Friday, November 29, 2013

Comprehensive Management Of Early Stage Dementia

By Jack Morgan


Diagnosis of dementia is complex as the onset of the condition is progressive and it's often associated with other clinical manifestation. Never the less, it is vital to detect early stage dementia so as to be able to slow the down progression of the condition to a worse or severe state.

Dementia is not only a problem of memory but it also reduces the ability to reason, ability to learn, ability to recall the past experience and also the ability to retain; there is also loss of feelings, activities and patterns of thoughts.

The person suffering from dementia is more affected by the behavioral and mental problems. When this disease starts to worsen then the individuals might neglect them and may also become incontinent and uninhibited. The behavior of the person suffering from dementia becomes restless, inappropriate and disorganized. Some people become so restless that they start wandering about by day and sometimes even at night. If dementia patients are put in circumstances that are beyond their abilities then there might be a sudden change of behavior and they might get angry.

There are three stages of dementia. In the first stage, the person suffering from it has an impaired concentration, deterioration of memory and an increasing tendency to anxiety and fatigue. The failure of memory is observed for one or two years as it is a relatively slow process. There are also speech disorders in people suffering from this disease.

There have been a lot of effort in coming up with a model to detect early dementia. This model is designed to help the early detection of the disease. Consequently, with the model it is easy for the clinicians to opt for the best treatment plan that will slow down early dementia and other related conditions such as Alzheimer. With this latest diagnosis technique, it will be much easier to detect the disease compared to cognitive tests to diagnose the condition.

There are some other small yet significant symptoms that can point towards a person's dying intellectual ability and functioning. In such cases, a healthy and normal person may seem more apathetic, lost and uninterested in everything that once meant a lot to him/her.

Improving the quality of life for a dementia patient - It is worth to note that early stage of dementia may to a certain extent compromise quality of the patient's life. Hence, a proactive and dynamic care is the baseline to ease the burden of a dementia patient. Since the patient with dementia often faces personal traits challenges, it is essential to customize a patient care program to help the patient to be integrated into the usual life schedule.

The main causes of this disease are different kinds of brain injury that might cause irreversible but a fixed cognitive impairment. The white matter of the brain is generally damaged by a traumatic brain injury. If there is a temporary reduction of oxygen or blood in the brain then it may lead to hypoxic-ischemic injury. Infections such as encephalitis and meningitis and strokes such as intracerebral hemorrhage, extradural hemorrhage, subdural hemorrhage, ischemic stroke and subarachnoid hemorrhage affect the brain. Acute hydrocephalus and prolonged epileptic seizures might also have a long-term effect on cognition.

There are many causes and kinds of dementia that often show slightly different symptoms however, the symptom overlap makes it impossible to diagnose this kind of disease by symptomatology itself. The diagnosis is done by the brain scanning techniques. In some cases one is not sure about it without a brain biopsy or an autopsy.




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