Dementia is a progressive disorder that will affect how you’re brain functions and particularly your ability to remember, think and reason. Dementia usually affects older people and are approximately 820,000 people in the UK with the disorder, and around 15,000 are under the age of 65. If the dementia is recognised early enough that are a lot of things that you can be done to make the quality of life better. In a lot of dementia cases the symptoms and quality of life will progress and get worse over a number of years.
The most common symptoms of a dementia patient are: * Forgetfulness, maybe forgetting names of people that you have been in contact with every day, or forgetting what you did just hours or days ago. * Having difficulty understanding what people are saying, even simple instructions and retaining them. * Picking up on people commenting on your forgetfulness. * Difficulty making decisions. There are many different types of dementia and they all have different signs and symptoms and will all progress differently.
Some of these are: * Alzheimer’s disease. * Vascular Dementia. * Lowy Bodies. * Pick’s Disease. * CJD. * Huntington’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease has many different signs and symptoms and they will change as the disease progresses, it is an average that an Alzheimer’s patient will live eight years after their diagnosis. In the early stages of Alzheimer’s they will have difficulty remembering conversations you may have had with them or events that may have recently happened such as birthdays, weddings or deaths.
Another sign may be that they have lost control of balancing their finances and cannot manage them by themselves, this is in mind they will have difficulty when it comes to doing shopping. Everyday tasks such as cooking, getting dressed and keeping up personal hygiene may become difficult and they may need help with doing these tasks. A person with Alzheimer’s may not recognise familiar surroundings and may become disorientated and not understand where they are or why they are there.
One symptom that is common in a lot of types of dementia is them having poor judgement, and not being able to make decisions on their own. As the disease develops you may see problems in behaviour, some Alzheimer patients will become angry, suspicious and paranoid meaning they blame family members for things that they haven’t done such as stealing money or a partner having an affair. They may start wandering at inappropriate times, and this may be because they have something called sun downing meaning they are restlessness in the evenings and in the middle of the night.
Also as the disease progresses they may need help with doing tasks such as setting the table and things such as knowing their left and right, bumping into obvious objects or mistaking the location of a chair when sitting down. In this stage of dementia they may lose the abilities to read, write and arithmetic and many services for people with dementia will do activities such as bingo to help them keep their mind active. At times they may not recognise family and friends, or get confused with people and thinking that someone is one person when they aren’t.
In the late stage of Alzheimer’s, the symptoms will get a lot worse and they may not be able to do a lot of things for them self. A common symptom is they may not be able to communicate with people and understand what people are saying to them, meaning a lot of repeating is needed when talking to them. A lot of their time is spent sleeping and even when they are awake they may not again recognise who you are or where they are, as at this stage they would be very confused.
Any ability that they had before of walking and doing any personal care for themselves would have gone by this stage and will need assistance with most things they do. A lot of the time people with Alzheimer’s will lose a lot of weight in late stages of the disease, this may be because they have lost the ability to swallow or it is very painful to swallow. Alzheimer’s will have many affects on the person and their mental health.
Some effects may be that they may not remember things that they have done days ago but they may clearly remember things such as World War Two. This may have an effect on a person’s self esteem as they will be noticing the change in their behaviour and memory and it will make them think about what has changed and because of their short memory they may get worried that something bad has happened to them but they cannot remember.
It can also effect self esteem and a person’s confidence because if they lose the ability to communicate and understand what people are saying to them they may shut down and just ignore everyone that they come into contact with as they may feel embarrassed about their lack of communication. Alzheimer’s disease can have a big effect on family members around the person with the disease; it would be upsetting seeing a loved one got through such a major change in their behaviour and their mental capability. If you live with someone with Alzheimer’s and they are wondering in the middle of the night and have sleep difficulties and this can disturb the family in the house.
Also if they are wondering around in the middle of the night around the community the police may pick them up, meaning they are again disturbed as the police will need to contact someone to make sure that the person is ok. There are also worries about financial problems that the Alzheimer’s sufferer may have, if they cannot manage their finances then this may mean that they will need to get power of attorney for the money they may have. Because the person with Alzheimer’s may go downhill quite fast there would need to be a lot of emotional support with family.
Many family members may feel depressed and under a lot of stress as they may have other responsibilities and may feel tied down with the person with Alzheimer’s and they may not have time for work or a social life. Another type of dementia is Vascular dementia, this occurs when the brain is starved of oxygen and is mostly caused by someone having a stroke. It is the second most common type of dementia in the UK, and has many different signs and symptoms after a person has had a stroke.
Some symptoms are they will have difficulty with the speed that they are thinking at and their concentration levels would have decreased as they may not have the motivation to want to do things for a long amount of time. Another symptom is that a lot of vascular dementia sufferers will develop depression and anxiety along with the dementia; this can really affect a person’s self esteem as they may not feel good about themselves if there communication has decreased and they have depression.
