UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS AND EXPERIENCE OF DEMENTIA Task A 1. For each of the following forms of dementia, describe: • How is the brain affected • The symptoms an individual might experience. Alzheimer's disease is a degenerative brain disease. Most patients start exhibiting symptoms after they reach the age of 60. Alzheimer's disease affects the brain through exponentially greater cell death and tissue loss, resulting in a decreased brain size.
It is a physical condition affecting the brain. It can be caused by various things such as age, down syndrome and genetics. It is caused when abnormal clumps called either plaques or tangles interfere with how the brain cells work and communicate which cause them to die. People with Alzheimer’s also have a shortage of chemicals that help with the transmission of the brain. The symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease may change as the disease progresses.
Dementia which begins gradually and worsens progressively over several years is usually caused by neurodegenerative disease that is, by conditions affecting only or primarily the neurons of the brain and causing gradual but irreversible loss of function of these cells. Less commonly, a non-degenerative condition may have secondary effects on brain cells, which may or may not be reversible if the condition is treated. The causes of dementia depend on the age at which symptoms begin. In the elderly population, a large majority of cases of dementia are caused by Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia or both. It is rare to have dementia in young people 1.2 Describe the types of memory impairment commonly experienced by individuals with dementia.
Understand the process and experience of dementia Definition of dementia is a syndrome usually of a chronic or progressive nature in which there is deterioration in cognitive function, thinking, orientation, comprehension, and calculation, learning capacity, language and judgement. Dementia is caused by damage in brain. The most common cause of dementia is called neurodegenerative diseases that include Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, Huntington disease, Front temporal dementia and dementia with lewy bodies. With this disease the brain cell degenerate and die more quickly than normal ageing process, these decline a persons mental and some times physical abilities. The gradual changes and damage to the brain cells are caused by a build up of abnormal proteins in the brain.
In the usual case, the Alzheimer’s dementia syndrome is characterized by early episodic memory decline (eg amnesia) consistent with early neuropathology targeting the medial temporal lobes, with additional deficits in language and semantic knowledge, abstract reasoning, executive functions,attention,and visuospatial abilities that contribute to decline in everyday functions(Salmon and Bondi,2009).A number of performance characteristics on episodic memory measures help differentiate between mildly demented Alzheimer patients and normal older adults. These characteristics include an abnormally high rate of forgetting whereby patients with an early Alzheimer’s disease are particularly impaired on measures of delayed recall; failure to benefit from recognition testing, in which retrieval demands are reduced, indicating storage loss of memory for recently learned information rather than a retrieval deficit; and an abnormal serial position effect characterized by an attenuation of the primary effect(i.e. recall of words from the beginning of a
Pathologically, there is diffuse atrophy of the cerebral cortex with secondary enlargement of the ventricular system. Microscopically, there are neuritic plaques containing A amyloid (slide 72) and neurofibrillary tangles (slide 73) in neuronal cytoplasm. In the early stages of the disease, the memory loss may go unrecognized or be ascribed to benign forgetfulness. Once the memory loss begins to affect day-to-day activity or falls below 1.5 standard deviations from normal on standardized memory tasks, the disease is defined as mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Slowly the cognitive problems begin to interfere with daily activities, such as keeping track of finances, following instructions on the job, driving, shopping, and housekeeping (slides 74-77).
Unit: Dementia Awareness This unit must be assessed in accordance with Skills for Care and Development’s Assessment Principles. Learning Outcome 1: Understand what dementia is Assessment Criteria 1.1. Explain what is meant by the term ‘dementia’ Dementia is a term used to describe a range of signs and symptoms that occur when the brain is affected. Chemical and structural changes in the brain damage and kill brain cells, dementia is a progressive disease and this simply means that the symptoms will gradually get worse. Neurons and synapses become damaged by dementia they may be unable to carry messages that tell a section of the brain what to do.
About 75% of people who are diagnosed with dementia will have either Alzheimer’s or vascular dementia, or a combination of the two. There less common forms of dementia include dementia with Lewy bodies, fronto-temporal dementia (Pick’s disease), Huntington’s disease, alcohol-related dementias, and HIV/AIDS-related dementia. Alzheimer’s usually affects the elderly population and is a degenerative neurogical disorder and genetic factors are considered the greatest factors in the development of the disease. This conditions begins gradually and worsens progressively over several years. It is caused by nerve cells dying in certain areas of the brain and the connections between the affected nerve cells deteriorate.
Dementia Awareness Understand what dementia is. 1) Dementia is where there is a decline of the brain and its abilities, it is caused when the brain is damaged by disease, for example, Alzheimer’s disease, damage to the brain or a series of strokes. There are several types of dementia these include, vascular, Alzheimer’s, lewy bodies, fronto-temporal. 2) Areas affected by dementia are memory loss, speed of thinking, mental agility, language, understanding and judgement. 3) Other conditions such as depression and delirium both have similar symptoms as dementia.
Dementia is the term used to describe the condition which results in brain cells dying more quickly than the normal aging process, therefore commonly causing memory loss and a decline in the individuals mental and physical abilities. A build up of abnormal proteins on the brain is the most common cause however other heath factors can contribute to whether an individual is likely to be affected by dementia. Depending on the type of dementia the symptoms can differ. The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer's disease, this currently affects 62% of people diagnosed with dementia. Alzheimer's is caused by a gradual loss of brain cells.