For a long time it was believed that the so-called senile or senile dementia is due exclusively to internal causes and heredity. Now scientists are sounding the alarm – as it turns out, these cognitive impairments are contagious and can be transmitted from person to person.
So, researchers from the UK found that surgical instruments can become a source of infection with this mental illness. Experts made this conclusion by studying eight cases of cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) with cerebral bleeding. The disease has been diagnosed in patients who have previously undergone brain surgery, reports Science Alert.
Cerebral amyloid angiopathy is an extremely severe and almost incurable disease. It affects the vessels of the brain, in which an abnormal accumulation of amyloids, special proteins, begins. Their overabundance is believed to be a factor that stimulates the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
However, scientists note that so far they have not been able to detect an increase in tau protein characteristic of senile dementia in patients. At the same time, the researchers are convinced that at this stage it is extremely important to develop new methods for processing surgical instruments. This will help prevent the possibility of transferring abnormal proteins from one patient to another during brain surgery. Worrying is the fact that amyloids are resistant to the main methods of disinfection – boiling, drying and treatment with formaldehyde.
Recall that age-related dementia is manifested by extremely serious impairment of human cognitive abilities. Memory and intellect suffer, the ability to concentrate decreases, emotional instability appears, a person loses the ability to plan his own actions.