It may affect their confidence as well, because they might be scared to go out in the community because of their anxiety and may have frequent panic attacks. Some stroke symptoms will also be the same as vascular dementia as it usually caused by a stroke, these may include paralysis and physical weakness and they may eventually lose the ability to walk and keep themselves up alone. Another common symptom that affects many different types of dementia is having seizures, this is caused by the blood getting blocked and as the dementia gets worse they will become more frequent.
A lot of people will get periods of very severe confusion and not really know where they are or they may get severe hallucinations and imagine that objects are there when they aren’t. Vascular Dementia can develop like any other dementia and as it progresses the person will get more symptoms and they will get worse. In some cases if they do not have more than one stroke the dementia can stay at the same stage for a long time and nothing will progress. However most people will decline faster than dementia’s like Alzheimer’s and most people will die of a big stroke or heart attack.
The effects of this dementia on the individual may be more difficult as they aren’t only dealing with the dementia but that they have had a stroke as well, and for many people it may mean that you have to deal with more and more strokes as well as the dementia. As you have more strokes with vascular dementia you will develop more and more symptoms and will decorate a lot. Again it will have a big effect on how people feel about themselves and reduce both their self esteem and confidence if they know that they are at risk of a stroke at any time they may feel scared to even go out with family members.
As strokes usually come on suddenly and there is no work up to actually falling ill it may mean that if it is a younger person they may lose jobs, their home if they have no income coming in and it will affect them a lot physically and how they can move around. Also some people may get diagnosed with the dementia and will deteriorate for a while but then they will stay how they are and not get any better or any worse, this would be hard for both the individual and their family.
As it would be hard to just stay at one stage and never get any worse, this may cause depression to the individual as they may feel like they have no use or worth within the community. The effects on the family members because if the individual gets that bad that they cannot be looked after in their own home anymore and they have to be moved into a care home for people with dementia then this can hard for the family if they have to see the person that they love and cared for go into a different environment.
If the individual develops depression then this also can be upsetting for the family because they are seeing their mother or father having no motivation and no sense of worth. It would also be hard for them to keep the individual active and to make sure that they are still being social able, especially if they do develop depression. Another type of dementia is Lewy Body dementia; this is very similar to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
Lowy Body dementia is when the lewd bodies in the brain get attached to the cerebellum and it mostly affects balance and co-ordination with the person. With this type of dementia again you are prone to things such as depression and sleep disturbastances. The symptoms of lewy body dementia are that they may experience problems with their alertness and attention span, meaning that they may have spatial disorientation. This means that they may have difficulty planning ahead and co-ordinating mental activities.
Memory is also affected with this dementia, but not as much as Alzheimer’s. They may also problems with muscle stiffness, trembling limbs, tendency to shuffle when walking and they may also loose facial expressions and have a change in their tone of voice because the strength and decreased. Like a lot of people with dementia this can cause hallucinations, but they are stronger with lewy body dementia and people will think that they have seen objects or people when they haven’t.
This can have an effect on both the individual and the family because if they are forgetting what people look like or forgetting conversations that they have had it will be very upsetting for the family. Also if the individual says that they have seen someone in the family that may have died it could bring up bad memories for the family. Another symptom is that they can fall asleep in the daytime very easily but when it comes to sleeping at night they may have nightmares and hallucinations meaning a disturbed sleep for both the individual and the family.
People with lewy body dementia seem to have more falls and feeling faint, this may mean if they fall hard multiple times they may break bones especially if they are older, this can then mean time in hospital and a different environment and this can confuse the individual and they may get scared. The effects on the person with lewy body dementia is that they may not feel themselves because of getting problems with their muscles, meaning that may not be able to get out a lot and socialise with people.
This could affect their self esteem because if they have to have helped when getting around they could feel like they are useless within their community. Also they may be scared to go to sleep because of nightmares and hallucinations, and this can mean that they may become sleep deprived and then in the day feel more tired and physically tired. The effects on the family of someone with lewy body dementia, is that they may not want to leave them on their own in the day time as they are more likely to have falls and feel faint and ill than people with any other dementia.
This may become a problem if the family have work responsibilities, and they may have the difficult decision of deciding whether to give up work or not, meaning that they can become much stressed. Because of them having work responsibilities it may mean that they have to put them in a care home, and again it will very difficult as they may feel upset about leaving them alone in a home. References http://www. traumaticbraininjuryatoz. org/Caregivers-Journey/Session-One/Managing-Physical-Effects-of-TBI/Headache/Related-Information/Other-Physical-Effects/Visual-Spatial-Problems.aspx http://www. ageuk. org. uk/health-wellbeing/conditions-illnesses/dementia/
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