What is Dementia?
The word dementia is used to describe a group of symptoms.
Although dementia is commonly thought of as memory loss, the reality is much more complex, and symptoms between the different forms of dementia can vary a great deal. Dementia symptoms can include memory loss, confusion and mood changes.
- Memory Failures: Lapses of memory are important first signs of dementia. Most people will forget appointment times or forgot someone’s name. The most important type of memory loss is the loss of recently learned information. Initially, this may only occur infrequently, but as the condition progresses, it will grow in frequency.
- Common Task Loss: One of the easiest to spot first signs of dementia happens when individuals fail to recall how to perform basic tasks. This includes basic hygiene, or preparing meals. A person may suddenly become unfamiliar with making a phone call, for example. The steps to performing an action are lost to them.
- Language Skills: Most people forget names or mistakenly use terms. In early dementia cases, individuals use terms incorrectly. Both speech and writing skills can feel the effects. Forgetting simple words with increasing frequency is a clear warning sign of dementia.
- Loss of Orientation: In early dementia patients, individuals lose their orientation in familiar places. For example, they may forget where the bathroom is in their home. They may get lost in their local area. At this point, the onset of dementia is usually evident and discussion with doctors should occur.
What types of dementia are there?
- Alzheimer’s disease, which is the most common cause of dementia
- Vascular dementia
- Dementia with Lewy bodies
- Frontotemporal dementia.
- Mixed dementia, which is a combination of the above
What are the main symptoms?
- Memory loss
- Impaired general mental functioning
- Problems carrying out daily tasks
- Personality changes
- Regularly forgetting recent events, names and faces
- Regularly misplacing items, or putting them in odd places
- Confusion about the time of day
- Disorientation, especially away from surroundings
- Getting lost
- Problems finding the right words.
- Reduced judgement, for example, being unaware of danger
- Mood or behaviour problems such as apathy, irritability, or losing confidence
- Urinary incontinence
- Hallucinations
- Night wandering
- Unsteady gait or shuffling when walking
What is senile dementia?
Senile dementia is the mental deterioration (loss of intellectual ability) that is associated with old age
Two major types of senile dementia are identified:
- generalized “atrophy” (Alzheimer’s-type dementia)
- vascular problems (mainly, strokes)
What should I do is I suspect someone has dementia? The next steps…
- See your doctor, who should arrange some tests
- The doctor may refer you to a geriatrician
- Ask about memory services and care options
Other sources of information
Memory services
