Hi @Sam Luvit
Although it is right for us all to keep mentally and physically active, it is not the panacea of dementia. No one knows why people develop dementia and without that knowledge then can be no solution.
Having said this, I do believe that there is a common thread and I think that the evidence suggest that it does have something to do with lifestyle, but this is impacted by underlying problems/damage to the brain. These are numerous, including such things as direct injury, illness, disease, drug related, depression, personal injury, genetic, blood flow, waste buildup in the brain, tumours, or cell degeneration due to age and the list goes on. I think diagnosing the underlying problems is paramount to dealing with any symptoms of dementia.
I think too often dementia is seen as a separate entirety, something that happens alone and is treated as such, or I should say not treated. If you don’t repair the hole in a bucket, it will continue to loose water, until it is all gone.
Thank you for the link. I’ve read this before, but it is like many papers, it goes around in circles, offering nothing and suggesting more research!
It basically sought to better understand whether seizures promote cognitive impairment and/or dementia, whether dementia causes seizures, or if common underlying pathophysiological mechanisms are responsible for both? It didn’t come up with any conclusions to help, other than there is possibility that all three are true.
Dementia is about the death of brain cells. The more brain cells that die, the more symptoms are evident. When you get to a point that there are not enough brain cells for the brain to function, rapid decline and death is the outcome. Scans do not prove dementia, they show where there once were brain cells. The brain becomes smaller by mass, because there are less brain cells, it does not really shrinkage. This follows your theory regarding fall, loss of loved one….
There have been cases where brains have been dissected and lot of brain damage has been evident, so the conclusion is that dementia, would have been obvious, but the donor had no signs of dementia prior death.
I agree with you about delaying dementia diagnosis, but I think that is simply because they are unable to do anything about it. However, I do worry about this, because while they will carry out blood, testing, scans and dementia related testing, all of which are taken to give a diagnosis, I don’t think enough is done on the person’s history. I have asked a few questions here and so far, from this very small sample, the majority of cases had an event in their life, before the first signs of dementia occurred.
As you state, the underlying medical conditions need to be addressed asap, before the dementia symptoms take over as the main and only concern.
I think most doctors are good at what they do, especially if they specialise. They should be aware of common traits, but they are looking at tick boxes. Tick enough and you have this, that, or the other…. maybe!? The more ticks the more the maybe bit is more likely! The problem comes when you don’t have enough ticks, or as in most cases, you have ticks all over the place!
What I have learnt so far, is people know. The patient suffering the symptoms of dementia, or the partner, or family member, or more often than not, all of them, that there is a problem. I would go further and say that people know the basic signs of dementia, to be able to say that is what you think it is! Unless a doctor can categorically state and show, that there is something else, they should listen and not keep putting it off. Trouble is, so many having problems, how would they cope? The number suffering dementia is growing, rapidly!
Keep up the cleaning!
Although it is right for us all to keep mentally and physically active, it is not the panacea of dementia. No one knows why people develop dementia and without that knowledge then can be no solution.
Having said this, I do believe that there is a common thread and I think that the evidence suggest that it does have something to do with lifestyle, but this is impacted by underlying problems/damage to the brain. These are numerous, including such things as direct injury, illness, disease, drug related, depression, personal injury, genetic, blood flow, waste buildup in the brain, tumours, or cell degeneration due to age and the list goes on. I think diagnosing the underlying problems is paramount to dealing with any symptoms of dementia.
I think too often dementia is seen as a separate entirety, something that happens alone and is treated as such, or I should say not treated. If you don’t repair the hole in a bucket, it will continue to loose water, until it is all gone.
Thank you for the link. I’ve read this before, but it is like many papers, it goes around in circles, offering nothing and suggesting more research!
It basically sought to better understand whether seizures promote cognitive impairment and/or dementia, whether dementia causes seizures, or if common underlying pathophysiological mechanisms are responsible for both? It didn’t come up with any conclusions to help, other than there is possibility that all three are true.
Dementia is about the death of brain cells. The more brain cells that die, the more symptoms are evident. When you get to a point that there are not enough brain cells for the brain to function, rapid decline and death is the outcome. Scans do not prove dementia, they show where there once were brain cells. The brain becomes smaller by mass, because there are less brain cells, it does not really shrinkage. This follows your theory regarding fall, loss of loved one….
There have been cases where brains have been dissected and lot of brain damage has been evident, so the conclusion is that dementia, would have been obvious, but the donor had no signs of dementia prior death.
I agree with you about delaying dementia diagnosis, but I think that is simply because they are unable to do anything about it. However, I do worry about this, because while they will carry out blood, testing, scans and dementia related testing, all of which are taken to give a diagnosis, I don’t think enough is done on the person’s history. I have asked a few questions here and so far, from this very small sample, the majority of cases had an event in their life, before the first signs of dementia occurred.
As you state, the underlying medical conditions need to be addressed asap, before the dementia symptoms take over as the main and only concern.
I think most doctors are good at what they do, especially if they specialise. They should be aware of common traits, but they are looking at tick boxes. Tick enough and you have this, that, or the other…. maybe!? The more ticks the more the maybe bit is more likely! The problem comes when you don’t have enough ticks, or as in most cases, you have ticks all over the place!
What I have learnt so far, is people know. The patient suffering the symptoms of dementia, or the partner, or family member, or more often than not, all of them, that there is a problem. I would go further and say that people know the basic signs of dementia, to be able to say that is what you think it is! Unless a doctor can categorically state and show, that there is something else, they should listen and not keep putting it off. Trouble is, so many having problems, how would they cope? The number suffering dementia is growing, rapidly!
Keep up the cleaning!
