illness; it can also (in very rare cases) be hereditary. Dementia is a disease that effects about 1% of the population (the majority of which are over the age of 64) of the UK and as such dementia care is an increasingly important sector of the medical industry.…
The term dementia is an umbrella term which refers to a loss of cognitive functioning. This may include deficits in processes such as memory, reasoning, language, executive functioning and thinking, all leading to a reduced ability to participate in activities of daily living (NIH.gov). Forms of dementia include: vascular dementia (dementia caused by cerebral vascular injury, often stroke), dementia with Lewy bodies (caused by abnormal deposits of proteins in the brain), Alzheimer’s dementia (the most well-known and common form of dementia), frontotemporal lobar degeneration (including Pick’s disease and primary progressive aphasia), dementia associated with Huntington’s disease, and finally, dementia associated with Parkinson disease.…
The cortex, including the hippocampus, is the main area of the brain affected with the decline from dementia. Dementias are caused, basically, by brain cell death. Progressive brain cell death, that happens over time, is what is behind most dementias. Dementia can be caused by a head injury, a stroke, a brain tumor, or other causes. Dementia can also be caused by traumatic brain injury, especially if those injuries were repetitive.…
The reason why I chose the assessment I did was because it focused on different cognitive domains. This test is taking to see if they have early signs of dementia. I thought it would be a good assessment to give because it was straightforward and well put together. The focus on this test was attention, executive functions, memory, and calculations. The assessment gave you two parts of the assessment the instructions that go along with the exam.…
Much improvements in healthcare have contributed to people living longer and healthier lives so the proportion of adults reaching old age has been increasing worldwide. A clearly negative effect of aging has resulted in an increase in the number of people with dementia. World Health Organization (WHO) estimated a total number of people with dementia worldwide in 2010 was 35.6 million and projected to nearly double every 20 years, and 115.4 million in 20501 (WHO). Dementia commonly symptoms with memory loss at the initial stage and later often followed by the loss of other cognitive functions such as language and perception (Walker, Salek, Bayer, Walker, & Bayer, 1998).…
Worldwide, nearly 47 million people are living with dementia, and the numbers are expected to rise to 75 million by the year 2050 (WHO | Dementia, n.d.). The most common form of dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease, affects nearly 6 million Americans and is the sixth leading cause of death among those aged 65 or older (Alzheimer's Facts and Figures, n.d.) Across all forms of dementia, neuropsychiatric symptoms are the most distressing and the hardest to treat. The natural course of many dementias affect all areas of the brain with devastating effects that result in behavioral and cognitive decline. Agitation, anxiety, and irritability are hallmark symptoms that have commonly been treated with psychotropic and anxiolytic medications (Cerejeira, Lagarto,…